Disasters

In Ishinomaki, debris of all types are organized in piles along the roadway by type and size. (Photo by author, taken on June 22, 2011) So many aspects of Japan’s response to the disasters of March 11 have yet to be fully understood. Many in Japan continue to be critical of their government’s response, and yet so much that happened on that day and in the days that followed demonstrates the strengths of Japanese society—and of the Japanese people. I visited Ishinomaki City in Miyagi prefecture as part of an American task force organized by Michael Green at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as a bipartisan effort of support for Japan. Three months after the earthquake-tsunami, Ishinomaki is clearly in recovery mode. Yet, as we drove into the city, the extent of the devastation became increasingly visible. There was little traffic, except for the long lines of trucks carrying debris. Piles of debris could be seen along the roadway, sorted neatly by size and function. Containers from ships in one field, railway lines in another. Ravaged slabs of concrete in one area, contorted pieces of metal in another. A harbor city several hundred miles north of Japan’s capital, Ishinomaki has a long history of providing Tokyo (and Edo before it) with rice and marine products. The town is bordered by the ocean to the east, and is divided by the Kitakami River that runs into the sea from the northwest. The tsunami was 21 feet high when it hit the seawalls, and was reduced to 15 feet in height by the time it reached the inner regions of town. Thus, the wave was smaller than the churning wall of water that devastated other smaller coastal towns, yet the ruin of the city’s coastal area was complete.    The city lost 3,097 people, and 2,770 are still missing (as of June 14). A week after the disaster, roughly one-third of the city’s 162,822 people were in evacuation shelters. 13.2 percent of the city was flooded, including the entire downtown area. 44,000 buildings were completely ruined, and 34,000 were inundated with water. The bulk of these were homes. The city’s fishing port was completely destroyed, along with the marine processing factories that were the mainstay of Ishinomaki’s economy. In short, the city’s economy has been brought to a standstill, and reconstruction planning is just getting underway. Making everything even more complicated is the fact that the region closest to the ocean has fallen two and a half feet as a result of the earthquake, and thus during high tide the city’s coastal area is under water.  In the weeks after the disaster, Ishinomaki City government received help from the Self-Defense Force (SDF), the U.S. Marines Corp, and volunteers from around the country. NGOs continue to operate in cooperation with city officials to help feed those who have returned to their homes, and many continue to offer medical care to evacuees and others living on their own. As of last week, approximately 2,000 SDF were still operating at a makeshift camp in Ishinomaki, down from the 7,000 SDF that provided critical services in the first two months. The day before we visited, the local city government had taken over the delivery of food to residents still living in their homes but without the ability to cook at home. Meeting with city officials, fisheries managers, and prefectural staff brought home the incredible effort that has already been expended since the disaster. But clearly the biggest challenges are ahead. Ten years is the estimated planning time for a full recovery, and when asked what Americans might to do help, almost everyone said: Come help us rebuild. Visit Tohoku and help the tourism-based economy. Invest alongside Japanese corporations to bring jobs to the local community.     The spirit and the determination of those in Ishinomaki who had lived through Japan’s worst natural disaster were clearly transmitted to our group, and yet the scope of what remains to be done was daunting. The people of Tohoku have long prided themselves on their self-reliance. This request for help was not an appeal for charity. Rather it was a realistic assessment of Ishinomaki’s needs.   Even in communities as determined as Ishinomaki, recovery will just not be possible without the full and consistent efforts of all of us—inside and outside of Japan.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan (2nd R) attends a cabinet meeting on environment and energy in Tokyo June 22, 2011. (Courtesy Reuters/Frank Robichon/Pool) Without a doubt, this is a complex moment for the Japanese people. This is both a country struggling with critical governance challenges, and a society recovering from the shock and devastation of a tremendous set of disasters. As I travel, I have been amazed—both at the scale of Japan’s governance problems, and at the immense effort and creativity that has been ongoing across Japanese society since March 11.   Let’s start with the governance side of things. Since the no-confidence vote on June 2, the prime minister has been hampered by dissension within his party as well as by continued refusal by the opposition, especially the Liberal Democrats, to policy collaboration. Rumors flew this week that some sort of change at the top was imminent, but these proved ephemeral.      Yet, on Monday, the Japanese parliament finally passed the Basic Act on Great East Japan Earthquake Reconstruction that will organize the massive program of rebuilding the Tohoku region. A new agency, the Reconstruction Agency, whose leader will have cabinet rank, is expected to have broad authority to manage reconstruction. The total budget remains unclear, but already 6 trillion yen (approximately 75 million dollars) has been appropriated in two supplementary budgets to cope with the disaster and a third supplementary budget, the “real” reconstruction budget, is expected to be up for deliberation by the end of this summer. Estimates of the size of that budget range from another 8-10 trillion yen (approximately 100-125 million dollars). The total cost of Japan’s reconstruction is far greater, however, and clearly this will need to be a partnership between private and public sectors. Tohoku prefectural planners estimate recovery will take ten years. Due out shortly is the first draft of the Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Design Council report that will outline the tasks ahead, and the vision of public and private sector advisors on how best to imagine the future of the Tohoku region.  Likewise, the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) has also been working on its vision of rebuilding Japan, and the gaze of the private sector extends far beyond the Tohoku disaster to include the broader set of transformations Japan badly needs if its economy is to remain competitive. Its “Master Plan for Recovery and Creation of a New Japan” outlines the specific goals of Japan’s businesses.    The sense of urgency of Japan’s business community, as articulated in the Keidanren master plan, is palpable. Keidanren Chairman Hiromasa Yonekura has urged the government to move faster, and with a greater sense of purpose. Foreign investment in Japan will be much needed if a vibrant recovery is to be achieved. But there is a growing sense that Japan’s own manufacturers are weighing the costs and benefits of remaining invested in Japan. Without reductions in corporate taxes, a steady energy supply, and far greater investment in next generation technologies and industrial capacities, Japan will lose its appeal as a site of major capital investment.    Thus, balance between the immediate needs of Tohoku area and the longer term needs of Japan’s economy must be achieved. Government decisions on policy priorities, as well as its success in crafting viable and sustainable partnerships with Japan’s private sector, will set the tone not only for the reconstruction of Tohoku but for Japan’s future growth trajectory as well.

Lights are turned off to save energy before rolling blackouts in Tokyo, March 17, 2011, after an earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan. (Kyodo/Courtesy Reuters) I arrived in Tokyo several days ago, and was immediately struck by both the mood and the changes visible in the city itself. The hotels are nearly empty, elevators are turned off, and lighting everywhere is dimmer. Quite literally, Tokyo’s sparkle has been muted in an effort to conserve energy. But dimmer, too, is the mood. In my early conversations here, the on-going challenges to cope with the effects of March 11 and its aftermath top the agenda. Daily coverage of the effort to clean up coastal cities in Tohoku is heartbreaking still. 86,000 or so Japanese are still in evacuation shelters three months after the tsunami hit. Resettling people by the end of the summer continues to be the goal, but temporary housing may fall short of current needs. The continuing problems at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant cast a deep shadow over daily life beyond Tohoku. The public is still learning the details of the situation, and fears remain close to the surface on food and water safety. Yesterday, for example, the top story was the announcement by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that eight workers now have absorbed more than 250 millisieverts of radiation—surpassing the officially acceptable levels—levels which have been raised from pre-March 11 standards. Opinion polling shows that public attitudes towards nuclear power are trending against future investments, and many wonder aloud if the plants currently closed for maintenance will ever be re-opened.    Without exception, everyone seems to have given up on Japan’s politicians. Whereas last year the conversation about Japan’s political confusion would have been delivered with emotion and energy, today voices are flat and the disappointment in Japan’s political system is profound. Yet clearly there is energy and focus to be found within Japanese society. Each day the stories and efforts of local leaders in the Tohoku coastal cities show a different side of Japan. Japan’s corporate leaders have already put together their action plans for reducing energy consumption, for transforming the work week, and for easing the burdens on public transportation and communication infrastructure. Households, too, have organized themselves for better management of energy; solar panels have become the largest household investment and new systems for building household-level energy self-sufficiency are attracting serious consumer attention.     Likewise, the micro “learning” for disaster prevention is impressive. Daily discussions on the news of how to better prepare for earthquakes and tsunamis reveal new products and new methods of improving Japan’s readiness should disaster strike again—padded baseball caps, new information chips for consolidating personal medical histories, and more frequent school and workplace evacuation drills are all part of the effort to do a better job next time.   Tokyo seems more somber, but clearly the Japanese people are now looking forward.

People gather in front of City Bank to buy tickets for the cricket World Cup in Dhaka, Bangladesh on January 2, 2011. (Andrew Biraj/Courtesy Reuters) In today’s Financial Times, I have a review of the new book Unnatural Selection by Mara Hvistendahl. The book looks at what is one of the most pressing – and undercovered – security challenges in Asia today: The growing gender imbalances in pivotal countries, from India to China to Vietnam. As sex ratios become more and more skewed, all of these nations are going to have to deal with the consequences of having millions of unmarriageable men, including human trafficking, rising social instability, and possibly even war. The review can be seen here.

A worker clears floating garbage on the Yangtze River near the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang, Hubei province on August 1, 2010. (China Daily Information Group/Courtesy Reuters) It has only taken ninety years, but China’s leaders have finally admitted that the Three Gorges Dam is a disaster.  With Wen Jiabao at the helm, the State Council noted last week that there were “urgent problems” concerning the relocation effort, the environment and disaster prevention that would now require an infusion of US$23 billion on top of the $45 billion spent already. Despite high-level support for the project since Sun Yat-sen first proposed it in 1919, the dam has had serious critics within China all along. One of China’s earliest and most renowned environmental activists, Dai Qing, published the book Yangtze! Yangtze! in 1989, which explored the engineering and social costs of the proposed dam. The book was a hit among Tiananmen Square protestors, and Dai spent a year in prison for her truth-telling. In 1992, when the dam came up for a vote in the National People’s Congress, an unprecedented one-third of the delegates voted against the plan. Once the construction began in 1994, the problems mounted.  The forced relocation of 1.4 million Chinese was plagued with corruption; former Premier Zhu Rongji accused the construction companies of shoddy engineering, and little of the pollution control measures that were planned were actually taken. Water pollution skyrocketed in the reservoir. As Chinese officials acknowledged a few years back, “The Three Gorges Dam project has caused an array of ecological ills, including more frequent landslides and pollution, and if preventive measures are not taken, there could be an environmental catastrophe.” It would be easy to argue that the State Council’s admission was too little too late. However, the new transparency matters for at least two reasons. First, it plays into the hands of environmentalists who have been arguing against Beijing’s aggressive plans for additional large-scale hydropower plants. Premier Wen, who has tried to slow the approval process for dams over the past several years, now has a bit more ammunition. Second, any acknowledgement by the Party that mistakes have been made is an important step toward the public’s right to question future policies. Let’s hope that more such transparency is on the way.

Japan's Empress Michiko (top R) talks with evacuees as she visit an evacuation shelter in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, April 27, 2011. Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko met and chatted with survivors of last month's massive earthquake and tsunami on Wednesday, offering comfort and solace in a role that has helped keep the country's ancient monarchy relevant in modern times. (Kazuhiro Nogi/Pool/Courtesy Reuters) The effort to breathe fresh energy into Japan’s recovery was poignantly demonstrated yesterday when the emperor and empress of Japan visited Miyagi prefecture. One of the evacuees at a shelter in Sendai presented Empress Michiko with a bunch of daffodils, freshly picked that morning from the garden of her devastated home. Amidst the rubble, spring flowers are blooming all across Tohoku, and across Japan the idea that recovery will indeed be possible is gradually taking hold. Daffodils, with their bright yellow petals, are a vibrant reminder of the energy and the rejuvenation of spring. Empress Michiko had brought a bouquet from the Imperial gardens to place on the ruins of Kobe City after the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. The gift of daffodils clearly touched Japan’s empress, as did the intended message to the rest of Japan—that those in the hardest hit regions were finding the strength to look ahead. While nature and hope were the themes for the Imperial visit, the recovery ahead seemed more fraught in Tokyo. This week, the chair of the Prime Minister’s new Reconstruction Design Council, Makoto Iokibe, president of the National Defense Academy of Japan, created controversy by advocating a new reconstruction tax. At first glance, Professor Iokibe’s argument seems quite sensible. A short-term “recovery tax” would allow all of Japan to share in the cost of reconstruction, and would bring much needed fiscal resources to the planning effort currently underway in his commission. But both government officials and politicians swiftly rejected Iokibe’s idea. Internal Minister Yoshiro Katayama announced that fiscal policy decisions were the government’s prerogative, and that the Reconstruction Design Council should stick to thinking about what needed to be done rather than how to pay for it. Minister of Finance Yoshihiko Noda was less strident, but suggested that while an open debate over policy options was welcome, he too thought that Professor Iokibe had exceeded his mandate. Outside of government, the recovery effort—and especially the pros and cons of how to finance it—is the stuff of intense political debate. Professor Iokibe is not the only person who thinks that a special tax to support Japan’s recovery is the simplest and best way forward. But the more complex, and more politicized question of how to reform Japan’s tax system—including the dreaded consumption tax that caused the DPJ’s loss at the polls last year—remains unresolved. Thus, as the recovery conversation continues, some of these unmade choices will undoubtedly merge with the policy debates specific to Japan’s recovery from the March 11 disaster. On April 26, the Diet passed a bill to provide tax relief to those hardest hit by the earthquake-tsunami. Income and corporate taxes will be reduced, as will taxes on the replacement of household and company assets, including cars, homes, and factories. Likewise, the DPJ, LDP and Komeito today on April 29, concluded a basic framework for the supplementary budget, putting aside some of their more acrimonious exchanges thus far and agreeing to concentrate on several core questions, including whether or not to issue a new recovery bond. Japan’s emperor and empress are scheduled to return to Iwate and Fukushima prefectures in the coming weeks. Returning from Miyagi prefecture, Empress Michiko stepped off the SDF aircraft with her husband holding her bouquet of daffodils. Her serene but purposeful gesture was a reminder perhaps to those in Tokyo that even in the worst hit regions, people have found the determination to hope.

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan reacts he he feels an earthquake in the upper house of parliament in Tokyo on March 11, 2011. (Toru Hanai/Courtesy Reuters)   It has been a month since the terrible earthquake/tsunami shock of March 11. Across the country, there is a palpable desire to reach out to the Tohoku region, and to bring the country together.  But politics are returning to Tokyo. Last Sunday was the first of two sets of local elections scheduled for April. Before the crisis, the Kan government was weakened as it sought to pass the national budget. For the LDP and the New Komeito, opposition parties that had formed the coalition government up until the DPJ’s victory in 2009, these elections posed an opportunity to demonstrate their electoral strength, and challenge the prime minister.   The shock of March 11 seemed to put an end to the endless game of parliamentary politicking. But last Sunday’s local elections have rekindled the addiction among Japan’s political junkies. Local elections have long been important indices of regional differences of opinion with Tokyo, and with the notable exception of the New Komeito, there has always been a healthy skepticism expressed in local elections that make it difficult to read them as a direct reflection of the popularity of national political parties or leaders. I will try to make sense of what they say about the public’s demands for governance after the second round of elections later this month.  After the first set of elections, one thing seems clear: the Japanese public does not support the partisan bickering that was going on prior to Japan’s disaster. Polling data revealed a serious drop in support for both of Japan’s major parties, the DPJ and the LDP. The quarreling came to a halt once disaster struck. In the early weeks after the March 11 disaster, the DPJ and the LDP put aside their differences. The LDP immediately dropped its opposition to the current fiscal year budget. Prime Minister Kan offered the LDP leadership slots in his government so they could work together in a unity cabinet.  A month later, however, the bickering in Tokyo has re-emerged. Within the DPJ, former prime minister Hatoyama and former party secretary general Ozawa openly criticized the prime minister, and made a very public point of demonstrating their willingness to meet with the LDP. Talk of a grand coalition still permeates the media. Rumor has it that this conversation is more about who should get the prime minister’s slot than about how to design Japan’s future.  Old habits die hard, yet there seems little appetite among the Japanese public for narrow partisan politics. The four prefectures that were hardest hit could not hold elections, and my guess is that this regular exercise in democracy is the furthest thing from people’s minds as the task of meeting basic needs for shelter, food and health care dominant the public agenda. The on-going nuclear crisis demands serious attention, and the government cannot afford to take its gaze off of the need for constant monitoring of the impact on the country’s energy and food supply.  Today, it is not who should be in the spotlight, but rather what every individual can contribute that is the theme of the national conversation on how to move forward. Japan’s local leaders understand this, and indeed see themselves as being on the frontline of the national recovery effort. Despite their shock and loss, the prefectural governors and municipal mayors in Tohoku clearly articulate their needs and their agendas for rebuilding with their communities. Those outside of Tohoku—including the governors who came through this last election—remind their constituents that the events of March 11 could just as easily have happened to their prefecture or municipality.  This is Japan’s challenge, and national legislators—so enamored with their own electoral standing of late—must put themselves in the same frame of mind. The events of March 11 have created complex and difficult challenges for the Japanese nation. All of Japan’s leaders—in and outside of government—are beginning to come together to formulate the road forward. Business leaders, NGOs, local community leaders and Japan’s leading experts in science and health are all contributing to the debate.  This means Japan’s politicians will have to reach higher, and deliver more. They will have to kick the habit of partisan bickering, and join the rest of the country in thinking of how to best design the nation’s future.

Japan’s ability to rebound from its triple disaster in March will require more than just rebuilding; it will demand restructuring in areas from energy and farm policy to decentralization of power, write Brian P. Klein and CFR’s David S. Abraham.

A girl holds her soft toy at an evacuation center in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, northern Japan, March 31, 2011 (Kim Kyung Hoon/Courtesy Reuters) The March 11 disaster in Japan has prompted a broad effort at civic support, both within and without Japan, to provide assistance to the stricken Tohoku region. In a country where non-governmental organizations have struggled to create space for civic involvement in public affairs, today there seems to be a profusion of groups engaged in the disaster relief effort. Japan has for decades supported disaster relief efforts abroad. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the national government’s agency tasked with administering Official Development Assistance, has staffed disaster relief efforts in countries as far afield as Pakistan, Mexico, Philippines and Haiti. Moreover, the JICA staff has worked closely with a growing group of Japanese NGOs organized to provided medical and technical assistance to those in need around the globe. Peace Winds Japan, for example, has played a significant role in post-conflict reconstruction activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Sudan. But today, the roles are reversed. It is Japan that needs the world’s help; the international outpouring of donations to the Japanese Red Cross Society, Save the Children Japan, and Mercy Corps (working with Peace Winds) has been tremendous. Fundraising by other nonprofit organizations here in the United States has also been active. Community-based fundraising has raised millions of dollars. The Japan-America Societies around the country have been some of the first to begin their communities’ efforts to collect donations in 24 cities. (The National Japan America Society website has a full listing of individual societies.) Other organizations such as the U.S.-Japan Council have similarly accepted donations on behalf of Japanese organizations. The Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE) has also compiled a list of Japanese organizations and has directed overseas donations to those most in need. Within Japan, there is a strong response from the NGO community. Civic Force, an organization developed in the wake of the 2004 Niigata earthquake, has been hard at work supplying basic needs and beginning to build temporary shelters for the evacuees. The Japan Red Cross was first on the scene, of course, with medical assistance and support for the few remaining hospitals in operation. Save the Children Japan was also operating relatively quickly out of Sendai to assist families who were separated and children who had lost their parents. Mercy Corps, in cooperation with Peace Winds Japan, was also one of the first on the scene providing immediate relief to families in evacuation centers and improving access to clean water and sanitation. International Medical Corps has assessed post-disaster needs of the isolated coastal communities north of Sendai, and has identified mental health as a critical need. But there are many more organizations within Japan working in the localities and shelters currently tending to the victims of the March 11 earthquake/tsunami. Japan Platform and the Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation provide an umbrella of cooperation for smaller NGOs. Moreover, they work jointly to provide guidance for international NGOs working on disaster relief in East Japan. Services provided to date have been mostly focused on servicing the evacuation centers, and in providing support in the form of medical treatment and supplies. Yet many affected remain isolated in their homes with little access to support or information. The nexus of disaster relief remains the local governments. Humanitarian and welfare assistance efforts in Japan are coordinated through Prefectural Social Welfare Councils (SWCs), and from there via Municipal SWCs. It is the Social Welfare Councils that are responsible for coordinating with volunteer groups, and the first step is the creation of a Disaster Volunteer Center. These Disaster Volunteer Centers have been created in the following prefectures: Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki and Chiba. But many of the municipalities have lost considerable capacity—both in terms of the loss of personnel and infrastructure. This is creating a bottleneck between the many volunteers available to help and those evacuees most in need. Thus, those disaster relief organizations already at work on the ground are the recommended point of contact for international NGOs. The Japan Platform and the Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation can help in partnering international assistance with these Japanese NGOs. Furthermore, close coordination with the Prefectural Disaster Volunteer Centers is a must. International support is desperately needed, but it is increasingly clear that donations and supplies are a higher priority than staff at this point in time. But the real need for Japan’s volunteers and international assistance efforts will be in the months to come. Local government capacity was badly crippled in these regions. In some municipalities like Rikuzen Takada where the devastation is almost complete, both the people who manned local governments as well as the physical infrastructure needed to function have been lost. Only now can those remaining begin to consider how to move forward. Providing care for those in charge of local relief activities will also be a priority in the days ahead. Rebuilding these communities cannot be done by the government alone, and the NGO community in Japan, with support from international NGOs, will need to continue its critical role for some time to come.

Nuclear expert John Ahearne says critics should be careful about drawing conclusions when so much remains unknown, but regulators will need to proceed with safety reviews to bolster public confidence.