TY - JOUR
T1 - Spatial distribution of causes of death in the 2011 tohoku tsunami at Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture
AU - Serikawa, Tomoki
AU - Seto, Shuji
AU - Suppasri, Anawat
AU - Imamura, Fumihiko
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Core Research Cluster of Disaster Science in Tohoku University (Designated National University) and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 20K14999. The study was reviewed and approved by the ethics committees of the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) at Tohoku University [approval number: 2017-013] and the Graduate School of Medicine [approval number: 2020-1-257] and approved by the head of the research institution. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation for the generous cooperation of the Miyagi Prefectural Police Headquarters.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Fuji Technology Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - To predict and suppress human casualty in a future tsunami disaster, it is crucial to analyze victim information from past disasters and clarify the causes of human casualty. Examining the causes of human casualty requires analyses that combine various hazard information and victim information in subregional units. This study aims to grasp the factors that caused human casualty during the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 using Miyagi Prefectural Police Head-quarters’ victim information. Therefore, at Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, we researched the spatial distribution of causes of death based on the victims’ addresses and the corpse location, as well as the occurrence factor of each cause of death. As a result, we obtain the following results. (1) The spatial distribution of victims based on the corpse location is more clearly related to the hazard than the victim’s address. In other words, it is proved that the detection site of the body is significant when examining the relationship between human casualty and hazards. (2) The hypothesis of each cause of death is verified based on the spatial distribution of each cause of death, hazard information, the victim’s age, and the date of detecting the body. As a result, it is suggested that drowning, death due to fire, and hypothermia are causes of death related to external forces. It is also suggested that hypothermia and heart disease are causes of death related to individual fragility. (3) Such a possibility showed that the cause of death could not be identified for death from unknown origin due to the bodies’ de-cay resulting from taking time to detect the dead bodies. (4) We propose a diagram of relationship between the causes of death and the occurrence of factors of death at Ishinomaki City. In the future, to generalize the relationship, it is considered that the same analysis will be required in the coastal municipalities of Miyagi Prefecture.
AB - To predict and suppress human casualty in a future tsunami disaster, it is crucial to analyze victim information from past disasters and clarify the causes of human casualty. Examining the causes of human casualty requires analyses that combine various hazard information and victim information in subregional units. This study aims to grasp the factors that caused human casualty during the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 using Miyagi Prefectural Police Head-quarters’ victim information. Therefore, at Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, we researched the spatial distribution of causes of death based on the victims’ addresses and the corpse location, as well as the occurrence factor of each cause of death. As a result, we obtain the following results. (1) The spatial distribution of victims based on the corpse location is more clearly related to the hazard than the victim’s address. In other words, it is proved that the detection site of the body is significant when examining the relationship between human casualty and hazards. (2) The hypothesis of each cause of death is verified based on the spatial distribution of each cause of death, hazard information, the victim’s age, and the date of detecting the body. As a result, it is suggested that drowning, death due to fire, and hypothermia are causes of death related to external forces. It is also suggested that hypothermia and heart disease are causes of death related to individual fragility. (3) Such a possibility showed that the cause of death could not be identified for death from unknown origin due to the bodies’ de-cay resulting from taking time to detect the dead bodies. (4) We propose a diagram of relationship between the causes of death and the occurrence of factors of death at Ishinomaki City. In the future, to generalize the relationship, it is considered that the same analysis will be required in the coastal municipalities of Miyagi Prefecture.
KW - Community-scale statistics
KW - Human casualty
KW - Science of Human Survival from Disaster
KW - The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster
KW - Victim information
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097493075&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85097493075&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.20965/jdr.2020.p0943
DO - 10.20965/jdr.2020.p0943
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097493075
VL - 15
SP - 943
EP - 958
JO - Journal of Disaster Research
JF - Journal of Disaster Research
SN - 1881-2473
IS - 7
ER -