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Sendai to host 5-day U.N. conference on reducing disaster risks

11 Comments

The city of Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture will host the 3rd United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction from Saturday until March 18.

During the conference period, heads of state and ministerial-level representatives of participating nations will inspect reconstruction efforts in the Tohoku region which was devastated by the March 11, 2011 disaster.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who will attend the conference, said the biggest challenge is for participating nations, especially island nations, to reduce disaster risks while tackling such issues as global warming and economic development, NHK reported.

Sendai Mayor Emiko Okuyama said: "The Great East Japan Earthquake devastated the Tohoku area, including Sendai City. There is no other case globally of a city with a population of more than a million suffering a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. I feel it is our obligation to convey the lessons learned through our difficult experience to future generations at home and abroad."

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The city of Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture will host the 3rd United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction from Saturday until March 18.

First thing...get your country to dismantle ALL the nuclear reactors. The recovery would be well on it's way to helping those affected by the tsunami and earthquake if Fukushima had not happened and THAT should be the lesson, if anything, anyone takes away from this conference!

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Great. And the heads of state and ministerial-level representatives of participating nations inspecting reconstruction efforts in the Tohoku region will help....how??? What is this, the new Hato Bus tour?

Seriously, what a waste of time and money. A bunch of people sitting around pontificating on stuff, writing some papers, making a few speeches, and otherwise enjoying food and drink, most likely at the expense of taxpayers, both in Japan and in the other countries participating.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Don't put nuclear reactors next to the ocean would be on the top of that list.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Wow! I'm kind of wondering if Japn is comfortable with this because their rebuilding seems to going very slowly and there has been quite a few scandals with the finances. I also noticed the Fukushima disaster seems to be missing front he agenda (conveniently).

1 ( +5 / -4 )

As a conference junkie let me just pass on a word of caution. Conferences address important needs and are useful, but their danger is creating a false sense of accomplishment. Especially after a very good conference you can leave with the sense of having changed the world for the better. Well, you haven't. You've just talked about it.

This will be a posh conference. Fine. But let not the conferees forget that people around them are suffering and largely neglected by the Abe regime.

One more thing. As a survivor of the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 I recall that people spontaneously formed mutual aid groups almost immediately after everything went do. While politicians and bureaucrats fiddled or used the disaster to promote themselves, the spontaneous mutual aid groups were helping the stricken. They did not need conferences, seminars or training to do this. Of course, there were limits to what their spontaneous groups could do. But importantly, they went to work while the system was frozen in procedural deadlock.

It was much the same with 3/11. An organized system bereft of crisis management and spontaneous groups doing the best they could.

After the conferees have had their wine and cheese, they ought to be directly to the people and hear how they coped with 3/11 and its aftermath.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

As a survivor of the 3/11 disaster I can assure people that the Self-defense forces were boots on the ground only hours after the tsunami hit. As were international rescuers within 36 hours. That aspect of disaster management at least was learned by government officials from the Kobe earthquake.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Thank you kausdorth and SumoBob. In fact, the SDF, when not hamstrung by bureaucratic red tape did a good job here in Kansai after the big earthquake. (Disaster relief should be the SDF primary responsibility, not so-called collective self-defense.) The trouble is that the SDF cannot do all things and is limited exactly because it is a military organization. Search and rescue and emergency first aid, yes. But surgery? Housing? Psychiatric care? Extended medical care? No, the SDF can do little about that, if anything at al.

Crisis management means that an entire nation has got to go into action and people have to know what they are doing. And I do not mean devising five year plans 4 years after the fact or simply holding conferences.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I also noticed the Fukushima disaster seems to be missing front he agenda (conveniently).

You really think there is going to be an international conference on disaster risk reduction in Sendai of all places without a discussion of Fukushima Daiichi? My goodness...

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

Bringing any kind of conference to the Tohoku area is nothing but a good thing. More publicity, more people coming to the area bringing more money and publicity to the area is a good thing for the people of Tohoku.

As others have said, the JSDF and the other assistance, including that of the US military, was an amazing confort and help to the people of Tohoku. Just as we learned many important lessons from the Kobe earthquake that helped with response to the Tohoku earthquake, learning from the Tohoku earthquake will help future generations in the horrible instance that another large natural disaster were to happen.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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