The Triple Catastrophe: Japan’s 03/11/11 Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Crisis Just after 2:45 p.m. on Friday, March 11, 2011, inhabitants of northeastern Honshu – Japan’s largest island and home to Tokyo, the country’s densely populated capital – felt the ground shake violently beneath them. Although the Japanese were accustomed to powerful tremors, this one (soon termed the Great East Japan Earthquake) struck with frightening intensity. 1 With a magnitude of 9.0, it was Japan’s largest earthquake in the modern era and the world’s fourth largest since 1900.2 Due in large part to mitigation and preparedness measures put in place after the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji 3 Earthquake, which caused significant damage in and around the city of Kobe, initial casualties and physical 4 damage were relatively low. But, having occurred along the ocean floor at the intersection of the Pacific and 1 Located along the “Ring of Fire” – the seismically volatile coastal perimeter of the Pacific Ocean – Japan experiences approximately 20% of the world’s earthquakes with magnitudes of 6.0 and above (Jeff Kingston, Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Response and Recovery after Japan’s 3/11, Routledge, New York, 2012; and U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], Earthquake Glossary – Ring of Fire, date unknown, available at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/glossary/?termID=150 [accessed March 14, 2013]). 2 USGS, Magnitude 9.0 – Near the East Coast of Honshu, Japan, date unknown, available at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2011/usc0001xgp/ [accessed October 2, 2013]; and USGS, USGS Updates Magnitude of Japan’s 2011 Tohoku Earthquake to 9.0, March 14, 2011, available at http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2727 [accessed March 14, 2013]. 3 Causing the deaths of more than 6,400 people, the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake triggered a set of reforms intended to improve Japan’s resilience against future seismic events. Post-Hanshin developments included the enactment and enforcement of stricter building codes, the emergence of a more robust network of nongovernmental organizations involved in disaster relief, and the initiation of a range of community preparedness efforts, such as evacuation planning and exercises. They also included the establishment of mechanisms within the prime minister’s office dedicated to crisis management issues, leading to a greater centralization of disaster management powers at the national level, the merits of which would be intensely debated in the aftermath of the March 11 disasters (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, Disaster Management in Japan, February 2011; and Kingston, Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan). 4 Daniel Kaufmann and Veronika Penciakova, Japan’s Triple Disaster: Governance and the Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Crisis, March 16, 2011, available at http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2011/03/16-japan-disaster-kaufmann [accessed October 25, 2013]. This case was written by David W. Giles, Associate Director, Program on Crisis Leadership, with research assistance from Hiromi Akiyama and Yohei Oka, in collaboration with Dr. Arnold M. Howitt, Executive Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor Shoji Tsuchida, Faculty of Safety Science, Kansai University, for use at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Funds for case development were provided by the National Guard Bureau, United States Department of Defense, through the Homeland Security Institute, an initiative of the Chief, National Guard Bureau, in support of Harvard Kennedy School’s General and Flag Officer Homeland Security Executive Seminar and the Leadership in Homeland Security executive education program. Additional support was provided by the Harvard University Asia Center, the New England University Transportation Center, with funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation, and by the Graduate School of Safety Science, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan, which hosted the research team while in Japan. HKS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright © 2016 Program on Crisis Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA. North American tectonic plates, the tremor also unleashed a series of tsunami waves that began racing toward Japan’s Tohoku region5 (northern Honshu) at speeds of up to 500 miles per hour. Measuring as high as 38 meters at landfall,6 the tsunami inflicted catastrophic damage along approximately 500 kilometers of coastline, destroying whole communities, taking the lives of over 20,000 people,7 and displacing hundreds of thousands of survivors.8 But the March 11 crisis did not end there. A series of events triggered by the earthquake and tsunami also compromised the cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, located roughly 100 miles southwest of the epicenter, exposing Japan – the only country ever to have been attacked by atomic weapons – to the terrifying prospect of a nuclear meltdown. Attracting global concern and remaining volatile for months on end, the situation at Fukushima Daiichi had serious long-term implications for national energy policy and for the health and safety of area residents, who were forced to abandon their homes to avoid sustained radiological exposure. At a televised news conference held on Sunday, March 13, Prime Minister Naoto Kan spoke to the severity of the situation. “In the 65 years after the end of World War II,” he declared, “this is the toughest and the most difficult crisis for Japan.”9 Indeed, as they sought to simultaneously deal with the severe aftereffects of the natural disaster and the worsening nuclear emergency, Japan’s political leaders and emergency response officials across all levels of government confronted a host of unprecedented challenges and a long list of difficult questions. With severely crippled communication and transportation systems, how would they obtain sufficient situational awareness about conditions and needs in the affected area? How would they balance the multiple and varied demands that were rapidly emerging across a broad landscape? Would preexisting response plans and mechanisms prove sufficient – or would officials have to adapt and improvise strategies on the fly? And to what extent – if any – could government hope to centrally coordinate the massive relief effort that would soon unfold? See Exhibits 1 and 2, respectively, for maps indicating the location of the earthquake’s epicenter and of the Tohoku region in relation to the rest of Japan. 5 The Tohoku region encompasses the six northernmost Honshu prefectures, including Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, and Miyagi, which were the most heavily affected by the tsunami. 6 USGS, Magnitude 9.0 – Near the East Coast of Honshu, Japan. 7 This figure includes individuals officially categorized as “missing.” 8 IBRD/World Bank, 2012, The Great East Japan Earthquake: Learning from Megadisasters: Knowledge Notes available at http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/drm_exsum_english.pdf [accessed October 10, 2013]; Kingston, Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan; Richard J. Samuels, 3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2013; and WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2011, available at http://cred.be/sites/default/files/2012.07.05.ADSR_2011.pdf [accessed October 10, 2013]. 9 Quoted in CNN Wire Staff, March 14, 2011, “Anxiety in Japan Grows as Death Toll Steadily Climbs,” CNN, available at http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/13/japan.quake/index.html?iref=NS1 [accessed October 18, 2013]. 2 of 34 A Mega Earthquake, a Catastrophic Tsunami At 2:46 p.m. local time, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck off the northeastern coast of Honshu. 10 Its violent shaking lasted more than five minutes – an unusually long time – and manifested itself in a variety of ways: solid ground cracked and liquefied; skyscrapers swayed back and forth with terrifying intensity;11 furniture, equipment, groceries, and supplies crashed to the floor in countless homes, offices, and stores; and transit systems screeched to a halt. Thanks in large part to Japan’s enforcement of strict seismic building codes, an impressive amount of infrastructure survived intact;12 but a number of buildings, bridges, and roadways still sustained serious damage. In a particularly striking illustration of the earthquake’s power, parts of the Tohoku shoreline dropped by as much as three feet.13 Capturing the tremor’s severity, a local official in Sendai (the capital of Miyagi Prefecture and the closest major city to the epicenter) recalled, “I never experienced such a strong earthquake in my life. … I thought it would stop, but it just kept shaking and shaking, and getting stronger.”14 In fact, severe trembling continued to occur throughout the remainder of the day – and beyond – further fraying the nerves of Honshu’s rattled inhabitants. Within just 45 minutes of the earthquake, three aftershocks with magnitudes greater than 7.0 rocked the island; 15 and hundreds more followed over the next several days and weeks, including dozens with magnitudes measuring 6.0 and above.16 Circumstances became especially dire in eastern Tohoku, where a tsunami sparked by the massive subsea earthquake began battering the coast within just 30 minutes. Depending on the height of the seabed and the local topography, the tsunami’s size and intensity at impact varied significantly – but in many places it took the form of a series of gigantic waves that wrought destruction across an area already suffering from years of economic decline 17 and population loss. 10 NOVA, Japan’s Killer Quake, March 30, 2011, available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/japan-killer-quake.html [accessed October 22, 2013; and Hideo Tokuyama, “Learning from Japan’s Ordeal,” Public Roads, May/June 2012, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, vol.