School rule of handing students to parents during disasters may have backfired
A rule at many elementary schools of handing over children to their parents when disasters occur may have backfired, with many parents and children who left the safety of school buildings being taken by the tsunami while those who remained in the schools were saved.
A 2009 revision to a student safety law led many schools to adopt the rule, but according to one expert, when a tsunami is coming the rule is a "complete mistake," and schools rather need a framework in place that will let them react flexibly to disasters.....
(Mainichi Japan) March 30, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/natio...na015000c.html
Disaster center in coastal Iwate city proved tsunami death trap
KAMAISHI, Iwate -- Most people who took shelter at a disaster control center here on March 11 lost their lives to the giant tsunami that tore into the coast -- just eight days after they took part in a tsunami drill at the facility.
Some 100-200 residents are thought to have evacuated to the Unosumai disaster control center here immediately after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit Japan's northeast earlier this month, though the center was not an official tsunami evacuation point. Only about 30 of them survived the tsunami generated by the quake, and 54 were found dead. The rest remain unaccounted for....
Mainichi Japan) March 30, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/natio...na017000c.html
Residents, municipal gov't of Fukushima town move to third shelter since evacuation
KAZO, Saitama -- About 1,200 residents of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, situated near the crippled nuclear power plant, began moving to their third shelter here on March 30.
They rode buses to a now defunct prefectural high school in Kazo, from Saitama Super Arena in Chuo Ward, Saitama Prefecture. The evacuees are expected to stay at the school for a long period. The refugees had first taken shelter closer to home, in Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture...
(Mainichi Japan) March 30, 2011
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/natio...na009000c.html