2-day conference on disaster risk management begins in Sendai

Politicians and aid officials gathered on Japan's quake- and tsunami-hit coast Tuesday to discuss what lessons can be learned from disasters.

Pre-emptive measures to reduce damage -- and save lives -- when nature strikes were top of the agenda at the two-day conference, part of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Organizers picked Sendai because it is the capital of a region that lost nearly 19,000 people when the massive waves of March 2011 rolled ashore, crushing whole communities.

"I hope to share with people in the world our country's experiences from the disaster," Japan's reconstruction minister Tatsuo Hirano said in his keynote speech.

He said even a country as well-prepared as Japan could not disaster-proof itself.

"There is no such word as 'absolute' in disaster prevention terms," Hirano said, noting a tsunami warning system that had worked well for years focusing on speed rather than accuracy had failed.

"The tsunami warning predicted the height of the tsunami as three metres, but the actual tsunami measured nearly 20 meters in some places, easily overcoming defences," he said.

"We have to learn how to react to situations beyond our expectations."

Hirano said disaster-evacuation planning had largely been done by men, which meant "many women faced difficulties living in emergency shelters because there had been little imput from women."

Sendai mayor Emiko Okuyama told the conference urban areas had proved unexpectedly vulnerable.

She said the greater-than-expected concentration of people in cities -- tourists and commuters unable to return home -- had also strained the system.

On Wednesday, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde and World Bank president Jim Yong Kim will visit disaster-hit areas before wrapping up the conference.

The Sendai talks are expected to feed into the communique to be issued on Saturday at the meeting of the Development Committee, the highest Fund and Bank joint decision-making body, said Kazushige Taniguchi, the World Bank's special representative to Japan, before the meeting.

Last week Japan and the World Bank released a joint study aimed at sharing experiences from last year, when a 9.0-magnitude quake and resulting tsunami crushed the coast and triggered the worst nuclear crisis in a generation.

The study, comprising 32 "knowledge notes" on disaster risk management and post-disaster reconstruction, was being used as a basis for discussions in Sendai.

Disaster management officials are also discussing the importance of paying attention to supply chains, a key lesson from Japan where global industries like the automotive sector were crippled when a key parts production line was knocked out.

Education, the distribution of hazard maps and the issuance of early warnings as well as the importance of reinforcing key buildings also feature.

The report notes the usefulness of social media for search, rescue and fundraising, and the importance of building temporary housing and maintaining existing sources of income in the recovery phase.

Many of these notes are ongoing challenges for Japan, where 329,000 people are still living in temporary homes nearly 19 months later.

On the ground in Sendai, one woman who lost a relative and her house in the tsunami said she could understand why Japan was hosting a conference on reconstruction, but normality still seemed a long way off.

"I feel like our community is far from being reconstructed," said the 58-year-old, who did not want to give her name for fear of angering local officials.

"When parliamentary debates come on the television, I switch it off in anger. Politicians just want to show how important they are but they don't do their job.

"The support measures they offer are too little, so we constantly worry about our future," the woman told AFP.

The government has announced plans to build new houses in upland areas and to offer cash handouts to partially finance housing loans.

The disaster left 18,684 people dead or missing and sparked reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant on the coast.

The knowledge notes can be downloaded from the world bank website: http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/megadisasters

© (C) 2012 AFP