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Earthquake Politics

© Jason Gottlieb

Kaji Hideki, a geology professor at Japan's Tsukuba University, warns that the risk of what the Japanese call the "Great Tokai Earthquake" striking before 2020 exceeds 50%. Gao Xu, deputy director of the Beijing Seismological Bureau, has warned that the next few years will be particularly seismically active in northern China, and he predicts several large magnitude earthquakes.

Both nations have reason to be concerned. The 1923 Tokyo earthquake killed 140,000. The 1995 Kobe earthquake killed 5,000 and left 290,000 homeless. A quake in China's Zhangjiakou killed 50 and injured 10,000 this past January, and a 1976 quake in Tangshan killed at least 240,000. One Chinese quake in the 1500s killed over 800,000.

An earthquake of this magnitude striking the heart of Beijing or Tokyo would cripple the nation. Researchers from Stanford University and Risk Management Systems Inc. have published a study focusing on the possible effects of an earthquake striking Tokyo. The study asks what would happen if the 1923 earthquake struck again today, and the answer is horrifying. The estimated loss is up to 70% of Japan's GDP. Over 800,000 houses and buildings would be destroyed, and 2.5 million would be burned, leaving millions homeless. The damage would total over one trillion dollars. Estimates of deaths vary; the Stanford study predicts 30,000-60,000. The Japanese National Land Agency has forecast 150,000. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government guessed about 10,000, a downward revision from an earlier figure of 30,000.

What, if anything, can politics do to address this problem? Certain steps are easy to take. China has recently undertaken a $65 million project to strengthen key governmental offices, cultural sites, and army unit buildings to prepare for an earthquake. Japan has long had governmental regulation on new buildings requiring they be earthquake resistant. Tokyo is almost devoid of the skyscrapers that line New York City, with only a few (relatively puny) fifty-floor buildings. Even those buildings are specially designed, effectively built on giant shock absorbers. The architectural theory may or may not be sound; noted earthquake expert Professor Tsuneo Katayama says that Japanese architecture has succumbed to "the safety myth." But at the least, the government is aware of the problem, and is taking reasonable measures to attenuate the damage in this area.

Another step is to prepare for the inevitable aftermath. Such preparation has been sorely lacking in the past. Glen Fukushima, former Director for Japanese Affairs in the Office of the United States Trade Representative and current President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, blamed "ineffectual crisis management in Tokyo" for the poor response to the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Fukushima said at the time that "no clear lines of authority for disaster relief had been established that would permit effective coordination between central, regional, and local government authorities." Since then, Japan has taken measures to ensure that its disaster relief efforts will be stepped up. However, whether these efforts prove successful will depend largely on the scope of the next quake.