世論 What Japan Thinks

Over the first five days at the start of February, MyVoice asked their online monitor group about earthquakes.

Demographics

13,145 people successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

I’ve not (yet..) experienced a destructive earthquake, although living in the Kansai area I’ve heard lots of stories of the hardships resulting from the Great Hanshin-Akashi Earthquake of 1995. I’ve also visited the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution (earthquake museum) in Kobe which has an extremely powerful recreation of the scenes during and after the earthquake. There is also a reference library there, which includes maps of all the active faults in Japan – the chances are probably rather high that your home too may be sitting rather close to a fault line. They also have survivors of the earthquake presenting various earthquake-related issues, from describing ground liquification to discussing emergency evacuation kit preparation, with translators on-hand to help out if need be.

Since I get a bit of traffic searching for it, I think I should explain the Japanese 震度, Shindo earthquake scale. Rather than report the magnitude as the key measure of the strengh of the tremor as in the Richter scale, the Shindo scale is used to present a more subjective, and more useful to the people affected by it, evaluation of the effects of the quake. The Shindo measures how one might actually experience the shake. 1 or 2 are barely perceptable wobbles, 3 is dishes rattling, 4 wakes you up and some things might dance off tabletops (this is about as high as I’ve experienced), 5弱, jaku, lower is books popping out of shelves, most things falling over, and perhaps a few cracks in cheaply built houses, 5強, kyou, upper is televisions and wardrobes (and perhaps you too) toppling, deformed doors and structural damage, 6弱, jaku, lower is dancing bookcases, 6強, kyou, upper is nearly everything breaking and falling over, and finally 7 is OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
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With the 11th anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (Kobe and surrounding area) on 17th of January 1995 being today, I thought it would be appropriate to present this survey by the Japanese Government’s Cabinet Office regarding people’s opinions on earthquakes. Out of 10,000 people asked, 7,232 people completed questionnaires regarding earthquakes over a two week period at the end of September. Demographic information is available at the end of the survey. Note that for a change, because this was a personal interview-based survey the age spread is much broader than most of the internet-based polls I present. All questions were answered by all 7,232 respondents.

For the last few years, at least once every couple of months there has been a special on TV regarding earthquakes, covering in particular how everyone is going to die horribly when The Big One hits Tokyo. In amongst the tabloid sensationalism is, however, the occasional nugget of useful information. Two nights ago, for instance, they covered how to escape from a lift stuck between floors, then emergency toilets, including how much water is needed to flush a standard three-jobbie plus loo roll down to the nearest main sewer pipe (five litres to go 15 metres, in case you’re wondering and I’m remembering correctly).

This survey was taken before the Aneha scandal blew up, so perhaps if this survey was repeated today, the answers would be rather different.

Although the above-mentioned Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake happened before I came to Japan, I have talked to a number of people who were living in Kobe at the time, and almost everyone had some tale of personal or family-related disaster that really impressed upon me the human scale of the disaster. I recommend anyone with the opportunity to talk to someone from the area to sensitively enquire about their experiences.
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