Research and Studies

Recovery Two Years After the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami: A Return Mission Report by EEFIT

The Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011 was the largest event that has been recorded in Japan since the beginning of instrumental seismology circa 1900, and is the most expensive natural disaster recorded in the world to date. EEFIT sent a team to the affected regions during the immediate aftermath of the event (May 29 – June 3, 2011) to learn lessons regarding the initial impacts of the disaster, and the findings are given in the 2011 EEFIT Japan Report (EEFIT 2011) available on the EEFIT website. Two years later EEFIT launched a return mission (May 28 – June 7, 2013) to examine the direction and progress of the recovery and reconstruction efforts in Japan. In addition we visited some critical facilities for which it had not been possible to investigate in 2011. This report outlines key long-term lessons for the engineering community worldwide as well as those involved in coastal protection structures, tsunami hazard and risk assessment, the nuclear industry, post-disaster housing, urban planning, disaster mitigation, response and recovery, the insurance industry and catastrophe modelling.

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