13 years after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami: Coordinating relief to make support tangible
March 11, 2024 marks 13 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake.
We remember all those lost to this disaster, and express our sincere condolences to all families impacted.
March 2011, in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture.
Shortly after the Ishinomaki City Disaster Volunteer Centre was set up, staff of the Peace Boat Disaster Volunteer Centre (PBV) were set up in a corner receiving a constant stream of telephone calls.
“We can serve 1,000 curries, but where should we go?”
“‘I want to organise a soup kitchen, can you tell me if water and electricity are working, and what the situation is like in the affected areas?”
At the request of the staff of the Ishinomaki City Social Welfare Council, PBV was responsible for coordination of soup kitchens, and connecting offers of assistance to relevant evacuation centres and other organisations.
Photo: Ueno Yoshinori
Although the full picture of the damage and evacuation situation was not yet clear, PBV gathered information on evacuation centres from the government and from support groups active in each area, identifying where there were shortages of food. We then connect those locations to groups who wished to provide assistance to those in need.
If this coordination did not go well, problems such as support being concentrated in certain evacuation centres and insufficient in others would arise.
Later, tripartite weekly meetings on food support began, bringing together the city hall, which covered the whole city by providing lunchboxes and other items, the Self Defence Forces which ran a large-scale soup kitchen, and smaller support groups, which are more flexible, in order to gain an overview of each other’s situation and divide the roles amongst each group.
Coordination of relief is an important role that, while not visible, makes tangible the will of many people to help those affected by a disaster.
There is a limit to what just one organisation or group can do alone in the face of massive impacts.
There are also people playing such a role in connecting and coordination of relief in the Noto Peninsula of Ishikawa Prefecture, which was affected by the severe earthquake earlier this year.
In the 13 years since that time in Ishinomaki, PBV has continued to accumulate expertise in the field of disaster relief. We will continue our activities, making use of this experience and with an ongoing value of horizontal cooperation.