SETTLEMENT PLANS OF NABETA RECLAIMED LAND BEFORE AND AFTER THE DISASTER BY THE ISEWAN TYPHOON

Abstract

Nabeta, newly reclaimed land after the end of World War II, is inside part of Isewan in the central district of Japan. It is about 640 ha. in area. The Isewan Typhoon and the flood tide accompanying it came over Nabeta on Sept. 26, 1959, destroying the settlement and farms, and killed 125 out of 228 settlers. Before the disaster, the settlement pattern of Nabeta was carried out as planned Strassendorf type along the several main roads that ran from the east to the west, so the villages were scattered all over the land. The slightly higher part of this reclaimed land of Nabeta was not used as settlement site, and settlers' houses were made of wood and they were but one-storyed houses. From the viewpoint of protecting settlers and their properties from the flood tide, this settlement plan was not complete. As a result of the disaster the people decided that nearly half of all the area be used for factory site and the rest for agricultural land, the houses be rebuilt of ferro-block and three storyed and concentrated on the north-western corner, the highest part of this land. Then this settlement site was planned to be surrounded by the second dike. Consequently the settlement of Nabeta is being protected from high tide by two dikes, that is, a sea dike (the first dike) and the second dike. Not only the settlement location and buildings but the site of fields of each farmer has been improved. Before the suffering, each farmer had dispersed fields, but after that he has considerably concentrated fields.