Evacuation Of Inhabitants Research Articles

Development of an M.I.S. for the prevention of hurricane damage on the Mexican coast

This article describes the first stages in the development of an early warning system to alert Mexican authorities of the possible track, intensity and consequences of incoming hurricanes. The MIS was developed to manage the impact of a hurricane, assisting decision-making before and after the event through the forecasting of possible scenarios. Every year over twenty tropical cyclones are generated over the waters surrounding Mexico: 61% in the Pacific Ocean, 39% in the Atlantic. Of these, around four will hit land or pass close by causing tremendous damage to the region economically, ecologically and of course, socially. Along the coast storm surge, surf beat, storm winds and heavy rain may effect the closure of ports even the evacuation of inhabitants. With 11,000 km of vulnerable coastline and a population of over 12 million living along them, Mexico is in dire need of some form of MIS for effective logistical planning to limit the damage caused by this devastating natural phenomenon. The MIS described is based on MAPINFO® 5.5 which analyses political boundaries, topographical and bathymetrical features, location of centres of population as well as the infrastructure including that of ports, oil platforms and pipelines. In addition a database from ORACLE®8i gives further analysis such as the type of constructions found in the settlements, detail of telecommunication networks and health services. With this information the probable track of the hurricane can be forecasted as well as possible damage to affected zones. As a result early warning announcements can be given and plans for the emergency made in advance.

Derived intervention levels in the early stage of a nuclear accident

A method of determination of derived intervention levels for temporary evacuation of inhabitants in the case of nuclear accident of VVER NPP type is described. 21 accidental sequences which may leads to the uncontrolled release of radioactive material to the environment have been analysed. Effective doses for 48, 168 and 732 hours at distance of 5, 15 and 30 km from the source have been assessed on the base of results of calculating the kerma rate in air. It has been supposed that monitoring will be performed 2 hours after finishing the accidental release. The exceeding of 50 mSv intervention level up to 48, 168 and 732 hours might be expected if kerma rate in air (DIL1) exceeds 0.4, 0.2 or 0.2 mGy·h−1, respectively. Determination of effective doses at distances under consideration also enables to assess the length of zone for planning the temporary evacuation (DIL2). The zone length at meteorological situation of Pascquill stability categories D, height of release 25 m and wind speed 2m·s−1 may exceed 30 km at the axis of the hypothetical track.

火災発生に伴う人命危険の評価法

The purpose of this study is to propose how to estimate the life risk of inhabitants quantitatively in case of building fires. The life risk is defined in the evaluation method as "the frequency that smoke prevents inhabitants evacuating from space (i) per unit time", assuming that the frequency of being trapped by smoke is relative to the life risk. The Procedure is as follows ; (1) It is assumed that a fire breaks out at all spaces "j" (j=1, n) (2) According to occurrence of fire at space "j", spreading of fire and smoke, operation of fire prevention equipments, staff's hehavior and evacuation of inhabitants are simulated, and the impossibility of evacuation is judged by overlapping the movement of smoke and inhabitants on the same time scale. (3) In simulation (2) , based on success/failure of some significant factors (automatic fire detectors, sprinkler, using fire extinguisher, open/closed of fire door), the phenomena are simplified into some sequences "k" (k=1, m) by using Event Tree. (4) Using probabilities of each sequences and each simulation's outputs, the life risk of space "i" (R_t) is calculated by following formula, [numerical formula] (times/a year) : frequency of fire outbreak in space "j" per year P_k : probability of sequence k in Event Tree T_k (persons) : number of inhabitants in space "i" that can't evacuate in sequence k N_i (persons) : total number of inhabitants in space "i" This evaluation method is applied to the nursing units in 8 hospitals, the figures gained by calculations are in good agreement with common knowledge for fire prevention in hospital planning.

広域避難計画論 : 防火帯地区分割に基づく避難計画

To cope with many and simultaneous fires in a wooden city caused by a great earthquake, there are three major strategies which are a) Prevention of fire outbreak, b) Interception of fire spreading, c) Evacuation of inhabitants. In the Japanese metropolitan area of today, evacuation to a safe open space of refuge is the only way to secure the life safety of inhabitants even though they had to walk long distance to get there. But not only for securing the life safety but also for the reduction of material damage, it is desired that fiveshould be suppressed in its earlystage by the trategies of a) and b). And it could be said that the ultimate goal of disaster prevention planning is to reconstruct a city structurally strong in conflagration and make the evacuation planning unnecessary. As a step for attaining this object, a methodology is proposed which at first finds out districts that have no safe open space of refuge within walking distance and then divides them into small blocks that are surrounded with firebreaks and evacuates the inhabitants to the blocks that come to have no fire spreadings there. Seen from the measures to allocate a park of refuge in each block and secure enough open space between wooden houses, the planning for preventing post-earthquake fire damage is no more than the planning for providing comfortable living environment in a city.

RELOCATION OF SETTLEMENTS IN THE SHIKOKU MOUNTAINS

In Japan the emigration from villages to cities has been very marked through the period of the rapid economic development since 1955 to 1973. During this period many villages experienced a very marked depopulation problem. In the depopulated areas relocation of settlements (shuraku) has been put into operation as a project of the countermeasures to remove people of the depopulated and remote settlements into the areas with better public facilities. Many of this project have been put into operation as a matter of policy by the Economic Planning Agency, the Ministry of Home Affairs, etc., and also by the village (mura) authorities. In this study I intend to explain the facts and the problems of relocation of settlements by taking two villages, different in characters, as examples from the Shikoku mountains Kito-mura in Tokushima Prefecture and Hiyoshi-mura in Ehime Prefecture. The reloca-tion of settlements in Kito-mura was put into operation as a model case of reorganization of villages by the Economic Planning Agency in 1971 and 1972, while in Hiyoshi-mura, the village did it by itself in 1973 by the flotation of loan. Kito-mura is located in the eastern part of the Shikoku mountains and one of the greatest forestry regions in western Japan. The forest there are possessed by the large landowners in and around the village, and most villagers have made their living by working in the forests of the landowners, for the villagers lost their common forests during the Meiji era. Five settlements, Nakauchi, Uinouchi, Gonda, Hiso, and Azegano, all small settlements in the mountains which have been deserted by moving out of many families, were asked to evacuate their settlements and move to a newly built settlement called, Asahi-danchi near the village office. The inhabitants who scarcely possessed their land willingly agreed with the relocation of settlements, but some of them dropped off from the project of relocation beccause of the lack of helping-each-other mind or uniting mind. The jobs of the mi-grants are the same as before, and many of them are engaged in forestry works in the remote mountains and living in workmen's temporary huts. Hiyoshi-mura is located in the western part of Shikoku mountains and made a slow pro-gress in forestry works. The inhabitants have long helped each other through the medium of their large common forests. Setsuyasu-buraku was made an object of settlement reloca-tion. This settlement at the remote corner of the village had twenty-five houses in 1960 but only seven in 1973. Finally Setsuyasu-buraku ceased to exist by mass migration to danchi, a housing development, built near the village office. The inhabitants of Setsuyasu-buraku with the strong power of cooperation accepted the relocation of their settlement, but these new comers could not establish good relation with the old people and have not yet joined the existing social system there. The jobs of the migrants are the same as before, and many of them have been work in the forest near the deserted old settlement they used to live. The following are the gains and losses by the relocation of the settlements in these two villages. The relocation has given the migrants some conveniences for social life and has lessened the burden of social services to the inhabitants for village authority. On the cont-rary, the relocation has brought a negative impact on their economic activities if there is no countermove for employment, and have deserted the land use of the former settlments because of the evacuation of inhabitants even if there is some countermove for employment. I think that the existence of some remote settlements is indispensable from the viewpoint of conservation and development of the resources in the remote mountains. Isn't it necessary to reconsider the relocation of such settlements from the national point of view ?