A Resilient Network for Large Scale Disasters from Experience Based on the Great East Japan Earthquake

Abstract

Recently serious natural disasters  such as earthquakes, tsunami, typhoons  and hurricanes have occurred in many  places around the world. The Great East  Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011  brought more than nineteen thousand  victims and destroyed huge number of  houses, buildings, roads and seaports  over the wide area of Northern Japan.  Information networks and systems and  electric power cables were also severely  damaged by the great Tsunami. Functions  in the highly developed information society  and residents’ safety and security were  completely compromised. Thus, through  the lessons from this great earthquake, the  construction of a more robust and resilient  information network has become one of  the topical issues. This paper focuses on  our information network recovery activity  after the Great East Japan Earthquake.  Then the problems of current information  network systems are analyzed in order  to improve disaster information network and system through our network recovery  activity. Finally, we suggest systems and  functions required for future large scale  disasters.