Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster

Concerned experts and others from a wide range of fields are required to take part in studies on “social” disaster phenomena such as earthquakes and typhoons causing drastic human and property damage and leaving subsequent social and economic destruction. In 2006, the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR) decided to be published as an academic journal in English for global society to help expand research beyond a domestic scope. The March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster – in the 6th year of the journal’s publication, has made an impact both domestically and globally due to the unprecedented earthquake and tsunami and resulting radiation leakage at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. JDR will annually publish special issues on the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster beginning in this issue of 2012, for five years, for the purpose of informing, recording and utilizing lessons learned from the disaster. Page charges are in principle free and widespread contributions are welcomed. I have studied disasters from the viewpoint of a planner. Nobody who is active and living in society is irrelevant to wide-scale events related to such disasters, and I still feel that it is important for people from a variety of fields to visit devastated sites, hear from the people experiencing such disasters and make their own standpoints. In American society, for example, disaster measures against earthquakes and other disasters have been studied involving a wide range of experts and others. After the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe, research groups consisting of wide range of experts came to be formed in Japan and environments developed to produce a multidisciplinary journal such as the JDR. The ultimate goal of planned research is human research. A society is needed in which “human power” can be manifested in all aspects such as reviving reconstruction and rehabilitation. This is because contributions by researchers from widespread fields are anticipated in the future.