Citation

Niwayama M. Jpn. Med. Assn. J. JMAJ 2005; 48(7): 334-340.

Affiliation

Medical Association of Ojiya City, Ojiya City, Japan

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Japan Medical Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

An Earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum seismic intensity of 7 hit the Chuetsu region of Niigata Prefecture in Japan on October 2004, causing tremendous impacts including the generation of about 100,000 evacuees, destruction of about 90,000 houses, and total damages exceeding 3 trillion yen (about US$27.6 billion) in the prefecture. In contrast to the Hanshin Awaji Earthquake of January 17, 1995, which mostly involved large cities on relatively flat land, the earthquake in Niigata affected hilly and mountainous areas with depopulation and aging of citizens. A lack of information, underdevelopment of communications media, and inequality in health care services emerged as significant problems, and caused confusion among rescue volunteers, who entered the disaster area in great numbers. The local medical association, without sufficient information, had to tackle the challenges of promoting cooperation with the medical teams from other areas and answering new problems peculiar to hilly and mountainous areas, such as death during overnight stays in cars. The experience from the 2 earthquakes, one in urban and the other in hilly and mountainous situations, should be utilized as typical reference information in future disaster measures not only in Japan, a country with frequent earthquakes, but also in other countries with the experience of earthquake disaster. This article does not intend to cover the details of all affected areas by this earthquake, but to outline the lessons learned from the activities of the Medical Association of Ojiya, Uonuma, and Kawaguchi following the earthquake.