社説:防災の日 身を守る力を備えよう

September 01, 2014(Mainichi Japan)
Editorial: National Disaster Prevention Day a reminder to be prepared
社説:防災の日　身を守る力を備えよう

Work is still under way to search for those missing after being hit by a series of mudslides in Hiroshima and to help the city recover from the disaster.
　広島市の大規模土砂災害は、今も懸命の捜索・復旧活動が続く。
   
Numerous questions have been raised over the huge damage caused by the tragedy, such as why the lives of more than 70 people were lost, why the local authorities were slow to issue an evacuation advisory and why little progress had been made before the disaster in designating vulnerable areas as caution zones under the Act on Promotion of Sediment Disaster Countermeasures for Sediment Disaster Prone Areas.
　なぜ７０人を超える命が失われたのか。行政側の避難勧告の遅れや、土砂災害防止法に基づく警戒区域の指定が後手に回ったことなど、被害が拡大した要因が徐々に明らかになりつつある。

It is indispensable for both the national and local governments to assess their responses to the disaster in detail.
行政の対応のきめ細かな検証が今後、不可欠だ。

There are people who were killed by the disaster and those who survived even though they were in the same areas. It is also important to analyze the behavior of the disaster victims and survivors to ascertain the difference between life and death.
　一方、同じ現場にいながら助かった人と犠牲になった人がいる。生死を分けた要因は何か。被災者の行動を分析することも重要だ。

Sept. 1 has been designated by the central government as National Disaster Prevention Day. We must learn lessons from the Hiroshima mudslides and put them to good use as countermeasures against future disasters.
　きょうは「防災の日」だ。広島の災害から教訓をくみ取り、今後の防災対策に生かさねばならない。

　◇宅地開発規制の議論を

Apart from mudslides there have been other serious water-related disasters such as floods and rivers overflowing in recent years. It is still fresh in people's memory that a powerful typhoon brought record rain to Izu Oshima Island south of Tokyo in October 2013, triggering large-scale mudslides and leaving 39 people dead or missing. Torrential rain that hit the Kii Peninsula in September 2011 -- half a year after the Great East Japan Earthquake -- also killed nearly 100 people.
　土砂災害に限らず、浸水害や河川の氾濫を含めた水害が近年、猛威を振るう。昨年１０月、台風２６号により東京都大島町で記録的な大雨が降り、土石流による死者・行方不明者が３９人に上ったのは記憶に新しい。東日本大震災が起きた２０１１年９月の紀伊半島豪雨の犠牲者も１００人近くに上った。

The annual amount of rainfall throughout the Japanese archipelago, situated in a rainy region, surpasses 1,700 millimeters on average, nearly twice the world average. Moreover, rainfall is concentrated in the rainy season from June to mid-July and in periods when the archipelago is hit frequently by typhoons.
　多雨地帯に位置する日本の年平均降水量は１７００ミリを超え、世界平均の約２倍に上る。梅雨や台風の時期に雨が集中するのも特徴だ。

Rain not only brings essential water but also causes disasters. In recent years, localized torrential rain often dubbed as "guerrilla downpours," and large typhoons have hit Japan. Many areas in the rest of the world have been hit by floods triggered by large-scale hurricanes. Some experts have warned that the number of floods will increase because of the effects of global warming. It should be kept in mind that people across the world face growing risks of floods.
　雨は恵みをもたらすが、災害も引き起こす。しかも近年、ゲリラ豪雨と呼ばれる局地的な大雨や台風の大型化が目立つ。世界的にも大型ハリケーンなどによる水害が多発している。地球温暖化で洪水が今後増加するとの指摘もある。水害の危険はますます高まるとみるべきだ。

In implementing countermeasures against floods, particular attention should be focused on efforts to deal with urbanization, or population concentration in small areas.
　水害対策に当たってまず念頭に置くべきは、狭い地域に人口が密集する都市化への対応だ。

The Hiroshima mudslides are the consequence of a housing development that began in the central part of the city reaching areas just at the foot of a mountainous region. Housing developments have been conducted in a similar way in numerous areas throughout the archipelago. In Tokyo and ordinance-designated major cities alone, there are 28,000 areas prone to mudslides.
　広島の土砂災害は、都市部の宅地開発が山の近くにまで広がった結果として起きた。同じように宅地開発を進めた地域は全国いたるところにある。政令市と東京都だけで、土砂災害の恐れのある危険箇所は２万８０００カ所を超える。

On the other hand, little progress has been made in efforts to restrict housing developments in such disaster-prone areas. There is a wide gap between areas in the degree of progress in designating areas prone to mudslides as caution zones. Little progress in such efforts has been made in not only Hiroshima but also other urban cities such as Sapporo, Sendai and Nagoya. Keiji Furuya, state minister for disaster prevention, has suggested that the government intends to seek revisions to the Act on Promotion of Sediment Disaster Countermeasures for Sediment Disaster Prone Areas to make it easier for prefectural governors to designate disaster-prone areas as caution zones at their own discretion.
　一方で、危険な場所での宅地開発規制は、なかなか進まない。土砂災害警戒区域の指定は政令市によって差があり、広島市以外も札幌、仙台、名古屋各市の低さが目立つ。古屋圭司防災担当相は、都道府県知事が区域指定をしやすくなるよう土砂災害防止法を改正する意向を示した。

However, making it easier to make such designations alone is insufficient. The Diet should hold in-depth debate on how to prevent people from moving into mudslide-prone areas and whether to consider relocating those living in areas vulnerable to such disasters, among other points of contention.
　指定をしやすくするだけでは十分でない。危険な場所に新たに人が移り住まないようにする手立てはどうするのか。真に危険な場所からは、住居の移転も検討すべきではないのか。さまざまな論点について、国会で議論を尽くしてほしい。

About 70 percent of the Japanese archipelago consists of mountains, while the remainder is hills and low-lying areas. About half of Japan's total population is concentrated in urban areas and other regions that face high risks of floods.
　日本の国土の約７割は山地で、残りが台地や低地だ。都市部を中心に洪水の可能性がある場所に人口の５０％が集中している。

In 2010, a panel of experts on countermeasures against large-scale floods within the government's Central Disaster Management Council released a report under the radical title, "Floods in the metropolitan area -- measures that should be taken to lessen damage."
　中央防災会議の「大規模水害対策に関する専門調査会」が１０年、報告書を公表した。副題は「首都圏水没〜被害軽減のために取るべき対策とは〜」と刺激的である。

In the worst-case scenario incorporated in the report, up to 6,300 people would die if the Tone River were to overflow and up to 3,500 people would lose their lives if the Arakawa River were to flood. In case a massive amount of water flows into underground spaces such as subway tunnels, the scale of floods would rapidly expand. Such floods would deal a serious blow to politics and the economy, just like a powerful earthquake occurring right below the Tokyo metropolitan area.
　大雨によって利根川が氾濫した場合、最悪で６３００人、荒川で３５００人の死者が出る想定だ。地下鉄など地下に張り巡らされた空間に水が流れ込めば、短時間で浸水が拡大する。首都直下地震が襲った時と同様、政治や経済への影響も甚大だ。

The Kansai and Nagoya regions face high risks of floods as their population is concentrated in areas at ground level and many typhoons pass these regions.
　首都圏に限らない。関西や名古屋地区も海抜ゼロメートル地帯に人口が集中し、台風の通り道でもあるため、極めて水害の危険が高い。

　◇都市の水害危機は深刻

It goes without saying that it is important to step up flood-control measures, but the central and local governments must work closely to utilize land with the risk of floods in mind and consider how to reside in areas vulnerable to floods.
　治水対策の強化はもちろんだが、水害を想定した土地利用、さらには住まい方の工夫を政府、自治体一丸となって進めなければならない。

Although the accuracy of meteorological observations has been improving, it is still difficult to precisely and quickly predict localized torrential rain that lasts for only a short period of time. Such being the case, local government responses, such as issuing evacuation advisories, are called into question whenever a serious disaster occurs.
　気象観測の精度は上がっているが、局地的な短時間の大雨を的確かつタイムリーに予測するのは難しい。住民に避難を呼びかける行政対応が災害のたびに問題化する。

The Hiroshima Municipal Government has admitted that it was slow to issue an evacuation advisory at the time of the mudslides. The Cabinet Office has set guidelines that require local bodies to promptly issue evacuation advisories or orders without fear of being criticized for overreacting to disasters. However, many residents choose to stay home despite evacuation advisories and officials at local governments appear to often hesitate to issue such recommendations.
　広島の土砂災害でも、広島市が避難勧告の遅れを認めた。内閣府が、「空振り」を恐れずに勧告を出すよう指針を示したが、勧告を出しても住民が避難しない場合が多く、現場の判断も迷うことが多いようだ。

Regardless, local governments must not hesitate to call on residents to flee their homes if there is imminent danger. Therefore, the national and local governments should clarify the criteria for issuing such advisories by learning lessons from past disasters and by improving their practical measures to respond to disasters.
　それでも危険が迫れば、ためらわず避難を呼びかけるのが大前提だ。数々の災害の教訓を生かした発令基準の明確化など、行政は防災実務の一層の改善に取り組むべきだ。

At the same time, citizens should raise their awareness of the need to be prepared for serious natural disasters. In a column he wrote for the Japan Meteorological Agency's annual report for fiscal 2012, Gunma University professor Toshitaka Katada pointed out that citizens have failed to take proactive action to fully utilize information on natural disasters to protect their own lives.
"It is not necessarily true that improvement in the accuracy of disaster information directly leads to the enhancement of disaster countermeasures," he wrote.
　同時に住民の意識改革もまた必要である。群馬大学大学院の片田敏孝教授は、気象庁が刊行する「気象業務はいま」（１２年版）のコラムで「災害情報の高度化が防災の向上に直結するのかと言えば必ずしもそうではない」と述べ、住民が災害情報を生かさず、自分の命を守ることへの主体性が欠落していると指摘した。

The phrase "normalcy bias" refers to the psychological tendency to underestimate the imminent danger people face even if they obtain information on the danger they actually face. Experts have pointed out that victims of tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake showed this mental state.
　「正常化の偏見」という言葉がある。危険が迫っていることを知らせる情報を得ても、自分の身にそんな事態が差し迫っていると考えない心理傾向を指す。東日本大震災の津波被害でも報告された。

Instead of simply relying on government organizations, all citizens should have enough knowledge of the areas they live in, and choose a location where they would take shelter or a location within their home where they would seek cover in case of a serious disaster.
　行政頼りでなく住んでいる地域を自ら知り、避難場所や屋内の逃げ場所を決めておきたい。

If they face an imminent disaster, people should proactively gather information to pay close attention to any warning signs.
いざ災害の可能性が現実化した場合は、情報を収集し、災害の前兆にも気を配る必要がある。

People have nobody but themselves to rely on to protect their own lives.
命を守る最後のとりでは自分自身だ。

Of course, regional communities as a whole must help the elderly and other residents who are vulnerable to disasters. もちろん、高齢者など災害弱者は、地域全体で助けねばならない。

With this fully in mind, all citizens should enhance their preparedness for powerful earthquakes, tsunami, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters.
そうした姿勢で、地震や津波、火山の噴火などあらゆる自然災害への防災力を高めよう。

毎日新聞　2014年09月01日　02時30分