China Seismic Building Course will begin on 7 June and will be held for two months in Tsukuba, Japan. This is the third training course held by BRI and JICA as a part of 2008 Sichuan Earthquake Reconstruction project. 15 participants from all Chinese regions will join and also visit Tohoku region
to observe 11 March 2011 disaster.

Hajime KUROSAWA
Head of Administration Division, IISEE

On 13 April 2011, participants of IISEE visited Itako City, Ibaraki prefecture to observe the damages on buildings and infrastructures caused by liquefaction due to 11 March earthquake (the Great East Japan Earthquake). They obtained information from the local government about the background and prepared respective report on the damages. In addition, participants of the Tsunami course will visit the Tohoku region in July and other courses will also visit Tohoku before finishing the training courses in September.

Hajime KUROSAWA

Head of Administration Division, IISEE

We, IISEE Bulletin Editorial Board, are pleased to inform you that we are conducting the special articles in the issues from 2010, the 50^th anniversary of International Training in Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, to 2012, the 50th year of founding of IISEE. Submissions of articles for the bulletins of 2011 would be greatly appreciated. Please contribute to your articles and let the world know your activities. The quantity of an article is expected 8 pages at maximum. We are planning
to have two sections for special articles; the one is for original research papers and the other is for reviews and reports on topics in a broad range. Articles submitted to the former section are subject to peer review.

See more detail at (http://iisee.kenken.go.jp/docs/call_for_bulletin.pdf)

Toshiaki YOKOI
Chief Research Scientist, IISEE

From 9 to 13 May 2011, United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) held the 3rd Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) in Geneva and IISEE joined the building code session to make presentations on the retrofit system in Japan and the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster. The building code session was held by UNESCO.
(http://www.preventionweb.net/globalplatform/2011/ )

IISEE is cooperating with UNESCO under the International Platform for Reducing Earthquake Disaster (IPRED) and members of IPRED will meet and discuss on future activity plans in July 2011.
(http://www.ipred-iisee.org/database/index.html )

Shoichi ANDO
Director, IISEE

(BRI)
http://iisee.kenken.go.jp/special2/20110311tohoku.htm
http://www.kenken.go.jp/japanese/contents/topics/20110311/0311quickreport.html (Jap)

(Maps)
http://www.gsi.go.jp/kikaku/kikaku60003.html (Jap)
http://danso.env.nagoya-u.ac.jp/20110311/map/index_e.html

(Aerial Photo)
http://zgate.gsi.go.jp/SaigaiShuyaku/20110520/index2.htm (Jap)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm
http://www.disasterscharter.org/web/charter/activation_details?p_r_p_1415474252_assetId=ACT-359

(Academic Data)
http://bousai.env.nagoya-u.ac.jp/wiki/saigai/index.php?The%202011%20off%20the%20Pacific%20coast%20of%20Tohoku%20Earthquake

Shoichi ANDO
Director, IISEE