IISEE, UNESCO and National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) held an international memorial symposium titled "Protecting Lives from Earthquake and Tsunami Disasters" at the hall of GRIPS on June 27, Wed.150 participants including around 40 persons from abroad joined and listened to speeches from the world top experts to seek the way to protect lives from earthquake / tsunami disasters through international cooperation. This event was a memorial one for "International training in seismology and earthquake engineering" initiated by UNESCO, 50 years ago. Memorial document (Japanese) and CD (English & Japanese) were distributed at the symposium. Presentations and record will be opened through the IISEE web-site in the near future.

Shoichi ANDO
Director, IISEE

1. The International Memorial Symposium was great, not only for us but for all the people involved and concerned about human lives. Symposium like this help create camaraderie between various countries representative and give large opportunity for sharing each and every one’s experiences in Disasters and their Rehabilitation programs. Through sharing of experiences we can learn so many things and I’m sure this experience can help to lessen casualties from a disaster.
(Philippines, E)

2. The symposium is very good for sharing experiences in dealing with the earthquake and tsunami in each country. (Indonesia, T)

3. The symposium was very good because I believe that protecting life against a natural disaster comes first in our area of work. Very good preparation and logistics of the staff members and especially to know the institutions that can support us in these cases is also very important. I hope in the not too distant to be to integrate part of this kind of projects for my country. On the other hand, the party was a unique experience where we could share professional and personal points of views with colleagues from different areas and make new professional contacts. I really enjoyed, especially to share with students and teachers without being subject to the work area. (Dominican Republic, S)

4. The symposium was held successfully for promoting the platform of international cooperation in reducing earthquake disaster. Through attending this symposium, we know BRI, IISEE and GRIPS have being engaging in such works and already done a lot. Also the memorial party is very perfect for providing a good opportunity to chat with each other and enhance the friendship. (China, E)

5. From this symposium, I know how UNESCO works and helps to mitigate natural disasters in developing countries. I also know how Japanese government and its people contribute to UNESCO to implement the tasks of today disasters risk reduction which are mostly needed in developing countries. One of my interesting topic for this symposium is " Structural Design Requirement on the Tsunami Evacuation Buildings," by Dr. Hiroshi FUKUYAMA from BRI. From his speech, I can understand that it is very important for building to resist the overturning and buoyancy force by tsunami. He also suggested to consider this important buoyancy force in future designs to resist tsunami by applying stronger pile foundation. He also suggested to build the buildings about 500m away from shore line based upon many experiments and analysis. In the evening, we had a very nice party in which we can see many former staff members of BRI and also speakers from different countries most of who are actively involved in disaster reductions in their own countries. I thank JICA, BRI and GRIPS for offering us this great opportunity to attend this symposium. (Myanmar, E)

6, In the International Memorial Symposium, detailed observation of the efforts in struggling disasters worldwide has been presented. From the experiences of relevant presenters, it has been concluded that the loss of human lives and major economical loss due to disasters, triggered by natural phenomena (hazards) has been increasing over the last decade. The main point of the Symposium was to stress the fact that the increased losses are not result of increased hazard, but of increased vulnerability of the social communities. Similar symposiums should be organized in all hazard prone countries in order to put attention to the authorities and community members to struggle in reducing their rapidly increasing vulnerability. It is the only issue that
human factor can influence. (Macedonia, E)

IISEE

IISEE has held Ex-staff members party every five years so far. At the opportunity to hold an international memorial symposium, IISEE held an Ex-staffs party this time at the next room of above-mentioned symposium, after the event with around 60 participants. Dr. Okamoto, ex-Director of IISEE (BRI ex-President), Dr. Kitagawa and Dr. Tanahashi and Dr. Ishiyama who were leader of the JICA Peru CISMID project also joined the party.

Hajime KUROSAWA
Head of Administration Division, IISEE

Buildings suffered damage from a tornado which occurred around 12:35 PM on May 6, 2012 centered in Hojo area, Osuna area and Tsukuba North Industrial Park in Tsukuba city, Ibaraki prefecture. The following site illustrates outline of damage to buildings and others through the field investigation.
http://www.kenken.go.jp/english/contents/activities/other/pdf/120522tornado_quick_report_eng_final.pdf

IISEE