Study on the Evacuation Behaviors of Elderly Residents in Rural Communities During the Great East Japan Earthquake in Relation to the Built Environment
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: Many elderly people were killed by Tsunami during Great East Japan Earthquake in Akahama, Otsuchi town, Iwate prefecture. The purpose of this paper is to describe the evacuation behaviors by interviews with residents in Akahama which is along the rias Coast and clarify how the built environment influence on the evacuation behaviors of the elderly. It is found that 1) geographical features such as nearness of a rising ground, sloping road to the sea and a narrow plain land are good for evacuation, 2) the town's background such as past tsunami, seawall construction and elementary school which has never been damaged in a few hundred years influence on evacuation behaviors and 3) family network and local community led to an influence on a turning point of an evacuation behavior, but there were younger people who tried to help the elderly and damaged or killed.
DOI: 10.3130/aija.79.1593
Authors: Kosuke KAMBARA, Aya KUBOTA, Takefumi KUROSE, Takuya HAGIWARA, Kaori FUKUSHI, Akiko TANAKA
Language: English
Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1564053926