Tsunami Deaths Project
By Dr Hideyuki Shiroshita
New Hama’s Junior Champions have been influenced by their senior champions’ work—shooting films for tsunami disaster risk reduction. This year, 50 new Junior Champions, who are 5th-grade pupils of Hama Elementary School in Izumiotsu, Osaka Prefecture, joined the Avoidable Deaths Network and have been making short videos to spread the message about the importance of disaster risk reduction (DRR). This academic year, the Junior Champions were divided into 13 groups, with each group developing a short movie to raise residents’ awareness of tsunami risks and to inform them about evacuation and preparation, particularly emphasising the importance of immediate evacuation from tsunamis.
The city of Izumiotsu faced two significantly different damage estimations prepared by the Osaka Prefectural Government. One estimation predicted over 2,000 casualties due to the future Nankai earthquake tsunami, while the other assessed that no one would die. The difference between these estimations was based on the residents’ level of awareness of tsunami evacuation strategies. If residents were aware of the risk and evacuated immediately after an earthquake, no one would be swept away. However, if awareness levels were low—with the assumption that only 20% of people would evacuate immediately after an earthquake—more than 2,000 lives could be lost.
The successive Junior Champions of Hama Elementary School have been striving to raise evacuation awareness through various types of media they have developed since 2013. These include DRR films, newspapers, Tsunami Augmented Reality, Projection Mapping, and more. This year’s Junior Champions continued the tradition. They began their project in July 2024 by learning how to achieve the ideal outcome of zero tsunami casualties in the future. This involved identifying vulnerable people in the city and understanding how to assist them through short movies. A series of lectures were delivered by students from Dr Hideyuki Shiroshita’s laboratory.
From September, the Champions began producing their short movies. These included a film guiding residents on how to evacuate to safer zones in multiple languages, a movie explaining how to prepare an emergency go-bag, and another introducing the stockpiles at evacuation shelters. By December, they had finished editing their short movies. They plan to present these movies to their parents and guardians from December 16th. Following this internal presentation, they aim to upload their short movies to a video streaming site.
In addition to making short movies, they initiated a project called “Happy Smile Izumiotsu” this year. This project utilizes the city’s community wireless announcement system that usually broadcasts disaster management information, such as warnings and evacuation orders. During a DRR drill organised by the city office in November 2024, a test of the announcement system revealed that some wireless speakers were not functioning properly. The head of DRR in Izumiotsu recognised the need for regular tests of the announcement system. However, he felt that tests conducted solely by the public office might not attract much attention, potentially leading to a situation where no one cares whether they hear the test announcement or not. He got an inspiration that announcements made by children might draw more attention. As a result, he approached Dr Shiroshita to collaborate with the Junior Champions at Hama Elementary School. The Champions were enthusiastic about participating and decided to name the project “Happy Smile Izumiotsu.”
On December 13th, four Junior Champions visited the city hall to record announcements for Happy Smile Izumiotsu. These messages will air on both January 10th and January 17th, 2025. As January 17th, 2025, marks the 30th anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the messages focus on earthquake DRR. The messages also focus on tsunami DRR, which the Champions have been studying.
Japan’s Junior Champions are delivering critical information to the public and collaborating with DRR experts to reduce avoidable deaths from earthquakes and tsunamis.