Gov't to lift evacuation order on Fukushima town on Sept 5 Naraha's 7,400 citizens will be the first evacuees to be able to return home permanently among seven municipalities where the entire population was ordered to leave. However, evacuees have mixed feelings about going back to their hometown due to concerns over radiation and lack of medical care, and it was not clear how many of them would return. "There are no shops. There are no doctors. I don't know what to do," a woman told local media on Tuesday. In April, the government started to allow Naraha evacuees to return home for three-month stays to prepare for permanent return.
Japan:
Mount Fuji climbers urged to protect themselves against volcanic eruption The Yamanashi prefectural government placed 1,500 sets of helmets, goggles and dust-proof masks on the fifth station of the Fuji Subaruline toll road. The Fujiyoshida city government also prepared 1,000 of the sets in mountain lodges.
USA:
Major midwest flood risk underestimated by as much as five feet, study finds As floodwaters surge along major rivers in the midwestern United States, a new study from Washington University in St. Louis suggests federal agencies are underestimating historic 100-year flood levels on these rivers by as much as five feet, a miscalculation that has serious implications for future flood risks, flood insurance and business development in an expanding floodplain.
Researchers find reasons behind increases in urban flooding (USA)
The Really Big One When the next full-margin rupture happens, that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America.FEMAprojects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million. We now know that the odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three. The odds of the very big one are roughly one in ten.
In Oregon, it has been illegal since 1995 to build hospitals, schools, firehouses, and police stations in the inundation zone, but those which are already in it can stay, and any other new construction is permissible: energy facilities, hotels, retirement homes. In those cases, builders are required only to consult withDOGAMIabout evacuation plans. “So you come in and sit down,” Ian Madin says. “And I say, ‘That’s a stupid idea.’ And you say, ‘Thanks. Now we’ve consulted.’ ”
Twenty-two per cent of Oregon’s coastal population is sixty-five or older. Twenty-nine per cent of the state’s population is disabled, and that figure rises in many coastal counties. “We can’t save them,” Kevin Cupples says. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it and say, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll go around and check on the elderly.’ No. We won’t.” Nor will anyone save the tourists. Washington State Park properties within the inundation zone see an average of seventeen thousand and twenty-nine guests a day. Madin estimates that up to a hundred and fifty thousand people visit Oregon’s beaches on summer weekends. “Most of them won’t have a clue as to how to evacuate,” he says. “And the beaches are the hardest place to evacuate from.”
Whoever chooses or has no choice but to stay there will spend three to six months without electricity, one to three years without drinking water and sewage systems, and three or more years without hospitals. Those estimates do not apply to the tsunami-inundation zone, which will remain all but uninhabitable for years.
Dutch F-16 inspects river levees for sand boilsIt was not the first time for a Dutch regional water board to call in an reconnaissance F-16. In 2011 and 2012 F-16s took infra-red images of levees too, but that were all emergency situations when levees were about to fail.
Other:
Research will help inform pre-flood planning (UK)
GNDR SWOT analysis of Sendai Framework for DRR
Climate change reduces coral reefs' ability to protect coasts
Predicting the shape of river deltas
Vulnerable people:
LGBT People Ask for Lawyers' Support for Same-Sex Marriage in Japan A total of 455 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people petitioned the Japan Federation of Bar Associations on Tuesday to urge the government and lawmakers to legalize same-sex marriage. The LGBT people, including two living abroad and 142 same-sex couples, argue that it is unconstitutional and an abuse of human rights that same-sex marriages are not legally recognized in Japan.
