The 2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes Landslide Disasters and Response

Abstract

The unprecedented earthquakes with a seismic intensity of seven hit Kumamoto prefecture twice in April 2016, and a series of earthquakes (the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes) triggered sediment disasters including slope failure and landslides, which caused serious damage to various areas in the prefecture. Notably, huge slope failures (Photo 1) occurred in Tateno district in Minamiaso-village, National Route 57, and National Route 325 were closed due to the collapse of Aso Ohashi Bridge, and JR Hohi Line, railroad line which was running along the area, was completely cut off. Aso, the popular tourist resort in Japan suffered a great deal of damage. After the earthquake, people in Kumamoto were thankful and realized many aspects of everyday life that people had taken for granted were precious, and the amount of effort to return to the pre-earthquake situation. This paper focuses on an outline of sediment disasters, among the many other disasters triggered by the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes, and how Kumamoto Prefecture coped with them. 2. OUTLINE OF THE EARTHQUAKE

Classification of topography for ground vulnerability assessment of alluvial plains and mountains of Japan using 30 m DEM

“…Sediments from these mountains are deposited in plains, forming alluvial fans and plains. Japan is regularly impacted by natural disasters such as frequent earthquakes and typhoons (e.g., Mid Niigata Prefecture Earthquake in 2004 (Sato et al 2005), the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake (often called Eastern Japan Great Earthquake or Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami) (Okada et al 2011), landslides caused by the heavy rainfalls in Hiroshima City in August 2014 (Wang et al 2015), the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake (Matsunaga et al 2019), and Matsunaga et al 2019 Typhoon Hagibis (NHK WORLD-JAPAN 2019)). In these disasters, various ground disasters such as landslides, liquefaction, and flooding occurred.…”

Development of a drone‐borne electromagnetic survey system for searching for buried vehicles and soil resistivity mapping

“…Immediately after the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake (e.g., Matsunaga et al, 2019) and the 2004 Niigata Prefecture Chuetsu Earthquake (e.g., Sidle et al, 2005) in Japan, immediate responses to rescue people who had been trapped inside vehicles after being buried by landslides were urgently required. However, accessing the affected areas was extremely difficult and dangerous, and searches for vehicles were severely restricted.…”