ABSTRACT
Through her long history of confronting natural disasters, Japan has chronicled the experiences of disasters, devised measures to reduce disasters, and nurtured a culture of prevention. In the past 70 years, Japan has experienced three epochmaking disasters. Each of them imparted valuable lessons. The rst was a typhoon, the second an urban earthquake, and the third a gigantic tsunami generated by a tectonic earthquake. After each event, a thorough investigation of the causes of the catastrophic damage was conducted and recorded, and countermeasures, including augmented organizational arrangements, were developed. Lessons were learned not only from these gigantic disasters but every disaster, regardless of size, provided lessons on how to cultivate societal preparedness against disasters. The process of implementing these learnings has evolved into constant “Kaizen” (improvement), perpetual enlargement of participation and the unremitting expansion of the scope of disaster reduction activities. These experiences have been shared with the international community under the auspices of the United Nations through the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) and the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) activities. The culture of prevention has been shared with a number of countries and has contributed to disaster reduction activities in these countries.
