Heavy rain in the Tokai area

During the two days from September 11th to12th, 2000, there was an astounding heavy rain in Aichi prefecture. This was an emergency and the Nagoya city municipal government announced an excavation order. The precipitation during the heavy rain in Nagoya was up to 567 ml. Consider that the annual amount of rainfall in Nagoya was 1535 ml, 1/3 of that precipitation rained during these 2 days. About 40% of Nagoya city was flooded. At 3 points, the embankments were destroyed and supposedly 380,000 refugees had to excavate to 197 shelters. The disaster wastes mounted to 3,300 tons from Nagoya city only.

To take measures to this heavy rain, Nagoya city set up the disaster measures information headquarters at once. After the flood, even though Nagoya city carried out the prevention measures such as levee raisings of the embankments and digging of the riverbed, it is not sure whether these measures were effective and useful. In the end, we had no choice but to protect ourselves and help each other. Also, it is important to learn from the past disasters of the community and pass down the experiences from those disasters for posterity.

-Student's impressions-

I saw the horrible scenes of the heavy rain in Nagoya on TV. Even in such a horrible disaster, many rescuers and fire department staff were brave to work against the rain and protect us. Thanks to many people who are involved in disaster prevention, we can live safely.