Tsunami evacuation: Lessons from the Great East Japan earthquake ...

2012
black icon used, but this symbol not seen in any other districts, which appear to only use the
green evacuation symbols. Both the green and yellow symbols have been accepted as ISO
international standards after being proposed by Japan. However, both New Zealand and
Washington use a blue sign style very similar to each other, which is common in other
countries. All signs discussed above have bilingual text for at least the basic information,
enhancing understanding further than recognition of the tsunami symbol for people with little
understanding of Japanese text.
A muster point for use in evacuation of children was seen in Hitachihamacho, Miyako City
(Figure 26, Figure 27). This sign is located on the wall of a house on the road at the base of
a hill. The owner of the house told us that children are instructed to gather at this sign and
evacuate up the hill together.
Figure 24 A sign in the centre of Matsushima Town, advising evacuation on experiencing an
earthquake.
Figure 25 A sign indicating tsunami hazard, on a road out of Kamaishi City. Translation reads:
“Tsunami Attention! Tsunami inundation hazard zone”.
Figure 26 Tsunami evacuation muster point for children in Hitachihamacho, Miyako City.
Figure 27 Close-up view of tsunami evacuation muster point for children in Hitachihamacho,
Miyako City. Translation reads: “Tsunami shelter (Kuwagasaki elementary school)”.
Signs or plaques marking inundation depth in previous tsunami were seen in Minami-Sanriku
(Figure 28 and Figure 29) and Ōfunato City (Figure 30). These markers do not indicate
maximum inundation extent in the 1960 Chile event; rather indicate depth at a particular
location. The marker in Figure 28 indicates the tsunami inundation depth was 2.4 m at this
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