I would like to express our heartfelt sympathy to the people who have been impacted by the earthquake that struck off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture on March 16. The Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution (DRI) decided to dispatch the on-site disaster assistance team the day after the quake, and as the first dispatch team, I visited municipalities affected by the earthquake in Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures together with Vice Director Goto and Chief Researcher Takahara.
The earthquake caused strong lateral shaking, and there were many cases of water outages, falling roof tiles, collapsed block walls, and broken windows. The report on the activities of the dispatch team is available on the website:
https://www.dri.ne.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/research_reports_051.pdf
Also, my colleague Chief Researcher Kisaku will be leaving DRI in April. We wish her success in her new research base, and that we can continue our collaborative work.
