Thais Get Help From Creattive Japanese Group That Prepares For Disaster

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Ready for the worst

KORNCHANOK RAKSASERI

THE NATION

After the deluge, Thais get help from a creative Japanese group that prepares for disaster

Japan - which unfortunate circumstances have made the world leader in disaster preparedness - is going to show Thais how "arts and ideas" can keep them ready in case catastrophe strikes here.

A non-profit organisation called Plus Arts routinely draws 500 people to its emergency drills in Japan, and that's due in large part because the events are often a lot of fun.

"We had nearly 5,000 people at one of our drills," Plus Arts president Hirokazu Nagata told The Nation last week.

"We've had about 100 events over the past seven years, in which a total of 200,000 people have participated."

Nagata is in charge of the group's Earthquake Itsumo project, which reminds citizens to be prepared at all times.

Itsumo means "always".

Among its popular activities is a roundup of children's games called "Iza! Kaeru Caravan!" Iza means "emergency" and kaeru is "frog" but also sounds like the word for "exchange". So, with a frog mascot to guide them, the kids exchange toys and play games to earn points toward nice prizes. The green frog dolls in the games - which weigh as much as a human - represent earthquake victims who the children have to rescue from under a pile of catfish dolls. The catfish symbolises earthquakes to the Japanese, and here it represents fallen furniture in a mound of debris.

The children learn how to remove the dangerously stacked catfish safely, especially if there's a frog buried underneath.

Kids are also taught how to arrange and secure furnishings and other items in a room so they're not tossed around in a quake.

Masashi Sogabe and his fellow architects came up with a shelter competition in which people see if they can survive for two or three days after a quake using only what's available at hand.

Ayumi Takita, head of the Arts and Culture Department at the Japan Foundation in Bangkok, is helping to prepare an Earthquake Itsumo Project Exhibition that will go on view at the Thailand Creative and Design Centre (TCDC) in August.

"The Japan Foundation has worked with many Thai groups, including the TCDC, academics and architects, for over a year on this Plus Arts exhibition," Takita says.

"The flooding that began around June last year in Thailand prompted many agencies to initiate helpful activities.

Events like workshops and studies are also being planned."

Among the clever ideas circulating that could well save lives in a disaster, department stores might print maps of the building or the area on the back of sales receipts or on shopping bags. There's a cuddly Spring Bear toy that will both reassure distressed children and keep a bottle of water inside it.

Sheets made of multicoloured vinyl have multiple uses - such as sleeping mats and carry bags - and are also easily spotted by rescuers.

The sakasa is an umbrella specifically designed to be used upside down - it collects and stores rainwater and funnels it into an attached bottle.

A Boo-Boo Charger is a toy car that recharges its battery just by being moved around, so it's great as both a distracting toy for kids and a mobile-phone charger. And there's a "battery coin" to keep cell-phones powered up, too.

Apart from such notions, Plus Arts in Japan also brought together 167 disaster survivors to share their story with the sympathetic and worried public.

These citizens had come through the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, the worst of any that has struck the country in modern times. Better known to the world as the Kobe quake, it claimed more than 6,000 lives and left 300,000 people homeless. These victims were able to explain what happened in the aftermath and what was needed to survive.

One result of that gathering was a handbook titled "Earthquake Itsumo Notes", complete with illustrations to help attract readers. It explains how to stay informed when the telephone lines are severed, how to make bowls and eating utensils from folded paper coated with plastic, and much more.

After what happened in Thailand in recent months, the Earthquake Itsumo project is being adapted to address flooding rather than tremors. Many of the lessons learned in Japan still apply, of course, and, just as importantly, the aim is still to stimulate more creative thinking here about how to cope in a calamity.

Thais and Japanese seem to share an attitude about natural disasters, says architect Sogabe: We're overly optimistic about the chances of them occurring. There's a key difference between our countries, though: Earthquakes usually strike without warning, instantaneously, whereas Thailand's floods are usually predictable and, in most cases, advance at a slow enough pace that people can get out of the way.

But it only takes about three months for people to virtually forget that a catastrophe has happened, he says. "Three months is long enough to make people less aware again and revive their optimism about the possibility of further danger. They start thinking again, 'It might not happen.'"

When it comes to natural disasters, though, "might not" isn't one of the possibilities.

-- The Nation 2012-01-24

[Stevenredd]

Wow. The mind reels....I mean.

What to say?

Blind leading the blind? or just plain old human hubris?

[newermonkey]

That extinguisher looks pathetic, I am sure the boy could pee on a fire better than that!

...And why not let the kids play with CO2 its much more fun!

....... And, thats great when the next big earthquake hits Bangkok everyone will know what to do!

........... And when Thailand gets a nuclear power plant that then gets crippled by a giant tsunami we will copy the Japanese response - panic and lie to the public that its all under control "when it was going into uncontrollable meltdown"

Who's kidding who here?

Edited January 25, 2012 by newermonkey