Landslide Brought Them Down

Severe weather caused a great landslide in a small island in central Japan, which took twenty-five lives and left twenty-one still missed. Typhoon No. 26, swept away southern coast of Japan between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. In Izu-Oshima, an island located offshore of Izu Peninsula, extremely heavy rain drew great landslide of hills, swallowing up a number of houses below. Although police office warned the local government to get the residents evacuated, no suggestion was made, for their regrets.

Main reason of the disaster was that land surface of the hill was covered by volcano ashes accumulated for years. Unprecedentedly heavy rain washed those ashes and they made a great amount of muddy stream to the town area. Because of its liquidity, the stream flooded so rapidly that people in the houses did not have enough time to evacuate early in the morning.

Disastrous impact of the typhoon could be said to be predictable. Japan Meteorological Agency had been reporting the magnitude and likely course of it a few days before. The municipal office of Oshima Town actually held a meeting by policemen, fire department officers and other staffs of public offices to consider the measures for the typhoon Tuesday morning, in which they agreed on assembling on two o’clock next morning, if needed. But, they could not save the residents from the landslide.

Absence of the Mayor and vice-Mayor on the island led to hesitance of the local government to take immediate action. Although the JMA faxed warning information about landslide disaster Tuesday evening, no one noticed it in the municipal office. Additionally, based on the information of river flood, Oshima police office recommended the municipal office to evacuate the residents for two times in the morning, but the staffs took no action. Critical time for decision was in the middle of the night. The mayor told that evacuation in the darkness might have been dangerous.

They saw astonishing scene next morning. The town turned into mire with broken trees in it. Hearing groans underground, rescue team salvaged some people from the mud, leaving others helplessly resulted to their deaths. The amount of the mud was so huge that the efforts for searching survivors were making slow progress.

Although news reports accused local government not to take appropriate action in the emergency, it was not easy for the staffs to correctly assess the magnitude of disaster. Families of victims came back in town is just looking for the reflections of their beloved, which was brought down by the landslide.