Escape It!

Here is a common saying. To urge passengers on a sinking ship to dive into the sea, captain would say “Dive, gentlemen” to the British, “You can be a hero” to the Americans, “You may find girl friend there” to the Italian, and “Everyone does it” to the Japanese. How would he say to the Koreans?

It is not joking for the families of passengers on a ship sinking off the west coast of South Korea on Wednesday. By Thursday morning, 6 deaths and 277 missing and 179 rescued out of 462 passengers were confirmed. There is a report that the captain told passengers to stay in the cabin. He is suspected not to have acknowledged the situation of his ship. The majority of them were high school students. While the United States decided to send an amphibious assault ship to help efforts by marine police and military of South Korea, there is no news for Japanese government to take any action to cooperate with South Korea, with which diplomatic relationship has been seriously deteriorated.

It must have been a difficult decision to escape the ship. Temperature of the seawater around the ship was significantly cold, not allowing passengers surviving a long time. Tide stream was so fast and strong that rescue team could not reach the ship easily. However, many TV watchers might have a question why all the life rafts are firmly tied to the gunwale.

Off the coast of Izu Peninsula, Japan, on Wednesday, Izu Oshima memorized one half anniversary of heavy landside killing 39 people there last fall. The mayor told to an interview that he regretted not to have ordered evacuation at that time. Because of dark and rainy midnight, he hesitated to let those people get out of their homes. Consequently, victims were in the house when landslide occurred.

Meanwhile in Tokyo, Town Mayor of Minami-Sanriku, Jin Sato, estimated the amount of victims in the Great East Japan Earthquake must have been exceeded ten thousands, if it had happened in the midnight. The quake and tsunami actually happened afternoon and caused 824 deaths and missings. Sato emphasized the importance of preparation for the worst case.

All those episodes are about risk management. It is obvious from those stories that leaders may not always make rational decision in actual crisis. The most important is always keeping available way for evacuation. Building broad roads for escaping tsunami or serious accident in nuclear power plant, making evacuation plan with close looking at vulnerable hills to heavy rain and developing feasible technology to store enough number of life boats muse be working in emergency.