 | SPECIAL vol.25 Evacuation Shelters and Life as an Evacuee |
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In the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami,
36 evacuation shelters were opened in Shichigahama at peak period, and they
were all closed by June 20, 2011. As of March 14, 2011, up to 6,143 people had
taken refuge in those shelters. Especially the residents within a radius of 2
km from a nearby oil refinery were forced to evacuate regardless of the damages
to their homes, because one of the asphalt tanks at the refinery had exploded
and still more were in danger of exploding. Most of the designated evacuation
shelter sites along the coast were of no use because the tsunami did them much
damage. However, there were a lot of areas on higher ground in the Shichigahama
area due to its geography, and the public facilities located in those areas
accommodated lots of evacuees. Some of the evacuation shelters were so crowded that
the evacuees were packed like sardines. Under such circumstances not a few
evacuees were obliged to stay in their cars, or to spend an uneasy night at
their partially collapsed houses without any working lifelines. Furthermore, it
was very cold with some flurries of snow on the day of the disaster. In many of
the public facilities the heating source was electric air conditioners, so the
general failure of power supply made them unusable. As a quick replacement, old-fashioned
oil heaters were carried into the shelters but because of oil shortage they
were not able to sufficiently provide heat for the evacuees. As a result some
of the evacuees who survived the disaster died of hypothermia despite efforts by
the evacuees to support one another.
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