Tokyo Bousai

Tokyo Bousai is an initiative which I've used for some time in my teaching as an example of how to educate cities in the risks that they face and get prepared. It took place in 2015, as part of the plans to prepare the populace of Tokyo to face the potential impacts of an earthquake which is very likely to happen at some point due to the city's seismic history.
The idea of Predicting, Planning and Preparing is one that is included in the OCR B GCSE Geography specification.
Tokyo is a risky city. The Lloyds City Risk Index is a website which shares the work of Lloyds insurers.


This article describes the creation of the Tokyo Bousai book, which was published and sent out to all households in the city - over 7 million copies.


7.5 million copies of the book were distributed to houses in Tokyo. The book is packaged in a sturdy cardboard box, and comes with additional material such as a sticker.

I headed for eBay a couple of years ago, and bought a copy, which is most excellent. There aren't any
Tokyo Bousai is a manga style comic book.
The idea is that a book can be read even when the power is down, unlike a website.
This fits in to the idea of risk mitigation, and is a low-tech addition to other initiatives to make residents of the city aware of their risk, and how to reduce it.

Check out the Metropolitan Disaster Management Map site.

There are quite a few apps on the app store which relate to disaster risk mitigation.
The Bousai project has its origins in the OLIVE project, which was set up after the 2011 Sendai Earthquake.
The creators of this website developed a range of other projects.
Following the advice that they were given, they aggregated this into a new kit called the SECOND AID kit.
This included a comic book style information booklet which is similar to those which can be seen in the Bousai book.


And don't forget the Minim+Aid disaster kit which I blogged earlier in the week.

Image source: http://nosigner.com/case/the-second-aid/

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