On January 17th 1995, one of the most infamous Japan earthquakes was happened in Kobe and left 6,425 dead, 25,000 injured and 300,000 displaced. And, it caused a demolition of 100,000 buildings.[1] This earthquake could be considered as a latest disaster in Japan which could be compared with Tohoku earthquake in terms of scale of damage. As the numbers indicate, it caused not only a great number of casualties but also a multitude of broken artifacts.
In post-disaster situation, people in this area have to deal with a great burden of debris to reconstruct the town. It almost took 3 years and 3.2 billion dollars just to clean up the remnants of massive edifices before new construction.[2] As the following chart shows, the volume of debris too big to be easily eradicated.
Table 1. Debris Quantities in Past Events
|
Year |
Event |
Debris Volume |
Data Source |
|
2011 |
Tohoku earthquake |
25 mill tones |
(Yomiuri, 2011)[2] |
|
2008 |
Sichuan earthquake |
20 mill tones |
(Taylor, 2008)[3] |
|
1999 |
Marmara earthquake |
13 mill tones |
(Baycan, 2004)[4] |
|
1995 |
Hanshin-Awaji earthquake |
14.5 mill tones |
(Yomiuri, 2011)[2] |
Not only the debris volume per se but also this chart indicates two more critical crises in post-disaster Japan. Firstly, we have to consider about the gross volume of destruction in Japan. Since this country is located in unstable geographic zone, the Circum-Pacific orogeny, it has been suffered by numbers of frequent earthquakes. And, those result as an excessive volume of debris. But the eradication process of this artificial debris is not sustainable in terms of capacity of nature’s self-purification. Thus the constant collection of debris due to the continuous earthquakes in the country is creating more desperate situation for Japan.
- Collapse of Bank Building. ©Tokyo University.
On top of it, we also have to think about a growing physical volume of artificial structures in cities. Since a building technology has been advanced and economic growth has been made, the growing cities have been bulged with higher volume of artifacts than ever before. Consequently, the cities should have to face a bigger volumetric collapse.
In these regards, we could infer that sustainable way of processing debris in post-disaster situation is critical for Japan. Recent article about Tohoku area is already reporting that the reconstruction of this area facing great difficulty because of these excessive artificial detritus. [2]
Because of these reasons, I am getting more convinced with the concept of ‘deconstruction’. Deconstruction is a process of both decomposition and reorganization. It should be separated from the concept of destruction in terms of existence of reassembling. At the moment, our process of debris could be considered more of destruction, since we mostly just clear out the sites after the artifacts have been destroyed.
However, I want to input the notion of deconstruction into the process of debris. With this input of concept, we could possibly find out the better way for post-disaster reconstructions. And this following animation shows a figurative model for deconstruction process that I am conceiving.
Deconstruction:
From Decomposed Debris
to Reorganized Structure
[1] T.R. Reid. 1995. National Geographic. July. 1995.
[2] Yomiuri Shimbun. 2011. Mountains of debris overwhelm Japanese. 04. 17. 2011.
[3] Taylor, A. 2008. Sichuan’s earthquake, six months later. The Boston Globe.
[4] Baycan, F. 2004. Emergency Planning for Disaster Waste: A Proposal based on the experience of the Marmara. Earthquake in Turkey. Coventry. UK.