by Gaia Cloutier

Natural disasters are messy.  They are unpredictable.  They are unstoppable.  They take possessions, homes, and lives without regard for age, class, gender, race, or any of the other methods of categorizing people.  And yet millions of people have lived through natural disasters, often against high odds.  These people are usually met with the same question at some point following their experience.

How did you survive?

This question might be asked by someone who is simply curious, someone hoping to create a record of the disaster, or someone trying to create a plan for what they should do in a similar situation.  This latter concern is almost always present, at least subconsciously, every time the question is asked.  When viewing a horrible situation as someone who was not immediately impacted by it, it is almost human nature to think about what you would do in that situation.  If you have a plan ahead of time, the thinking goes, surely you will know what to do when an actual disaster occurs and be able to save yourself, your family, and maybe some possessions.  Asking how a person survived is part of gathering intel for this ultimate plan of survival.

Of course this can be a largely useless exercise.  There can be no single ultimate plan for surviving a disaster because there are too many variables in play during a natural disaster for one solution to be the only solution.  No natural disaster is the same as any other natural disaster, and no person survives a natural disaster in the exact same way as any other survivor.  Examining the testimonies of survivors of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan confirms this.  Even a brief survey of interviews and written testimonies reveals a myriad of ways that people experienced and survived the disaster on 3/11.  This does not mean that nothing can be gained from examining how people survived.  By examining specific methods of survival, general principles of survival can be extrapolated.

Although each situation was unique, the many survival stories from 3/11 share some common elements.  Most survivors of the earthquake and tsunami credited their survival to at least one of the following:

1.  Having a plan

Many people who survived 3/11 did so because they followed a pre-arranged plan.  Each town had its “own anti-disaster measures department” (Gunzo Tamayama, “Experience”, p. 13) to establish shelters and issue evacuation instructions.  These designated shelters gave people places to go to escape the tsunami, effectively saving lives and reducing chaos and panic.  Drills also helped to save lives.  Because people had practiced earthquake evacuations so many times, it was almost a reflex for them to follow that same plan during an actual earthquake.  It is also important to note that many of these plans were flexible.  One woman from Higashi Matsushima recalls being “assigned not to the gym, but the school building” (Toshie Abe, “Experience”, p. 11) because officials deemed the gym to be too dangerous.  This flexibility meant that procedures were consistent for all disasters, making them easy to practice and facilitate, but still able to adapt to suit the specific disaster that the community was currently facing.

2.  Listening to alarms and alerts

Communication was vital for the survival of many.  Tsunamis do not occur after every large earthquake, so many people did not automatically assume that one would follow the earthquake on 3/11.  For many of those who did not assume that there was going to be a tsunami, tsunami warning alarms and radio alerts gave them enough warning to reach safety before the tsunami reached their town.  Like many following the earthquake, Takeichi Ono was driving home when he heard a tsunami warning on the radio.  “Realizing the risk to go home” (Takeichi Ono, “Experience”, p. 33), he went to an emergency shelter instead.  The radio warning gave Ryoichi and Yayoi Suzuki, interviewed in the video below, enough information to know that they had time to return to their home, collect their valuables and some essentials, and make it to the shelter before the tsunami would hit their city.

3.  Good Samaritans

Testimonies from 3/11 are filled with accounts of caring family members, neighbors, and strangers saving peoples’ lives at great risk to themselves:

“The man entered the water to help us…Her husband led us one by one to his house” (Ayumi Okuda, “Experience”, p. 5).

“Then I started to evacuate people from such dangerous place to the shelter.  When I was patrolling around apartment houses, I heard someone shout ‘10 meter high Tsunami is coming!’  I was worried about Tsunami and again continued to evacuate” (Rikiya Aoto, “Experience”, p. 9).

“That moment, getting wet, two old men and a woman came and saved me.  They pulled me up to the second floor, and gave me blankets” (Makago Shinobu, “Experience”, p. 40).

4.  Listening to their instincts

Instincts played a large role in the survival of many during the disaster.  As has been stated, it was not a foregone conclusion that a tsunami would follow the earthquake on 3/11.  People began to evacuate anyways, relying on their knowledge of previous tsunamis and their instincts to tell them “that a big Tsunami would come” (Takeichi Ono, “Experience”, p. 33).  In this way, instincts brought people safely out of the tsunami’s reach.  Instincts were also vital to the survival of people who were not able to evacuate.  Some people, such as Makago Shinobu (Makago Shinobu, “Experience”, p. 40), had simply never learned what to do during a tsunami.  Others had learned, but the huge earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused them to panic and forget any plans or survival information that they might have had.  Therefore, they had to rely solely on their instincts to survive.

One lifesaving instinct was Tsunami Ten-Den-Ko, which means to “be responsible for your own safety, run away from danger immediately, and get away from the sea as far as possible” (Ayumi Okuda, “Gratitude”, p. 3).  The other lifesaving instinct was to reach high ground.  It is interesting to note that testimonies taken sooner after the disaster, such as in the video below taken four months after 3/11, contain more reports of panic and instinctual action than later testimonies.  This may be because as more time passes people have more time to reflect on their experiences, memory can be distorted, and personal narratives shift, or it may have to do with the way the testimonies were collected.

5.  Supernatural help

Others credit their survival to supernatural forces.  They thank God or their ancestors for their miraculous survival.  Koichi Endo, for example, tells the story of how he survived the tsunami because his car was caught on the gravestones of his ancestors.  He believes that the spirit of his mother asked his ancestors to save him.

6.  Luck

Luck.  Fortune.  Chance.  Coincidence.  These terms occur over and over in survivors’ testimonies.  Natural disasters are by definition outside of human control.  By crediting luck with their survival, survivors acknowledge that who survives and who dies a disaster often has less to do with what a person does and more to do with the set of circumstances that they encounter during the disaster.

So what can be learned from these experiences?  Can we combine these six different elements and create a foolproof plan for surviving an earthquake and tsunami?  Of course not.  We can, however, identify certain factors that could increase the likelihood of survival during natural disasters in the future:

1.  A local and national government that is proactive and conscientious about natural disasters

2.  Open channels of communication broadcasting emergency information

3.  Individual awareness of basic survival strategies, such as heading to high ground during a tsunami, for natural disasters

4. Awareness of one’s neighbors and community

Together these factors might be able to increase the survival rates of natural disasters.

When examining the testimonies of survivors of the 3/11 disaster, an additional important common theme becomes evident.  Many survivors are still in the process of surviving.  Having lived through the disaster, they now have to live through its emotional consequences.  Survivors lost their possessions, their houses, their friends, and their families because of the earthquake and tsunami.  Entire villages were “swept away by the Tsunami” (Katsutoshi Aizawa, “Experience”, p. 42).  Disturbing scenes of destruction and death were almost unavoidable for many survivors.

Survival means dealing with the grief, survivor’s guilt, pessimism, and PTSD caused by these consequences.  Like natural disasters, these emotional responses to tragedy can be messy and unpredictable, and each method of surviving them is unique.  Surviving the emotional aftershocks of natural disasters should be as much of a priority as surviving the event itself.

Looking back can help us learn ways to lessen suffering and loss in the future, but it is important that we do not forget the people who are trying to survive the effects of the earthquake and tsunami in the present.  We should not just ask how did you survive?.  We should also ask how can we help you survive now?.