Taiwan Could Learn From Japan About Disaster Prevention: NCKU President

Taiwan could learn from Japan’s disaster prevention experience to minimize damage caused by possible tsunami and other natural disasters, since both countries are prone to earthquakes, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) President Hwung-Hweng Hwung said at a recent conference.

According to Hwung, the tsunami that followed the March 11 earthquake in Japan this year caused far fewer casualties than the 2004 tsunami which swept across the coastal areas of several Southeast Asian countries. “This is an indication of the effectiveness of Japan’s disaster warning system,” he said.

National Cheng Kung University hosted the 29^th Sino-Japanese Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium - Disaster Prevention in Tainan, southern Taiwan, on Nov. 22, in which three Japanese seismology experts shared their research on earthquakes, tsunamis and landslides.

Yuzo Ishikawa, vice president of Seismological Society of Japan, said that Japan has a sophisticated earthquake early warning system that allows the public to receive timely alert via television networks, radio stations and mobile phones once an earthquake is detected.

He said, “The Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system normally gives the public seconds to seek protection.”

Ishikawa noted that researchers are still unable to predict when or why the next mega earthquake will occur because currently there are only a few cases for data collection and analysis.