World Tsunami Awareness Day



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United Nations Resolution 70/203
. World Tsunami Awareness Day

The United Nations, through UN Resolution 70/203 adopted on 22 December 2015, has designated November 5 as World Tsunami Awareness Day. The day aligns with the International Day for Disaster Reduction (October 13) and the seven targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

Outside of large-scale famine, a pandemic or a nuclear accident, there are few worst-case scenarios than a tsunami. Tsunamis are rare events, that can be among the deadliest and costliest hazards when they do happen. They affect many economic sectors, but agriculture, housing and tourism are the most vulnerable. 

43291 sendaiframeworkfordrrenA common theme that has emerged time and again is the importance of education, including evacuation drills, for ensuring that communities act decisively and without panic when the tsunami warnings reach them. For local tsunamis, it is even more important that every person knows the tsunami's natural warning signs and immediately self-evacuates since the waves could attack in minutes

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, adopted in 2015 at the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, follows the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015, adopted in 2005 at the Second UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. The Sendai Framework provides a concise, focused, forward-looking and action-oriented framework for disaster risk reduction, and prioritises better preparedness and building back better in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction. World Tsunami Awareness Day will be a key contribution to implementing the Sendai Framework, as it puts people and communities at the centre of disaster risk reduction.InamuraNoHi GoJ img201503 09 page thumbnail

November 5 is based on an anecdote and example of a good practice known in Japan as “Inamura-no-hi” (the burning of rice sheaves) which took place on the 5th of November 1854. It is based on a historical event that took place during a massive tsunami disaster that resulted from the 1854 Ansei Nankai Earthquake.

The tsunami struck Hiromura, a little village on the Kii Peninsula in western Japan (present Hirokawa town, Wakayama Prefecture). After feeling the earthquake, Hamaguchi Goryo, a farmer who lived in the village, anticipated that a big tsunami would come when he noticed the lowering of the tide and a rapid decrease in the level of well water (a natural tsunami warning sign). He guided his fellow villagers to evacuate to higher ground by setting fire to his precious sheaves of rice, his whole year’s harvest, as a signal of warning. From the hilltop, the villagers saw the tsunami destroy their village. They understood that it was the fire that saved them.

Japan proposed this date, because “World Tsunami Awareness Day,” is intended to serve to protect the precious lives of people, and thus it should be associated with an example of “traditional, indigenous and local knowledge and practices” such as “Inamura-no-hi.”

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The Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC) developed Tsunami educational materials with
basic knowledge of Tsunami in 8 countries, using "Inamura no Hi" story, funded by the Government of Japan.

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