“Evacuation of minus 20 degrees” Experienced by a reporter from Okinawa at 19:37 on January 26
A cold wave hit the Japanese archipelago this week.
There were places where the temperature dropped to minus 20 degrees.
Then, if a large-scale earthquake occurs in such a situation...
A one-night, two-day training session was held in Hokkaido.
A disaster reporter from the southern country of Okinawa participated in the training.
We will also introduce some ideas to make the frigid shelter even a little more comfortable.
(Junichi Tokuda, Disaster Reporter, Social Affairs Department)
“Subzero Evacuation” Experienced by Disaster Prevention Officials
The training was held in Kitami City, Hokkaido.
It was held from the 21st to the 22nd of this month, before the Japanese archipelago was hit by a cold wave.
More than 120 people in charge of disaster prevention from local governments, medical institutions, and the media participated.
After receiving an explanation about physical conditions and other precautions, the experience of sleeping on the floor of a winter evacuation shelter began immediately.
At 2:00 pm on the 21st, the outside temperature was minus 7.6 degrees.
The temperature in the gym was about 4 degrees.
Get in your sleeping bag and lie down on the floor.
Then, you will gradually feel the coldness of the floor on your back, and your body will get cold even in your sleeping bag.
At this time, the floor temperature had dropped to about 2 degrees.
In the actual evacuation life, I felt that if this condition continued for a long time, I would not be able to sleep because of the cold.
Assuming that 40,000 people are in danger of death
Why did you conduct training to experience evacuation shelters in such harsh conditions?
When I asked Professor Masahiro Nemoto of the Japanese Red Cross Hokkaido College of Nursing, who planned the project, he said that a similar situation could actually occur.
The government is envisioning a huge earthquake in the Japan and Chishima trenches off the coast of Hokkaido and Sanriku.
If a tsunami occurs early in the morning in the middle of winter, up to 42,000 people who escape from the tsunami may suffer from hypothermia and endanger their lives.
The purpose of this exercise was to experience the winterization measures at evacuation shelters in preparation for such a situation, and to look for issues.
To the outside toilet at minus 9 degrees...
When I participated in the exercise, I realized how hard it would be to evacuate in the extreme cold.
One of them is outdoor temporary toilets.
The temperature is minus 9 degrees.
I tried to experience the toilet in such a way.
When you go to the toilet in the toilet, you need to expose your skin, so your body heat is taken away.
Furthermore, winter clothes get in the way and I can't move as I want.
With this, I thought that I would refrain from going to the toilet.
"Sleeping in the car" in the middle of the night in the middle of winter is...
Then, at 10:00 p.m., I experienced “car night”.
I will spend time in a sleeping bag in the car with the engine turned off.
This is to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning due to snow covering the muffler while you sleep.
The temperature inside the car is minus 10 degrees, which is almost the same as outside.
As soon as you enter the sleeping bag in the white breathtaking car, your hands and feet will be cold.
After 10 minutes, I lost feeling in my limbs.
I fell asleep because I was tired, but after a while I woke up due to the cold.
I fell asleep and woke up with the cold repeatedly, and the experience ended after an hour.
After it was over, my legs were so stiff that I thought they were frozen, and I had a hard time getting out of my sleeping bag.
I thought it would be impossible to stay in the car in minus 10 degrees.
During the training, I felt safe because there were enough medical personnel waiting nearby.
However, if you think that it will continue for several days or weeks at an actual evacuation center...
I personally know how cruel it is.
Evacuation slogan "TKB+W"
So how can you stay safe in such an environment?
Professor Masahiro Nemoto's concept is "TKB+W."
I have abbreviated each initial.
▽T = toilet
▽K = kitchen
▽B = bed
▽W = warm (heating)
This term was coined to improve the quality of evacuation shelter management in general, but it is said that it has been found to be effective in dealing with the cold.
I was taught one by one.
T = toilet: so that it can be done indoors
First, there is the toilet.
As I've experienced, outside portable toilets make you want to avoid going to the bathroom.
Reducing the amount of water you drink means that it causes poor physical condition and various diseases.
One solution that was tested during training was to replace the toilets in the gymnasium with portable toilets.
If you have a bag and coagulant ready, you can tie it up and throw it away after you use it.
It's indoors so you don't have to go outside.
The training also tried a powered container toilet.
The inside of the container was also heated, and it was as comfortable to use as a normal indoor toilet.
K = kitchen: provide hot meals
Next is the kitchen.
Until now, evacuation centers in Japan have faced the challenge of continuing to serve "cold meals" such as boxed lunches, with the exception of soup kitchens.
Therefore, it is important to use the kitchen to serve “hot meals”.
When my body got cold, it was corn soup with retort beef rice that I had stockpiled.
I also ate it, but my hands and feet warmed up at once and I felt energetic.
In this training, instead of lining up in the cold outdoors to receive meals, we took a method of serving meals indoors in order of numbers assigned in advance and eating.
These measures are also important.
B = Bed: Effect of not “sleep on the floor”
Plus, it's a bed.
From the experience of sleeping on the cold floor, I also realized the effect.
This time, a cardboard bed was prepared.
Lay out a blanket, put it in your sleeping bag, and cover it with another blanket to sleep.
The surface of the cardboard is also cold at first, but it quickly warms up.
When I'm on the floor, I feel that my body temperature is constantly being robbed, but I don't feel it from the cardboard.
It was much more comfortable than sleeping on the floor, and I felt that I could sleep on it.
W = Heating: Combined with new corona measures
Finally, there is the heating.
In this exercise, we operated two heaters called heat exchange type jet heaters that warm the outside air and blow it.
It is a heating device that can ventilate at the same time because it sends outside air, and it is an effective device even during the spread of infectious diseases such as the new corona.
By using this device, the room temperature in the gymnasium, which was around 2 degrees until the heating was turned on, is now maintained at 8 to 12 degrees.
After one night, it's minus 19 degrees outside.
I spent the night in an environment with these measures in place.
Even if the room temperature was 8 degrees, it was no longer a situation where it was too cold to sleep.
In addition, partitions are also prepared, and the environment is in order.
I couldn't get enough sleep because of the hardness of the cardboard I wasn't used to.
When I went to see the thermometer outside, it was minus 16 degrees.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency's announcement, the minimum temperature in Kitami City was as low as minus 19 degrees that day.
I realized that without a heater and bed, the environment would have been unbearable.
Participants: “Learn from Kitami!”
When we surveyed the participants this time, nearly 80% answered that they were able to sleep.
Q. Were you able to sleep in this environment?
▽ 23 people who slept very well ▽
25 people who slept to some extent ▽
13 people who could not sleep well
▽ 0 people who could not sleep at all
Male Participant:
“I was a bit uneasy at first, but the cardboard bed was great and I didn’t wake up once, and I was able to sleep soundly.
Participant female
: “I felt that if we could take measures against the cold in minus 19 degrees Celsius, we could operate an evacuation center anywhere in Japan. I felt that I should learn from Kitami.”
"Cold measures anywhere in Japan"
While I felt the effectiveness of the countermeasures through my participation in this training, I also honestly felt that it would be possible to stockpile this much.
In response, Professor Nemoto emphasized the importance of training under the "worst case scenario" of minus 20 degrees Celsius.
We believe that if we make preparations based on this assumption, we will be able to take countermeasures anywhere in Japan.
Professor Masahiro Nemoto of the Japanese Red Cross Hokkaido College of Nursing
"For those who came from outside Hokkaido, it may have been an inexperienced cold, but even if it doesn't go down this far, if an evacuation center is opened in Honshu, it will be necessary to take measures against the cold. I think it is important to try various things first, and then to find problems there, and then repeat.”
After that, he said that it is necessary to confirm what kind of equipment is available and what kind of things can be used.
What I felt from Okinawa
I am from Okinawa, but what I felt after experiencing the cold of -20 degrees Celsius was the harshness that made me feel uneasy about whether I would be able to maintain my physical condition.
On the other hand, it was said that if you take sufficient measures, you may be able to withstand it yourself.
I grew up in Okinawa, where there is no fear of hypothermia, so I wasn't aware of it, but I learned that many places in Japan can suffer from hypothermia in the winter.
In order to protect many lives anywhere in Japan, I felt that I wanted such an important initiative to spread throughout the country.
Social Affairs Department Disaster Reporter
Junichi Tokuda
Joined in 2014
After working at Fukui and Yamaguchi stations,
in charge of reporting on disasters and the Meteorological Agency , Social Affairs Department
Born in Nishihara Town, Okinawa Prefecture