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Research paper−114−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.5 No.2 pp.114-127 (Sep. 2012) Archipelago,[1] we must continuously prepare for disasters. All local governments cannot escape from the various natural disasters including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, typhoons, floods, wind damages, and heavy snow. Also, large cities such as the Tokyo metropolitan area, Keihanshin area, and Chukyo area have high density of buildings and transportations, which may magnify the effects of terrorism or disasters. In fact, major Japanese cities are ranked high as dangerous places susceptible to disasters.[2] Measures to reduce the disaster damage as much as possible are important to protect the lives and properties of the residents, and to help industrial promotion by ensuring a region where people can invest safely.In disaster measures, establishing frameworks and systems to collect and utilize information is essential along with the preparations of hardware such as earthquake-proof structures. Case-by-case decisions are necessary to deal with disasters including the unexpected, and to do so, it is necessary to gather and share as much accurate information as possible.[3][4] In that sense, there is plenty of room for the development of a disaster prevention information system using the state-of-the-art information technology. However, in practice, during the Great East Japan Earthquake, handwritten memos were posted all over the walls and various pieces of information were scribbled on whiteboards. Communications between the organizations were mainly done by phone and fax, and these were the causes of delay and loss of communication. Of course, the importance of information collection and sharing is widely recognized, 1 IntroductionThe off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake (The Great East Japan Earthquake) on March 11, 2011 showed us the mercilessness of a natural disaster, the diversity of damages, and the difficulty to make predictions. For the past 15 years, most of the earthquake disaster prevention in Japan was built on the model of the 1995 Hanshin Awaji Earthquake. The Hanshin Awaji Earthquake was an epicentral earthquake where there were many victims of collapsed houses and fire, and the major issues were wide-area firefighting and medical aid, as well as information sharing to support such activities. In order to solve the issues, prior agreements were made among the rescue organizations for the first response to the disaster, and mutual support setup were gradually organized among the local governments. On the other hand, in the 2011 earthquake, most of the victims were of the tsunami, and we were faced with many issues including the information transmission for the tsunamis that occurred with different time lags after the earthquake. Of course, the experience of the Hanshin Awaji Earthquake was utilized, and therefore the initial response and wide-area linkages among the various organizations have improved, and the efforts over the years have steadily fortified the disaster response. However, disaster measure is a kind of endless process, and we were forced to accept the fact that there will always be the soteigai (unexpected situations) even if we think we are prepared to the fullest.In Japan, which is also called the Natural Disaster - System linkage via data mediation-Various “unexpected” situations caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake severely hampered disaster-control systems of Japanese national and local governments. A flexible framework for disaster information systems that is reorganizable depending on circumstances is required to mitigate such serious situations. In this article, I propose the concept of “loose linkages” of information systems based on data mediation and a platform for disaster mitigation information sharing. The platform enables us to link various systems quickly, so that we can reconstruct disaster information systems according to various situations in major disasters. I found that the concept was effective for the Great East Japan Earthquake along with various ad-hoc activities of information volunteers. We should spread this concept and platform to Japanese national and local governments, and support organizations to prepare for future disasters.Information sharing platform to assist rescue activities in huge disastersKeywords : Information sharing, disaster mitigation, database, system integration[Translation from Synthesiology, Vol.5, No.2, p.113-125 (2012)]Itsuki NodaCenter for Service Research, AIST Tsukuba Central 2, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba 305-8568, Japan E-mail: Original manuscript received December 20, 2011 Revisions received February 22, 2012, Accepted March 1, 2012

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