EDITORIAL: Redress for flood victims

Victims of flooding are still looking for judicial relief for their losses. Does't the government have responsibility for their misfortune even though the administration insists that natural disasters are difficult to predict？

On March 14, the Nagoya District Court turned down a claim by plaintiffs in a lawsuit who suffered considerable financial loss due to breached levees during torrential rain that pelted the Tokai region in 2000. They sought redress from the central and Aichi prefectural governments. The court ruled that both entities are improving river systems under plans already drawn up and they cannot be blamed under the circumstances.

This reasoning first appeared in 1984 in a Supreme Court case on flood damage in the Daito area of Osaka. Since then, similar decisions have been handed down in nearly all such lawsuits. But when we see the area suffered from the flood, we have to wonder if the government preventive measures were really adequate.

During the Tokai rainstorm, 75,000 homes were flooded, mainly in Aichi Prefecture, and 10 people died. The breached embankment that sparked the lawsuit was on the Shinkawa river, which was artificially constructed about 200 years ago by the Owari clan. The larger Shonaigawa river runs on a parallel course close to an urban area of Nagoya.

A portion of the levee on the Shonaigawa river is lower than the rest of the embankment. This area is called the Araizeki weir, or bypass canal. When water levels rise, the excess flows into the Shinkawa river, thereby protecting the Nagoya castle town. This diversion was applied during the evening of the Tokai rainstorm, but water poured into the already full Shinkawa river, apparently causing the breach.

During the Edo Period (1603-1867), it did not matter how much water flowed into the Shinkawa river because the adjacent land was made up of rice paddies and vegetable fields. But now the area is crammed with residential homes. The rainstorm caused a 2-meter-high muddy flow to surge through the city, flooding 18,000 homes.

The flooding was the result of failed postwar urban planning that turned a flood plain into an urban district. The problem is that the city of tens of thousands residents cannot be relocated. Thus, the government should have quickly implemented measures to prevent damage.

After the Tokai rainstorm, the central and prefectural governments spent five years dredging the river, reinforcing downstream levees and reducing the capacity of the bypass canal by half. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism proudly said in a white paper that it "prevented 550 billion yen in damages with a 70-billion-yen investment." It is natural for people in the area to be angry, and to question why such measures were not implemented earlier.

The central government's flood-control budget has been declining year after year. Given this background, danger spots should be targeted for effective countermeasures rather than spending huge sums over long periods to construct massive embankments and dams.

On this point, river-related construction alone is not enough to avert flood damage in urban areas. Measures are desperately needed to divert water from flooded rivers to flood plains. Regulations must also be strengthened to stop houses being built in areas that are susceptible to flooding.

The Central Disaster Management Council says that if the Tonegawa river levees are breached, broad areas of the Tokyo metropolitan area would be submerged and that 6,300 people could die at worst. It also says 1.1 million people could find themselves stranded in condominiums and other buildings.

Instead of giving excuses that there was nothing they could have done, there are, in fact, a lot of things that the central and prefectural governments can and must do.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 28(IHT/Asahi: March 29,2008)