Promoting Emergency Measures Toward Recovery from the Earthquake
- Third Recommendation: Sustaining Local Communities via Registration and Confirmation of Whereabouts of Disaster Sufferers -

We offer our heartfelt condolences to everyone affected by the Tohoku Pacific Earthquake, and our prayers for the speediest possible recovery.

On March 15, 2011, Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. launched an earthquake recovery assistance project team under the direct authority of its president, Tadashi Shimamoto. As for a recommendation toward the advancement of the Tohoku Region and industrial revival, the team put together "Third Recommendation: Sustaining Local Communities via Registration and Confirmation of Whereabouts of Disaster Sufferers." The report's main points are as follows.

■Recommendation

In order to implement the support for earthquake disaster sufferers in a meticulous and appropriate manner over the medium and long term going forward, it is important to develop a platform for accurately capturing the whereabouts of individual sufferers and registering their condition, and based on this information, to secure means of communications and exert efforts to sustain and reshape local communities.

The registration of disaster sufferers is already under way in various forms by local governments and at their shelters. However, as sufferers are likely to relocate and disperse from their present shelters or move to remote locations going forward, the issue of the accuracy of "identity verification" will arise at places they move to.

Thus, we consider it necessary to register such information as "head shots" and "identity verification by acquaintances" now at many evacuation shelters in local communities that still exist. In addition, in order to help alleviate the burdens on local government employees and volunteers at evacuation shelters, the front lines for supporting disaster sufferers, it is desirable to divide up mechanisms and information for the operations of registration of sufferers from the perspective of "what should be done at shelters and what should be done as behind-the-lines support" or "what should be done now and what should be improved and expanded going forward."

In terms of systems, it is necessary to expeditiously establish and administer the "livelihood reconstruction ledger mechanism" and the "guideline for the registration of disaster sufferers," which support for the registration of disaster sufferers at evacuation shelters and elsewhere.

This recommendation proposes the basic idea for the confirmation of the whereabouts of individual disaster sufferers as the basis for developing medium- and long-term policies and systems to support disaster sufferers. This sufferer registration mechanism will provide the basis for specific support mechanisms and systems which NRI is now proceeding with the consideration.