A Study on the Technique for Information Sharing and Presentation of Earthquake Disasters - By the Chuetsu Earthquake Restoration and Revival Support GIS Project -

that 46 people died and 2,824 houses were completely destroyed in the earthquake. The earthquake was accompanied by two large aftershocks of maximum intensity upper 6 within 30 minutes of the main quake. A total of 869 aftershocks were felt for two months after the main quake, and these long-term aftershocks significantly affected the lives of the victims, causing the number of evacuees to increase to 103,178 as of October 26, three days after the earthquake. In addition to this diversification of the evacuation situation, the damages frequently changed with aftershocks and rainfalls. The disaster headquarters of the local governments that had vigorous roles in dealing with the disaster had difficulty in collecting information, and the influence of this manifested itself in different forms such as restriction of the restoration support activities inside and outside the quake area and delay of the support for the victims. In Kawaguchi-machi, Kitauonuma-gun, the damage to the city hall building not only stopped the staff's support works in the building, but also terminated the electricity due to the absence of a private power generator. So the office staff had to work for the support activities with little or no outward transmission of information. Under this situation, some tried to conduct acquisition and provision of information outside the quake area in an integrated fashion by using GIS (Geographical Information System), tracking the damages in real time and transmitting the damage information, in order to support the activities inside and outside the damaged area. This was the“Chuetsu Earthquake Restoration and Revival Support GIS Project,”conducted with nation-wide government-industry-academia cooperation. In this article, based on the previous report 1) as well as on the result of a survey regarding the project activity, we summarize the project and subsequent activities and future perspectives and issues, and discuss methods for support activities in damaged areas with information communication technologies and GIS.