Crises Management Topic of Upcoming Talk
Japanese professor and former government official Shozo Azuma will discuss crises response at 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31 in The University of Findlay’s Malcolm Dining Hall in the Virginia B. Gardner Fine Arts Pavilion.
The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
Azuma is a professor of risk and crises management at Chiba Institute of Science in Japan. He is Japan’s former vice minister of foreign affairs and served for more than 17 as a member of its national legislature.
Azuma will talk about Japan’s preparations for natural and human-induced disasters, such as tornadoes, global disease outbreaks and financial crashes. He will also elaborate on his experiences as Japan’s senior vice minister for disaster management, a role he was serving in when the Great East Japan earthquake struck off the Pacific coast in March 2011, caused a tsunami that killed almost 16,000 people and caused meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
In May 2011, Azuma addressed the United Nations’ Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, where he explained that he was dispatched to the areas affected by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, and placed in charge of damage investigation and local government coordination.
“The devastation in the affected area was beyond words,” he told those at the event’s opening ceremony. “The scale of the current disaster far exceeds that of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, and the reconstruction process may take a longer time. We believe, however, that it is our obligation to share with the international community the lessons learned through this painful experience and through our efforts to rebuild a resilient society, so that we can repay the kindness offered to us from all over the world.”