Disaster during a pandemic: Lessons from 2020 flooding in South Japan

The report focuses on the South Japan flooding of July 2020, and tries to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected both the preparedness and the recovery. As highlighted in the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risk Report, the world has been undergoing increasingly complex risk landscapes over the recent years, and it is not enough to have policies that address one type of disaster at a time. The research for this report was done through extensive review of published data, and interviews conducted during field visits with special permission.

The findings of this research bring to light the complex impacts and management implications of cascading disasters, and thus project the importance of a multi-hazard approach. The paper focuses on four areas:

1. Evacuation;
2. Shelter management;
3. Volunteer management;
4. Early recovery.