Protecting Cultural Heritages from Post-Earthquake Fires

Kenzo Toki, Professor, Graduate School of Civil Engineering, Kyoto University, Japan

Towards the end of World War II, many big and medium sized cities in Japan were bombed and burned out, while Kyoto and Nara remained untouched due to the existence of rich cultural heritage sites. There are many old wooden houses in Kyoto and many artistic cultural heritage sites are preserved in wooden temple and shrine structures, which are surrounded by these old homes, built more than 50 years ago.

Following the 1995 earthquake in the Kobe, large-scale fires raged throughout the city and thousand homes were burned. The percentage of wooden homes in Kyoto, however, is more than double that of Kobe. This implies that many cultural heritages would be burned, together with temples and shrines, should Kyoto be hit by a strong earthquake. Also, seismologists have been given us warnings of the high possibility of a major earthquake occurring in the Kansai area, including Kyoto, in the near future.

The distribution of cultural heritages in Japan is not uniform but concentrated in particular area. The top three is Kyoto, Nara and Tokyo. When we compare the number of assets in terms of density, namely the number of cultural heritages per population, Kyoto is extremely large compared with any other cities, namely 10 times larger than the second city. Moreover, 14 cultural heritages have been assigned as the World Heritage in Kyoto and these 14 assets are located within the old city of Kyoto that forms a basin of 10 km by 10 km. There might be no other such place that many World Heritages are concentrated in small area as Kyoto basin, in the World.

Most of the important cultural monuments, such as temples and shrines are protected from ordinary fire by sophisticated fire protection facilities. These protection systems, however , may not be reliable during and after a major earthquake because some of the buried water pipes in Kyoto were disrupted by the Kobe earthquake despite the epicenter being more than 70 km away. Thus, most of the fire protection facilities at Kyoto temples and shrines will likely be completely destroyed in the case of a Kyoto earthquake. This means that many of the cultural heritages will be confronted by a spread of fire from the neighboring houses and buildings. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a fire protection system against spreading fires. This must be done by local and central governments, and concerned organizations. The cultural heritages are the common treasure of all the Japanese people as well as those who maintain them. In order to implement this, we first need to get the understanding of both the citizens of Japan and the World.

Thus, in October of 1997, a group of concerned individuals organized the "Council for the Protection of Cultural Heritages against Post-Earthquake Fires." The council consists of well-known and nation-wide influential people from different field such as local government, industry, the arts and academia. In order to get publicity, we have held forums three times first in October 1997, in Kyoto, second in July of 1998, in Osaka, and third in May 1999 in Tokyo.

From the technical point of view, the key issue is to establish the water distribution and/or supply system to heritage sites. This must keep the function of water distribution system during strong ground shaking. In order to assess the possibility of maintaining the function, working group for the feasibility study have been established in the council and proposed several measures to attain the goal.

Fortunately, Kyoto has enough access to water resources to protect heritage sites from post-earthquake fires. For example, the Sosui Canal provides plenty of water at the highest point in Kyoto, which enables us to send water through buried water pips to temples to provide water curtains surrounding the important structures containing artistic cultural heritage properties. Nevertheless, no matter what systems are adopted, we shall still require a large amount of financial resources and therefore we need the understanding of taxpayers.

It seems that we have only a few decades before the next big earthquake hits Kyoto. I hope, therefore, that you will support our activities from overseas.

Biography

Kenzo TOKI is Professor, Graduate School of Civil Engineering, Kyoto University

Born: August 1938

Education: B.S. : Kyoto University, 1961; Major: Civil Engineering; M.S. : Kyoto University, 1963 (Major: Earthquake Engineering); Dr.Eng.: Kyoto University (Major: Earthquake Engineering)

Research Interests: Nonlinear seismic response analysis of soil-structure interaction, Seismic design of large structures, Risk analysis of structures, Seismic ground motions,and Disaster planning

Service to Professional Society: Secretary of the Committee for Disaster Research of the Science Council Japan (1986-1995); Member of the Board of Editor of the International Journal for Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (1986-); Secretary of the Ad-hoc Committee for International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) of Japan (1986-); Chairman of the Committee for International Affairs of the Japanese Group for Natural Disaster Science (1987-1992); Senior Scientific Advisor to the Steering Committee for IDNDR of the United Nations (1988-1989); Member of the Board of Director of the Japan Society of Civil Engineering (1987- 1989); Secretary General of the Kansai Chapter of the JSCE (1987-1989); Member of the Japanese National Committee for IDNDR (1990-); President of the Japan Association for Natural Disaster Science (1993-1996); Vice President of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (1997-1999); National Delegate of Japan for the International Association of Earthquake Engineering (1997-)