Hello readers, it’s me Seemanta (サム).
This article is about the 16th INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON
NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR URBAN SAFETY OF MEGA CITIES IN ASIA (
USMCA 2017),
Kawasaki-sensei, Dr. Ralph, Gouri-san, Moiz, Mohsan-san and I attended at
Sendai during 26-29 November 2017.
This year, USMCA was held as a part of the World Bosai Forum
(
WBF). Registration started from 9:00
am at the Sendai International Center, following which the forum sessions
started at 10:00 am. Several high-level talks were given by many prominent
persons in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) based on Sendai Framework
on Disaster Risk Reduction focusing on Sustainable Development and Build Back
Better.
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| Kawasaki-group in front of the Sendai International Center |
After the opening sessions of WBF, we moved to the
International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) of the Tohoku
University. We received our lunch boxes there. USMCA 2017 officially began with
the welcome remarks by Prof. Osamu Murao (IRIDeS) and Prof. Kimiro Meguro
(UTokyo).
There were 2 Research Sessions consisting of 3 parallel
sessions each with 9-10 presenters. A total of 55 presentations; from
Bangladesh, China, France, Hungary, India, Israel, Myanmar, Pakistan, Peru,
Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, The Philippines, The United Kingdom,
Vietnam, and Japan, were presented. All the presentations were finished by 6:10
pm.
At 7:00 pm all the students and staffs of UTokyo had a group
dinner at a local restaurant named “Rikyu”. Sendai is famous of Gyutan (Beef
Tongue). Most of us enjoyed it, except for a few of us (including me) who have
some food restrictions.
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| Dinner @ Rikyo, Sendai |
Next morning (27th November) started with the
forum session # 19 (under WBF organized by USMCA) – Global Risk with “Tangible
Earth”. The keynote speaker was Prof. Shinichi Takemura from NPO Earth Literacy
Program, Japan. TANGIBLE EARTH is the world’s first interactive digital globe
that dynamically represents various aspects of the earth.
Next was the “Excellent Young Researcher Award” ceremony.
Four presenters/researchers were award the award. Our very own Abdul Moiz also
received this award.
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| Moiz receiving the Excellent Young Researcher Award. Sorry for the poor quality. |
Later Prof Pradeep Kumar Ramancharla from Indian Institutue
of Information Technology (IIIT), Hydrabad, India gave a brief presentation
introducing IIIT, where the USMCA 2018 will be held. That concluded the USMCA
2017.
At around 2:00 pm we (Dr. Ralph, Gouri-san, Moiz, Mohsan and
I) went to Matsushima, a famous tourist attraction. We took the ferry which
toured us around the islands in that region. Surprisingly, almost all the shops
and other places were closed by sunset (around 4:30 pm). So we had to return
back after the ferry trip.
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| @Matsushima cruise |
We then went around the Sendai city and had dinner in
an Indian restaurant (Moiz and Mohsan, due to their food restrictions, had
difficulty eating food in the last 2 days).
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| Moiz and Mohsan look very happy |
On 28th morning, Gouri-san, Moiz, Mohsan and I
took the study trip organized by WBF. We went to many places around Sendai. The
main attraction was the Sendai Arahama Elementary School – A ruin of the Great
East Japan Earthquake. The first floor was completely inundated and the tsunami water reached the second floor.
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| Arahama Elementary School - A ruin of the Great East Japan Earthquake |
We came back to the Sendai International Center at around
12:00 pm. Gouri-san then went back to Tokyo via Shinkansen. We, however, got
the opportunity to join an excursion by WBF (we registered online more than a
month ago). It started at around 13:30 (we got our lunch boxes in the bus). We
were fortunate enough to go to the Naraha Remote Technology Development Center.
This was a very special case. In general, this facility is not open to general
public. They should us their state of the art VR room where they train special
personals to aid the decommissioning process of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear
Power plant. We could also see many of the robots, drones and other mock-up
stairs/facilities.
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| Some pics at the Naraha Remote Technology Development Center |
We spent the night at the Spa Resort Hawaiians, a very famous
resort. We had a good buffet dinner followed by the resort’s special night
show.
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| Special night show @ Spa Resort Hawaiians |
Next morning (29th) we went around the Iwaki to learn about the reconstruction of Iwaki from "Kataribe"(People talked about their experiences of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the history, culture and life of the area). We had lunch at Iwaki Lalamew. It was a seafood BBQ place.
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| Image of local residents living at a temporary evacuation center |
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| Seafood BBQ for lunch @ Iwaki Lalamew |
The last destination was the Aquamarine Fukushima, one of the best in Japan. It was damaged by the 2011 earthquake. Around 90% of the fish were dead and following the nuclear disaster, the number of annual visitors also decreased by around 40%. Although the facility recovered completely (structure and marine lifeforms), the visitor number is still much lower than before.
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| Some pictures at Aquamarine Fukushima |
That concluded the excursion as well as this blog. We would like to thank the USMCA organizing committee and everyone involved for a successful symposium; and WBF & Nippon Travel Agency (NTA) for organizing the study trip and this wonderful excursion. That's all for this time. See you later!
