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Information on the Great East Japan Earthquake
Countermeasures for the Great East Japan Earthquake (External Website: Prime Minister of Japan and the Cabinet Office)
Treatment of the Effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake in the Monthly Statistics of the Statistics Bureau
In response to the Great East Japan Earthquake in regard to the monthly statistics from March 2011, the Statistics Bureau has taken the following measures.
Labour Force Survey
The results for whole Japan including three prefectures (Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima) are available from September 2011 results. However, there are some enumeration districts in coastal area where the survey is not conducted due to the damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Figures from March through August 2011 for whole Japan are missing. Data excluding the three prefectures are filled in for the period.
Family Income and Expenditure Survey
Since March 2011, data of some municipalities which could not be collected because of the Great East Japan Earthquake have been estimated with data from other surveyed regions. For such municipalities, the data were imputed from those of Northeastern Japan.
Provision of Statistical Data Pertaining to the Great East Japan Earthquake
To deal with the effect pertaining to the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on March 11, 2011, the ministries provided the statistical data related to the disaster with the intention to be the help of comprehending the actual state of the affected areas and utilizing for reconstruction from the catastrophe.
In addition, sufficient care was taken in conducting surveys such as modifying survey methodologies for the actual situations in the affected areas; and the survey results were released accompanying the information related to the influence on the results caused by the statistical processing with the disaster.
(1) Provision of statistical data
a. Provision of information pertaining to the disaster
In reaction to the disaster, some ministries provided information based on the survey results such as the population census and the economic census for business frame. The major examples are as follows.
| Ministries | Contents of provided information | Areas of aggregation (Prefectures) | Surveys; Data sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications(MIC) | Population and the number of households with respect to each basic unit district of tsunami inundation area | Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Chiba | 2010 Population Census |
| Population and the number of employees with respect to each subregion block | Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima | 2010 Population Census | |
| Number of establishments and employees by municipality | Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Chiba | 2009 Economic Census for Business Frame | |
| Data of east Pacific Ocean coast region and data related to disaster | Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Chiba | *1 | |
| Ministry of Agriculture , Forestry and Fisheries | Estimated farmland areas damaged by tsunami erosion and flooding with respect to each municipality | Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki ,Chiba | *2 |
| The numbers of fishery management bodies, fishery workers and factories of seafood processing and refrigeration with respect to each municipality | Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki | 2008 Census of Fisheries | |
| Agricultural output value with respect to each prefecture | Iwate, Miyagi , Fukushima, Ibaraki | Statistics of Agricultural Income Produced (2009) | |
| Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry | Mining and manufacturing index | Affected areas, non-affected areas | Survey of Current Industrial Production |
*1 The rearranged data sets based on "the system of social and demographic statistics" published by MIC and the information of affected areas released by Fire and Disaster Management Agency and the related institutions.
*2 The sizes of cultivated areas flooded or scraped off by the tsunami which were identified by the visual judgement based on the satellite images with the help of the maps for the outline of submerged area provided by Geospatial Information Authority and the other related information.
b. Provision of information at the time of publication of survey results
There is a concern that the particular statistical processing with the Great East Japan Earthquake would have impact on the survey results. The MIC (the Director-General for Policy Planning) , therefore, requested ministries to make well-known the information pertaining to the particular processing in conjunction with the survey results published in the light of the discourse of Chairman of the Statistics Commission and others.
(2)Flexibility to deal with the disaster
a. Responses by the ministries
The ministries shared the information about the responses to the earthquake disaster, excluded the area of distress from the research zone temporarily and changed the basic statistics for the processed ones.
The responses taken for 63 surveys from the occasion of the earthquake to October 21, 2011 are summarized as follows.
- Heavily-damaged areas were excluded *3 --------------------------------------------------------- 11 surveys
- Survey items were decreased ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 surveys
- Dates of surveys or deadline for reporting were postponed -------------------------------------- 6 surveys
- Methods of aggregation and estimation , dates of publication and such were changed ------- 29 surveys
- Publication was made with the reference data --------------------------------------------------- 27 surveys
*3 Some survey results excluding the affected areas were released accompanying the past data of the same survey retroactively arranged in the analogous way aiming to visualize the time series variation.
b. Approval procedures for statistical surveys to be conducted
MIC (Director-General for Policy Planning) sent the notice to statistical section heads of the ministries and those of the prefectures: the MIC would flexibly respond to the approvals of the statistical surveys and the acceptances of the notifications of the surveys in order to realize the detailed and timely responses in good care of the actual situations of the affected areas.
