Basic Structure of the Government Procurement

Administration in Japan and its Regional Presence:

Analysis of the Great East
Japan Earthquake
TORU SAKANE*
ABSTRACT: The Government of Japan procures various
types of goods and services for public use. All
ministries headquarters locate in the capital.
However, procurement is implemented in every
regional and local offices throughout Japan. One of its
eminent significance is the occasion of a great
natural disaster happened in a region. In such
occasion, the central governments regional presence
is
important
in
terms
of
emergency
and
reconstruction procurement. Taking these points into
account, this paper analyses first the basic structure
of the government procurement administration in
Japan. Then, this paper focuses on the MLIT (Ministry
of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) Tohoku
Regional Bureau for recovery and reconstruction of
public infrastructures from the Great East Japan
Earthquake happened on 11th March 2011.
INTRODUCTION
Japan is the third largest economic country in terms of
GDP and the government of Japan procures various
types of goods and services for public use. Compared
with such
significance, research
about
the
government procurement administration in Japan,
especially procurement administration of the central
government seems not to be advanced. Therefore,
this papers first research theme is set as the basic
structure of the procurement administration of the
central government. As a basic analytical view, extent
of fragmentation and decentralization in terms of the
entire central government can be raised. In this
context, Thai (2001) is worth to mention. In Thais
paper,
the
US
Federal
Governments
rather
fragmented procurement structure and necessity of
decentralization are pointed out (Thai 2001, p.

*Toru Sakane, Ph. D., is a Professor, Faculty of Law,

Hosei University. His main teaching and research

interests are in international public procurement,

international public policy, international and domestic
public
administration,
administrative
budgetary
studies of the United Nations System, and also public
procurement of Japan. E-mail: sakane@hosei.ac.jp

24). Taking this point into account and also considering

the
second
research
theme
of
this
paper,
decentralization or
centralization in terms of
procurement implementation, procurement rules and
procurement policy making is set as a basic
analytical view.
Now, probably same as many other countries, all
ministries headquarters of the central government of
Japan locate in the capital, i.e. in Tokyo. However,
procurement is implemented in every regional and
local offices throughout Japan. Normally, public
procurement research tends to be focused on the
headquarters level. It is of course reasonable
important
because
major
important
public
procurement policy making and even certain
implementation are done at the headquarters level.
Despite that, regional and field level are also important
especially when a great natural disaster happens in a
region. In such occasion, the central governments
regional presence is effective and sometimes even
essential in terms of recovery and reconstruction
procurement.
Very unfortunately, Japan experienced a great natural
disaster so called the Great East Japan Earthquake
happened on 11th March 2011 in Tohoku region. The
earthquake and its evoked tsunami severely damaged
people, society, infrastructure and land of the Pacific
coastal area in the Tohoku region. Many administrative
efforts including procurement-related efforts have
been done for response, recovery and reconstruction.
Especially, procurement of public infrastructures after
the disaster has been very important in terms of
helping peoples lives, ensuring transportation ways to
assist
the
disaster
victims,
recovering
and
reconstructing the disaster areas and also preparing
for the future possible disasters.
However, such infrastructure procurement was and
also still is not so easy to implement considering the
fact that response and recovery of infrastructure
procurement had to be done in an emergency situation
with lots of serious damages on infrastructure,
administration, industry and society, and also
considering the fact that reconstruction infrastructure
procurement has to and also still have to be done
with huge volume of additional works compared with
normal administrative situation.
Taking these points into account, this papers second
research theme is set as recovery and reconstruction
of public infrastructures by the central governments

regional bureaus after the Great East Japan

Earthquake. As is explained later, MLIT (Ministry of
Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) Tohoku
Regional Development Bureau becomes the main
object of

analysis in this context. With relate to this second

research theme, Drabkin and Thai (2007) argued the
emergency contracting including after disaster in the
US
Federal
Government.
As
its
conclusion,
importance of time, manpower and the logistic
systems are pointed out in addition to various
important procurement values applied to normal
situation (Drabkin and Thai 2007, p. 99). These views
are insightful in order to analyze response and
recovery phase of public infrastructure procurement
after the disaster. However, in addition to such phase,
recovery phase must also be analyzed considering
that five years have passed since the occurrence of
the Great East Japan Earthquake. For example, in
reconstruction phase, Sakane (2014) pointed out
both importance of manpower and substantial
measures to alleviate its shortage in the damaged
local governments including procurement related
manpower. In this paper, manpower of the central
government with relate to infrastructure procurement
is explored.
This paper consists of four sections. First section
explores the basic structure of the governments
procurement administration in Japan after explaining
the basic structure of the central government itself.
Second section explains about the MLIT and focuses
on its regional presence including the Tohoku region
that
has
been
important
for
infrastructure
procurement. Third section introduces the Great East
Japan Earthquake and its national reconstruction
budget including its financial resources that is essential
for procurement. Fourth section explores the recovery
and
reconstruction
of
public
infrastructure
procurement
by
the
MLIT
Tohoku
Regional
Development Bureau. Finally, the entire analyses
above are summarized and some implications are
addressed. This paper was created mainly based on
administrative documents and information issued by
the government of Japan though some related
academic works were also referred to.
THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE GOVERNMENT
PROCUREMENT ADMINISTRATION IN
JAPAN
The Basic Structure of the Central Government
The central government of Japan consists of three
branches, that is legislative, administrative and judicial

(Figure 1). Among these, in terms of procurement,

administrative branch conducts most of procurement.
Administrative branch is managed by the Cabinet that
consists of the Prime Minister and other Ministers of
State. Article 65 of the Constitution sets as follows:
The Prime Minister

shall appoint the Ministers of State. However, a

majority of their number must be chosen from among
the members of the Diet. The Prime Minister may
remove the Ministers of State as he chooses.1. So,
as a provision of the Constitution, the Prime Minister
has strong control power over Ministers.
Figure 1: The Central Government Structure of Japan

*Source: Cabinet Secretariat 2013, I. p. 2.

Despite that, real administrative branch of Japan has

been said to
be
fairly vertically segmented
administrative system as its characteristics. That is,
each ministry is relatively independent and has kinds
of autonomous authority especially over each
ministrys assigned administrative areas or in other
words, territories. There are 11 ministries. So, in
terms of public procurement, basically these 11
ministries
implement
procurement
for
its
administrative purpose based on administrative
competency given to each ministry.
With relate to the Great East Japan Earthquake, the
Reconstruction Agency was established in February
2012 for 10 years limited time only. It was headed by
the Prime Minister and another Minister and it was
situated as a relatively higher status within the
administrative branch compared with the 11
Ministries2. In terms of procurement, this Agency
doesnt implement procurement but each ministries
and
local
governments
conduct
procurement
individually.
The Basic Structure of its Government Procurement
Administration
The basic structure of the central governments
procurement administration is basically decentralized
modality in terms of procurement implementation.
There is not a central procurement agency. Each
ministry conducts procurement for its administrative
purpose. The biggest category of procurement in
Japan is not the defense procurement but the civil
engineering procurement for public infrastructures.
Though Japans land area of the whole country ranks
61st out of the all countries in the world,
geographical conditions such as existence of many
mountains, rivers and long coast lines; and also
meteorological conditions such as frequent attacks of
earthquakes
and
typhoons,
in
addition
to
modernization of the society and economy, resulted
to huge investment on public infrastructures and
consequently its public procurement. Most of central
governments procurement for public infrastructures
is conducted by the MLIT (Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure, Transport
and Tourism) that is
explained in the next section. However, for example,
government procurement for agricultural and fishery
public infrastructures are conducted by the MAFF
(Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) and
not only central government, but also local

governments conduct various public infrastructures

procurement.
Though
each
ministry
conducts
procurement
basically individually, there are common rules
applied to all ministries

and
central
governments public procurement.
Accounts Law (Law No. 35 of 1947) and the Cabinet
Order concerning the Budget, Auditing and Accounting
(Imperial Ordinance No. 165 of 1947) are the most
basic and common rules. Ministry of Finance is in
charge of these rules. The basic three procurement
methods are the Open Tendering Procedure, the
Selective Tendering Procedure, and the Limited
(Single) Tendering Procedure. International rules such
as the Agreement on Government Procurement under
the World Trade Organization (WTO) also becomes
common rules (MOFA 2015, pp. 3, 7). Actually, these
common procurement rules are even as a whole not
very much detailed such as the Federal Acquisition
Regulation of the US Federal Government.
In addition to these common procurement rules, the
Fair Trade Commissions anti bid-rigging measures
and the Cabinet Secretariats efforts for governmentwide improvement of public procurement are well
worth
to
mention.
However,
procurement
administration as a whole not only its implementation
but also its policy making can be said as quite
decentralized to each ministry. Actually, as long as
each ministrys procurement administration complies
with these common rules without any problem
including occurrence of fraud and bid-riggings, quite
broad
discretion
in
detailed
procurement
implementation and policy making exists in each
ministry.
THE MLIT AND ITS REGIONAL PRESENCE
The MLIT and its Regional Presence
The MLIT stands for the Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and it is one
of the 11 ministries. Its organizational structure is
shown in the Figure 2. Though there are other
organizations within the MLIT such as Japan Coast
Guard, Japan Meteorological Agency, Japan Tourism
Agency and Japan Transport Safety Board, this Figure
provides main structure of the MLIT. As of 1
December 2013, this Ministry had nearly 60,000
public servants. Nearly two thirds of them are serving
in the Ministry proper, i.e. within the organizations
shown in this Figure.
The MILT is headed by the Minister and there are
several core executive posts such as two Senior Vice

Ministers, three
Parliamentary
Secretaries,
the
Administrative Vice Minister and four Vice Ministers.
The main composition of the Headquarters is the
Ministers Secretariat, 13 Bureaus for various policy
and

administrative areas and some Director-Generals for

policy planning and for international affairs.
Figure 2: The MLIT Organizational Structure

*Source: Cabinet Secretariat 2013, I. p. 23.

Now, this Figure explains not only the core executive
level and the headquarters structure but also some
bureaus, centers, institutes, colleges, an office and a
tribunal located out of the headquarters. Among
these,
eight
Regional
Development
Bureaus
and

Hokkaido Regional Development Bureau are especially

important in terms of recovery and reconstruction of
the public infrastructures including its procurement
after the Great East Japan Earthquake. These bureaus
can be regarded as the precious administrative
capacity locating in each region in Japan which are not
only engaging in normal construction and maintenance
administration of the national infrastructures but also
able to implement the recovery and reconstruction of
the public infrastructures especially national and
major roads, airports, ports, riverbanks and seawalls
and so on after natural disasters. One of its bureaus
is the Tohoku Regional Development Bureau.
The Tohoku and other Regional Development Bureaus
As the East Japan Great Earthquake and its tsunami
most heavily attacked and destroyed the Pacific
seacoast area in Tohoku region, the Tohoku Regional
Development Bureau became the bureau that had to
be
mainly
in
responsible
of
recovery
and
reconstruction of the damaged national and main
public infrastructures such as roads, airports, ports,
riverbanks and seawalls.
This Bureau consisted of about 3000 public servants
even before the earthquake i.e. 3060 as of 31 March
2010. Its composition was 1880 in engineering
personnel that occupied 61.4% of the total number
and 1180 in administrative personnel that occupied
38.6% (MLIT 2010, p. 1). It means that this Bureau
had already both engineering and administrative
capacities that were both essential to conduct
procurement of public infrastructures.
In addition to Tohoku Regional Development Bureau,
five Bureaus existed in the Honshu island that is the
(the main island of Japan) that are Kanto, Hokuriku,
Chubu, Kinki and Chugoku Regional Development
Bureaus. In Shikoku and Kyushu islands, there is one
Bureau each. In Hokkaido island, there is Hokkaido
Regional Development Bureau that has broader
authority than other Bureaus. These Bureaus other
than Tohoku Regional Development Bureau played
also an important role after the Great Japan
Earthquake for the recovery and reconstruction of
Tohoku region too.
THE GREAT EAST JAPAN EARTHQUAKE AND ITS
NATIONAL BUDGET

The Great East Japan Earthquake

The Great East Japan Earthquake on 11th March 2011
severely damaged people, society, infrastructure and
land of the Pacific coastal area in the Tohoku region.
Figure 3 shows the location of the earthquakes
epicentre () and the region. The epicentre was 130km
off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Region. Huge and
strong tsunamis were created by this earthquake
because the epicentre was not in the land but in the
sea, and also because the scale of the earthquake was
so huge i.e. Magnitude 9.0 and Maximum Seismic
Intensity 7. It is said that this earthquake was the
largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan3.
Figure 3: Location of the Earthquakes Epicentre and
the Tohoku Region

*Source: Reconstruction Agency3

There are six prefectures in the Tohoku region that

is Miyagi, Iwate, Fukushima, Aomori, Yamagata and
Akita. Among these, three prefectures in the Pacific
coastal side i.e. Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima
prefectures especially received serious damages
though Aomori prefecture also experienced some
tsunami damages. These prefectures are not so close
to the capital Tokyo and therefore, administrative
efforts including procurement administration within
the region and disaster areas for the recovery and
reconstruction of public infrastructures became very
important. Though there is a prefectural government
and municipal governments in each prefecture,
because many these coastal local governments were
severely damaged by tsunami and also because
volume of necessary procurement was too huge to
manage by these local governments only, the
central governments administrative presence and
capacity in the Tohoku region was quite important and
precious.
National Reconstruction Budget and its Financial Resources
Facing the severe damages by the earthquake and
tsunami, the government of Japan exercised the
budget authority set as discretionary reserve for
emergency assistance. Then, supplementary budgets
are prepared, passed and expended. However, in
order to realize full recovery and reconstruction from
the disaster, such budgetary measures are not
enough at all. Therefore, the National Reconstruction
Budget was created as a Special Account. As is shown
in the following Figure 4, its total amount is 32 trillion
yen, i.e. approximately 263 billion US$ as of June
2015. It was not easy at all to collect and secure
such a huge amount. In order to fulfil that amount,
various efforts were made such as spending cut,
generating and appropriating non-tax revenue,
establishing the special tax for reconstruction, and
appropriating the gain on sale of Japan Post shares.
Also, to appropriate excess in tax revenue, to transfer
from the General Account and to more generate and
appropriate non-tax revenue were planned.
Though there were several areas of expenditure, the
biggest category in terms of budget amount was
rebuilding
of
houses
and
reconstructing
communities. More than 40% (nearly 42%) of the
total reconstruction budget was allocated to this
category which includes expenditures for recovery
1
0

and reconstruction of various public infrastructures.

Though
there
is
no
description
about
the
infrastructure explicitly in Figure 4, rebuilding of
houses and reconstructing

1
0

communities includes contained in the recovery and

reconstruction of infrastructure4.
Anyway, with such budgetary and financial measures,
expenditure and procurement of various public
infrastructures for recovery and reconstruction became
possible.
Figure 4: National Reconstruction Budget and its
Financial Resources (trillion yen)

*Source: Reconstruction Agency 2013, p. 13.

RECOVERY AND RECONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC
INFRASTRUCTURES BY THE MLIT
Recovery of Public Infrastructures by the MLIT
MLIT played an important role for the recovery of
public infrastructure especially national and major
roads, the Sendai airport, major ports, and main
riverbanks and seawalls. Among these efforts,
emergency recovery of national and major roads is
known as a great success.
Roads of Tohoku Region in the Pacific coastal area
and also inland area were damaged severely. For
example, cracks on and collapse of roads had to be
repaired. Disaster debris had to be removed. Quick
recovery of roads was needed because whether

17

appropriate amount of timely assistance to the disaster

area and people was possible or not much depended
on the availability of main roads. In order to satisfy it,
Operation Comb was the most major operation by
the Tohoku Regional Development Bureau. The basic
tactics of this operation is shown in the Figure 5. As a
first step, the National Route 4 that is the northsouth inland main line was recovered in order to
ensure transportation from other region to Tohoku
region easily. However, it was difficult to immediately
recover the Pacific coastal area and to deploy
necessary
materials
and
assistance
supplies.
Therefore, as the second step, several major roads
from the National Route 4 to the Pacific coastal area,
i.e. several west-east lines, are set as the opening
and recovery target. This second step looks like a
comb. So, this entire operation was named as
Operation Comb. As a third step, opening of the
most part of the National Route 45 in the Pacific
coastal area, i.e. north-south line, was finally
realized. This operations concept was quite rational
in order to promptly and systematically open the
major roads in Tohoku region including these in the
most damaged coastal area.
Figure 5: Opening Roads and Rehabilitation in the
Sanriku Coastal Area: Operation Comb

*Source: MLIT 2011b, p. 2.

Despite such a rational and systematic tactics, quick
recovery of the major roads in Tohoku disaster area
was not necessarily easy to be realized considering the
existence of lots of disaster debris and cracks on and

collapse of roads. Not only recovery of these major

roads, recovery of pubic infrastructures such as the
main

airport, major ports, riverbanks and seawalls were not

easy because of various natural disaster phenomena
such as existence of many disaster debris, damages
on and in each infrastructure, sometimes even
submerging by tsunami water and rising sea levels.
However, not only these but also administrative and
industrial damages also decreased the capacity of
conducting
recovery
construction.
Facing
such
difficulties, it was not possible to promptly open and
recover all such national and major infrastructures by
only the Tohoku Regional Development Bureau.
Therefore, Self Defence Force, Coast Guard and even
kindly US forces assisted some parts of infrastructure
opening and recovery.
However, major parts of opening and recovery efforts
was done by the MLIT with full cooperation of
construction industry and companies. In such an
emergency situation, open tendering procedure was
not a rational tool to use. Therefore, direct contract or
in another word, emergency limited (single) tendering,
was mainly used at the early stage. Despite these
efforts,
shortage of public servants especially
engineering personnel was serious problem even with
relatively strong organizational and administrative
existence of the MLIT Tohoku Regional Development
Bureau in the Tohoku region before the earthquake. So,
in order to alleviate such shortage, MLIT dispatched
many engineering and some administrative staffs to
the Tohoku affected areas from other regions very
quickly after the earthquake/tsunami (Sakane 2015).
As of June 2012, accumulated number of dispatch of
staffs and machineries to the affected areas amount
to as follows (MLIT 2012):
-Dispatched personnel of MLIT: 24,884 man-day in total
-Dispatch of Technical Emergency Control Force (TECFORCE): 18,115 man-day in total
-Assistance liaison to municipalities (for assistance to
headquarters, drainage, etc): 9,610 man-day in total
-Dispatch of disaster response equipment 30,128 day in total
More than half of these dispatches occupied not
from Tohoku Bureau but from other Regional Bureaus.
Strong organizational and administrative presence of
the MLIT Regional Development Bureau in each
region affected very well to the quick opening and
recovery
of
the
national
and
major
public
infrastructures in the disaster areas. With such a
reinforced capacity, MLIT even assisted the damaged

municipalities infrastructures and even

some relief supplies which were both originally in

responsible of each municipal government.
Reconstruction of Public Infrastructures by
the MLIT
In reconstruction phase, although each disasterdamaged prefecture and municipal government
conducts their own infrastructure reconstruction
within each area, the MLIT is responsible of major
reconstruction works in the Tohoku region. Though
some reconstruction of ports is in progress, most
major challenge is the completion of the Sanriku
Expressway in Sanriku Pacific coastal area, i.e. northsouth line as is shown in the Figure
6. With its completion, it is believed that more
resilient Sanriku Coastal area be realized in terms of
enough safe and more resilient transportation after
future disasters.
Figure 6: Sanriku Expressway in Sanriku Pacific Coastal Area

*Source: MLIT 2011b, slide 26.

Characteristics
of
such
public
infrastructure
reconstruction phase
can
be
said
as
huge
procurement volume compared with opening and
recovery phase. For example, in 2015 fiscal year, the
Tohoku
Regional
Development
Bureaus
direct
operational expense scheduled for the reconstruction
after this disaster was about 222 billion yen while

direct operational expense scheduled for general

construction with the entire Tohoku region by the

Bureau was about 197 billion yen. It means that more

than half (about 53%) of the total direct operational
expense of the Bureau occupied by the reconstruction
works. 193 billion out of 222 billion, i.e. about 87%
of the total direct operational expense scheduled for
the reconstruction, is occupied by roads and 22
billion out of 222 billion, i.e. about 10% of it, is
occupied by reconstruction of ports (MLIT 2015, p. 1).
Such huge volume of reconstruction procurement was
not easy to implement by the Tohoku Regional
Development Bureau with
normal procurement
administration and methods. Therefore, the MLIT
Tohoku Regional Development Bureau introduced
following several measures. Firstly, measures to
increase construction labour and material unit costs
were introduced. With these measures, more
competent suppliers tend to participate in the
reconstruction works. Secondly, official ready-mixed
concrete plants were established as an exceptional
case to alleviate its shortage (Sakane 2015). Thirdly
but importantly, construction acceleration PPP (Public
Private Partnership) was and still is a quite effective
measure. This construction acceleration PPP enables
the Tohoku Regional Development Bureau to transfer
some roles of construction management and
coordination with stakeholders from the Bureau to
private sector by delegation. By doing so, the
Bureaus human resource shortage and overloads
could be alleviated and each private contractor in
this scheme could take more comprehensive roles for
each construction works5.
SUMMARY
As a result of this analysis, firstly, the basic structure
of the central government procurement administration
in Japan can be characterized as fairly decentralized
nature
especially
in
terms
of
procurement
implementation. There is not any government-wide
procurement agency and each ministry conducts its
own procurement for each administrative purpose. Not
only
that,
regional presence of the central
governments ministry is pointed out. For example,
the MLIT that occupies the biggest procurement
volume in 11 ministries has regional presence
including procurement function. Therefore, though
there are some common aspects as the central
government
procurement
such
as
common
procurement rules, common application of anti-

collusion
measures
and
government-wide
procurement
improvement,
basic
procurement
administration
can
be
summarized
as
quite
decentralized to each ministry and each region
especially in terms of its implementation.

Such a decentralized nature and regional presence

can be regarded as advantages when a natural
disaster happens at any region in Japan. Though the
Great East Japan Earthquake brought heavy damages
of public infrastructure especially in the Tohoku
Region, the Tohoku Regional Development Bureau of
the MLIT succeeded to promptly recover various
public infrastructures such as national and major
roads, airports, ports, riverbanks and seawalls. These
public infrastructures recovery was in reality due to
following elements and administrative efforts such as:
the MLITs strong regional presence in Tohoku region,
dispatch to the disaster areas in Tohoku from other
regions i.e. other regional bureaus, full and
immediate cooperation of construction industry and
companies by providing their human resource and
machinery, use of emergency limited (single)
tendering procedure, and rational and systematic
road opening strategy (i.e. Operation Comb) and so
on. Then, procurement of public infrastructures
reconstruction including new construction (i.e. the
Sanriku Expressway) preparing for future tsunami and
earthquake was in reality due to following elements
and administrative efforts such as: to increase of
construction labour and material unit costs in order
to attract more competent suppliers, construction
and use of the special official ready-mixed concrete
plants
to alleviate its shortage,
construction
acceleration PPP and so on.
Reconstruction procurement including its infrastructure
procurement after the Great East Japan Earthquake is
still ongoing administrative effort and challenge. More
time and years are needed to analyse and evaluate
entire procurement of reconstruction. However,
importance of the central governments regional
presence and various administrative measures
specifically to secure enough administrative capacity
including engineering human resource capacity from
outside of the disaster damaged region and to
introduce flexible procurement methods and ways
would be good lessons learnt from the administrative
experience of the central government of Japan after
this great disaster.
NOTES
1.http://japan.kantei.go.jp/constitution_and_governmen
t_of_jap an/constitution_e.html (All URLs listed in
this
paper
below
were checked for their
accessibility on March 31, 2016.)

2. http://www.reconstruction.go.jp/english/topics/About_us/
3.http://www.reconstruction.go.jp/english/topics/GEJE/i
ndex.ht ml

4.

According to a research by NHK (Japan

Broadcasting Corporation), as of 2016, as
scheduled operational expense basis, out of 14
trillion yen of infrastructure reconstruction and
community development, disaster recovery of
public infrastructures including roads, seawalls
and ports occupies
2.287 trillion yen, that is about 16% and is the
biggest single category within the 14 trillion yen.
Other some major categories are included in the
community development. NHK, The Great East
Japan Earthquake, 26 trillion yen: To what extent
reconstruction has improved? broadcasted on 12
March 2016.

5.http://www.thr.mlit.go.jp/road/fukkou/images/ppp/torik
umi/j isshitaisei.pdf
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper is created based on the authors
research activity funded by the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science (JSPS). The author would like to
sincerely thank all officials and officers of the Tohoku
Regional Development Bureau to explain and provide
useful information. These were reflected in Sakane
2015 and this paper is partly based on it. In addition,
deep appreciation is expressed for the international
assistance, solidarity, encouragement and sympathy
given to Japan from all over the world after this great
disaster.