Emerging Technologies to Avoid Preventable Death in Emergencies: A Case Study on Hypothermia Prevention in a Refugee Center in Winter

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Tsunami caused significant damage to the eastern coastal side of Japan. In addition to the historical damage, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami have another aspect of the disaster in winter. While the future “National Catastrophe” is expected and preparation for mega-disasters is ongoing in various sectors in Japan, there is a growing concern about the occurrence of mega-earthquake and tsunami that strike northern coastal areas on the Pacific Ocean side of Japan called Japan Trench and Chishima Trench Earthquake and Tsunami. The challenges of this disaster are: (1) the catastrophic damage in the wide geographical areas from the coastal side of Hokkaido and Tohoku region, (2) the long power outage, and (3) the typical winter health risks such as hypothermia. Prevention of hypothermia cases is important since the treatment of severe hypothermia cases increases the medical resources and workloads of medical facilities in disaster-affected areas. However, in the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, hypothermia cases are reported in refugee centers. In refugee centers, there are various risk factors such as malfunction of basic infrastructure such as power outages, limited food supply, living on cold floors, and access to proper sanitation. However, very limited studies discussed hypothermia cases in natural disasters. In addition, few studies discussed refugee center management to prevent hypothermia. Therefore, this study aimed to examine practical equipment, tools, and services to prevent hypothermia in refugee centers by reducing risk factors of heat loss and supporting heating of the participants. During the practical drill on refugee center management in severe winter, sleeping bags, cardboard beds, a simple sauna system, partitions, various toilets, and kitchen buses are utilized to reduce heat loss and support heating of the participants. As a result, this study identified that the equipment, items, and services which are used in our daily lives are effective to prevent hypothermia in refugee centers under severe winter climates. In addition, this study pointed out the importance of pre-agreement between local authorities and other stakeholders to deploy necessary equipment and services in emergencies for the rapid prevention of hypothermia. Furthermore, this study also pointed out the importance of the global knowledge sharing platform on hypothermia in natural disasters.