Japan: Kirin Brewery says restoration of tsunami-hit brewery took about one year

Four years after the devastating Japan earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people, caused billions of dollars in damage and displaced 230,000 people, many of the companies in the path of the 25-foot waves are back in business, USA Today reported on April 11.

At Kirin Brewery, a leading Japanese brand and one of the country's oldest makers, 400 staff scrambled out of the factory in Sendai to escape as 70 million beer cans floated away in a series of massive waves that followed the magnitude-9 quake on March 11, 2011. But the brewery and several other businesses in the area had a plan in place to deal with such a disaster.

"It took us about one year to complete the restoration of the brewery," Noriya Yokota, a Kirin executive, told delegates at the recent World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. Yokota said the total cost to resume operations was $50 million.

As bad as things were, Kirin had taken steps to prepare for large temblor. Emergency kits and meals were available, and the brewery had been outfitted to lessen injuries and damage.

Disasters such as the 2011 Japanese tsunami are hard lessons in the need to prepare for the worst nature has to offer — and not just for individuals but businesses, too. That's why the Sendai framework on disaster risk reduction is so important.

15 April, 2015