Simulating altruistic behaviors following a disaster: Comparing the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake with the 2011 East Japan Earthquake

Abstract

This paper focused on altruistic behaviors of volunteers following two major catastrophes: the Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 and East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Basic simulations using cellular automata were conducted to examine the volunteers. The simulation accounts for the Neighborhood factor (N), which prescribes conformities in near environments, and the Remote factor (R), which prescribes norms through information about the disaster from mass media. During the Hanshin Earthquake, the number of volunteers peaked in the earlier stages, but did not continue due to stronger R factor. On the other hand, the opposite pattern was observed in the East Japan Earthquake, because of a stronger N factor. To elaborate, the total number of volunteers decreased due to the limited accessibility to the geographical location of the affected area. This paper discusses the limitation of this simulation in that it concentrates volunteers to the centralized disaster area, and forwards the importance of increasing the N and R factors in the recovery process.