Pathway to Japanese Literature

I. Flood or Electricity Crisis?

In the autumn of 1951, cries of an electricity crisis echoed nationwide, and among these, the Kansai region’s power shortage apparently constituted a literal crisis. Factories in the Osaka area were hit particularly hard; due to power shortages halting operations and the resulting production decline, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs were reported to be on the brink of bankruptcy, causing an uproar.

The reason for this was said to be that because no typhoons had come from summer to autumn the previous year, water had become scarce, resulting in an electricity crisis.
Japan had become a truly pitiful country since the latter part of the war onward.
If a typhoon came, major floods occurred nationwide, sparking such an uproar that it seemed Japan might perish from the floods alone.
In years when typhoons did not come—as in 1951—this time an electricity crisis would arrive.
This left people in a state of utter confusion over whether typhoons coming were good or bad.

However, Japan’s electricity crisis was by no means something that began today.
For two or three years prior, all people with even a modicum of knowledge about Japan’s electricity situation had been fully aware of this.
Those people must have been issuing warnings repeatedly, but until recently, their words had been completely dismissed with a laugh.
This was because in both the previous year and the year before that—that is, in both 1950 and 1949—the electricity situation had been unexpectedly favorable for a postwar nation.

Due to delays in power source development during the war and the lack of maintenance of old power plants, power generation capacity must have been significantly reduced.
Despite this, both 1949 and 1950 somehow managed to avoid encountering such severe power shortages and get through.
Thus, people appeared to have temporarily forgotten Japan’s electricity crisis.
However, in these years, the reason the electricity situation did not deteriorate so much was that there had been special abnormal rainfall over the past two or three years.
In other words, typhoons repeatedly arrived from summer to autumn, and because these typhoons brought rains of a nature that poured torrentially over mountainous regions, hydroelectric power had managed to avoid exposing its dire predicament to a considerable extent.

Of course, because of this, major floods occurred everywhere across the nation. To put it somewhat unkindly, one could say that during these years, thanks to the great floods that occurred nationwide, the electricity problem had managed to catch its breath. The current state of our country’s rivers had reached such a point that if rain fell, houses were washed away, and if rain did not fall, an electricity crisis arrived and small industries collapsed—a situation where one had to choose between these two. The state of Japan’s rivers—how severely deteriorated they became after a decade of neglect during and after the war—goes without saying.

II. Before and After the Kathleen Typhoon

Most people had likely forgotten by then, but in the summer of the second year after the war’s end—that is, the summer of 1947—great floods occurred everywhere across Japan, plunging public sentiment into true turmoil.

In late July, extremely widespread flood damage occurred throughout Tohoku and Hokkaido.
As a result, trains on both the Tohoku Main Line and Ou Line remained halted for five days due to landslides and river flooding.
During that period, all traffic between Tokyo and Aomori was completely severed.
That two main lines of the national railway lay side by side rendered impassable for five full days marked an event unprecedented in railway history.

Following that flood, by mid-August, various rivers across Hokkaido overflowed—the upper regions of the Ishikari River in particular were struck by a great flood, the first in thirty years.
The floods of this summer were nationwide; it was reported that over seventy rivers overflowed, each causing severe flood damage.

However, even such nationwide great floods were completely overshadowed by the subsequent great flooding of the Tone River caused by Typhoon Kathleen in September.
At this time, the Kurihashi levee breached, and the Tone River’s floodwaters surged south across the Kanto Plain toward Tokyo.
And due to the breach of the Sakura Levee, this great flood finally reached the urban areas of Tokyo.

Because flooding had not reached the Tokyo metropolitan area in recent years, the attention of government authorities and journalism became entirely focused on this event. Thus, when speaking of Typhoon Kathleen’s flood damage, a great many people remember only the great Tone River flood. However, the damage from Typhoon Kathleen was by no means limited to the Tone River alone. The Kitakami River also experienced a great flood simultaneously. Ichinoseki Town was struck by swirling muddy currents, with floodwaters reaching even the second floors. As a memento of that calamity, straw fragments caught on telephone lines remained long afterward. In other words, the waters had risen to such an extent that they submerged telephone lines. The terrifying form of the flood that submerged the entire town beneath muddy currents remains indelibly etched in people’s memories.

After the flooding of the Tone River, on the morning when the Joban Line first resumed service, I arrived in Tokyo from Aomori. In the Kameari vicinity, water had not yet receded, and half-destroyed houses stood tilted, stripped of all fixtures until only their skeletal frameworks remained. In some places, floodwaters appeared to have surged from narrow drainage culverts crossing the railway tracks. The remnants of desperate attempts to block these culverts with tatami mats still lay freshly scattered about. These mats, piled high and discarded along the riverbank—half-rotted and mingled with mud—had taken on the appearance of compost. For this region's impoverished flood victims, such tatami mats would likely remain unobtainable treasures for some time. Yet there they were—hauled out and caked in mud—their bearers' figures materializing before one's eyes as they fought desperately to stem the tide.

While taking in this scene, I entered Tokyo.
Stepping out of Ueno Station, I found people bustling about with complete indifference to flood disasters.
Walking through Tokyo’s streets revealed most residents remained utterly detached from this calamity, while others appeared simply frantic.

From the fourth floor of a large building near Ueno Station hung a massive banner that read, "Flood Relief Fund Donations Sought." At street corners throughout the city, numerous posters had been posted with slogans such as "Save the Flood-Stricken Areas of Kanto" and "Save the Flood-Stricken Areas of Tohoku." When I looked at the newspapers, headlines such as “Establishment of a Five-Year Flood Control Plan” and “Formation of a Flood Countermeasures Committee” stood out in bold, prominent text.

Sending relief funds to flood-stricken areas and establishing five-year plans were not inherently wrong actions, but they hardly constituted wise approaches. Why had this flood occurred? Furthermore, when viewed as a natural phenomenon, through what course had it arisen? No one was articulating how future countermeasures should be formulated in these regards. Nor did newspapers carry any reports of comprehensive scientific survey teams being dispatched to flood-affected regions.

Everything seen and heard appeared unchanged, as if flood countermeasures were being devised through posters and newspaper print alone.
This stemmed neither from incompetence nor likely malice, but rather laid bare wartime habits unaltered—an outcome of sheer panic.
To interpret matters thus was the safest course.

III. Causes of Floods

Not limited to floods, natural disasters generally saw their damage costs increase with the advancement of civilization.
This occurred because population growth and the expansion of production facilities inevitably led to increased infrastructure development even in disaster-prone areas.
Consequently, damages consequently rose to significantly greater sums than before.

Even when not particularly large in scale, recent floods would have resulted in tremendous damages when calculated monetarily.
There were many instances where over forty bridges on a single river had been washed away.
At current prices, even constructing a simple bridge would cost three million or five million yen.
Thus, rebuilding just the bridges along one river required enormous expenses.
Moreover, bridges built with such funds were extremely crude.
They were bridges so flimsily constructed that even a subsequent minor flood could easily wash them away.

As for levee breach locations, examples where a single river suffers twenty or thirty such breaches were by no means rare. Roads were destroyed, various facilities were washed away, and fields and houses were swept away. Crops suffered significant damage from inundation. Mountain forests similarly suffered significant damage from landslides caused by torrential rain. If one were to itemize each of those damages, a single flood would immediately result in losses amounting to hundreds of billions of yen. I have heard that the damages in the Kansai region caused by Typhoon Jane alone amounted to one hundred billion yen, and that figure was by no means an exaggeration.

Now, the summer floods of 1947 had occurred nationwide over three months—July, August, and September—with over eighty flood disasters reported when tallied.
Regarding these flood disasters, thoughtful individuals already harbored profound apprehensions even at that time.
This was because it remained unclear whether these flood disasters constituted abnormal phenomena unique to that year.

If the climate of 1947 had unfortunately coincided with an abnormally rainy period—a once-in-several-centuries occurrence—there would have been nothing to be done about it.
Given the nation’s exhausted strength in the postwar period, that such great floods could not be contained was only natural.
Therefore, were this an abnormal phenomenon, there would be no recourse but to wait quietly for this rainy period to pass.

Of course, if that were the case—if they could just endure two or three years—the heavy rains causing great floods would eventually cease, so looking ahead, that outcome would prove more prudent.

However, another possibility must be considered.
The cause of this flood might not stem from that year's abnormally heavy rainfall, but rather from how rivers had been abandoned without intervention since wartime and earlier, combined with neglected watershed management—factors that likely triggered such flooding.
If that were true, it would grow truly problematic.
For then, identical flood disasters would inevitably recur every year without end.

Now，in such cases，it was generally not the norm for causes to be definitively singular.
It remained factual that this year had seen relatively heavy rainfall，while river system deterioration could reasonably be considered one contributing factor.
The critical question became determining which carried greater weight—yet I found myself concluding that watershed degradation constituted the graver issue.
This meant we had no choice but to acknowledge：even average seasonal rains would now inevitably trigger floods.

However, such causes should by no means be easily settled.
Immediately after the Kathleen Typhoon, the then Minister of Agriculture and Forestry once issued a statement to the effect that since such great floods had been caused by wartime deforestation of mountain forests, henceforth they must devote all efforts to afforestation.
Such a statement was, of course, one with a scientifically weak basis and of little significance.
What was interesting was that at the time, there had been no one who doubted this statement.
When considered from a commonsense perspective, it must have seemed entirely plausible that such a thing could occur.
However, to definitively assert that wartime deforestation was the cause of the floods, it was necessary to properly conduct scientific research to determine whether deforestation was indeed the primary cause.

During the Kathleen Typhoon, it was said that an almost unbelievable torrential rain of over 600 millimeters had fallen in the deep mountains of Chichibu. This record was later determined through various examinations to represent a value that should be considered credible to a considerable degree, despite being an astonishing quantity of rain. Furthermore, upon investigating the flooding in the upper reaches of the Ishikari River on August 15 of that year, it was confirmed that the rainfall at that time, according to records from the Asahikawa Weather Station, had been the heaviest in thirty years.

Considering these data, while deforestation, abandonment of rivers, and degradation of watershed areas each certainly constitute contributing factors, we must also consider that this was a year of abnormally heavy rainfall.

However, there was also another set of data.
There were reports that localized areas had experienced rainfall of around 300 millimeters for the majority of that year's flood damage, but these were quite limited in scope; generally speaking, it was said the floods had been caused by rainfall ranging from 80 millimeters to at most 120 millimeters.
Such rainfall could by no means be considered exceptional even in future years.
Yet if it still produced significant flooding, then it stood to reason that the degradation of watershed areas and wartime neglect of rivers also formed critical contributing factors.

Therefore, attempting to attribute all these flood phenomena to a single simple cause like deforestation alone amounts to an exceedingly simplistic approach.
Unless one conducts proper scientific investigation into such matters, nothing definitive can be stated.

However, opposing arguments would likely surface immediately against such reasoning.
Since afforestation is undeniably beneficial, there is no need to fuss over trivial details like this.
It becomes the argument that since tree-planting is obviously good, we should simply plant more trees.
Of course, afforestation should indeed be encouraged—not only does it help prevent floods, but it also proves vital for securing Japan’s timber resources.

However, even when encouraging afforestation, doing so after clarifying the core of the matter is both more scientific and effective.

Statements lacking scientific basis, such as the previously issued declaration by the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, could bring unforeseen harm in unexpected places. If these great floods had resulted from wartime deforestation of mountain forests, then even were afforestation undertaken now—since ten or fifteen years would be required for tree growth—this would naturally lead to the conclusion that no countermeasures needed to be taken during that decade and a half, and that any implemented would prove futile. I will discuss those points in greater detail later, but in any case, it remains certain that were such flood disasters to recur annually, Japan’s future would indeed appear truly bleak.

IV. Japan’s New Affliction

In a single summer, eighty flood disasters nationwide—particularly the catastrophic damage from the Kathleen Typhoon—cast a dark shadow over public sentiment at the time.
The government, of course, was also deeply concerned about this matter.
Mr. Takano Yosaku, then Director of the Construction Bureau at the Economic Stabilization Headquarters [安本], along with other insightful individuals who harbored profound apprehensions that Japan would collapse from water damage alone should floods of this scale recur annually for ten years, devoted themselves to establishing scientific countermeasures.

However, this concern unfortunately did not remain a groundless fear, as the summer of 1948 also saw frequent flood disasters reported nationwide.
In particular, the Ione Typhoon that struck in September 1948 caused significant damage.
This Ione Typhoon primarily struck the Tohoku region, but this convergence of circumstances was truly uncanny.
On the exact same month and day as the previous year's Kathleen Typhoon, it once again submerged the town of Ichinoseki beneath muddy torrents.

This typhoon caused major flooding in nearly all rivers of Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, on par with that of the Kathleen Typhoon.
In particular, the flooding of the Iwai River—a tributary of the Kitakami River flowing near the border of these two prefectures—exceeded even that seen during the Kathleen Typhoon.
The damage suffered by the downstream coastal areas due to this rare great flood presented a scene truly too horrific to behold.
The death toll reached five hundred, and the town of Ichinoseki was once again submerged beneath muddy torrents.

It was precisely this region of the Kitakami River that had experienced firsthand postwar Japan’s new affliction.
For example, the Isawa River—another tributary of the Kitakami—was struck by a snowmelt flood on January 15, 1948, four months after the Kathleen Typhoon; then saw major flooding from Typhoon Eunice in mid-August of that same year; and subsequently suffered catastrophic flooding from Typhoon Ione in mid-September.
Truly, it was struck by four floods within a single full year.
And in the following year—1949—Typhoon Kitty caused similar flooding as well.

When it reached this point, floods could no longer be called natural disasters.
They had to be considered a kind of annual event.
And if, with each occurrence of this annual event, even a single river caused damage amounting to hundreds of billions of yen or more, it would pose a truly immense obstacle to Japan’s reconstruction.

This phenomenon was by no means limited to the Kitakami River alone.
Similar occurrences were being observed to varying degrees in rivers nationwide.
For instance, after experiencing flooding in 1949 (Showa 24), the Tenryu River caused an even larger flood in June of the following year, 1950.
Moreover, during mid-June 1950 (Showa 25), a week-long rainy season caused flooding in over half of Honshu's rivers.
Fortunately, the flooding of the Tone River and other major waterways was narrowly prevented from breaching levees at the last moment, averting a disaster comparable to the Kathleen Typhoon.
Nevertheless, immediately following the floods, damages exceeding ¥2 billion were reported by the Ministry of Construction alone, with over ¥3 billion in losses related to the Forestry Agency.

From the perspective of flood damage, postwar Japan’s reality had taken shape as an unfortunate confirmation of the very catastrophe that key figures had anxiously predicted.
While government officials and citizens alike squandered their days in futile uproar over labor disputes, food crises, peace treaty controversies, and election campaigns, our nation steadily trod—silent step by silent step—down the road to ruin.

V. Government Countermeasures

As for this new affliction that had emerged abruptly before our eyes in postwar Japan, it could not be said that the government remained entirely indifferent.
Discussions concerning national land preservation and mountain-river management were repeated to excess.
And within our nation’s government, an astonishing number of departments, committees, and similar bodies related to this issue had been established.

It was not that these committees and similar entities were insufficient; rather, there were far too many of them. And rather than cooperating with each other, they had fallen into a position of mutual restraint to such an extent that their proliferation had become rampant. This proliferation was drastically reduced and consolidated through Prime Minister Yoshida’s bold decision, but even so, the number of committees that remained in 1950 (Showa 25) was as follows. It is likely that the majority of these continue to exist even today.

Cabinet — National Land Development Council

Ministry of International Trade and Industry — Resources Agency

Hokkaido Development Agency — Hokkaido Development Council

Economic Stabilization Headquarters — Resources Survey Committee, River Comprehensive Development Council

Ministry of Construction — River Bureau, Civil Engineering Research Institute, Road Council

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry — Reclamation Council

House of Representatives — Special Committee on Disaster Area Countermeasures

House of Councillors — Development Committee

In addition to those mentioned above, there still existed many associations serving as external organizations for ministries such as the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
The Erosion Control Association, River Association, Mountain Conservation Association, National Land Planning Association, Road Association, and so on—if one were to list them all individually, there would be no end.

Admittedly, among those I have enumerated above, there may be some discrepancies in the names.
However, this was not submitted as official documentation but rather presented as one example demonstrating how numerous these committees and similar assemblies have become.
Therefore, I ask that you understand that even if there are slight discrepancies in their names, they are unrelated to the main thrust of the discussion.

A country that maintained such a large number of committees and research councils for land development and mountain and river management would have been rare even by global standards.
And what was even more unusual was how these committees appeared to be attempting to solve the problem of floods—a single natural phenomenon—without the aid of natural sciences.

Of course, the names of natural scientists were also listed among these various committees.
However, all these individuals held positions of responsibility and were extremely busy people.
They would summon these individuals every few months, hand them dozens of mimeographed sheets, and solicit their opinions.
To interpret this as resolving our national crisis through the power of science could be considered nothing short of a desecration of science itself.
One could not help but say they remained intent on addressing natural phenomena solely through posters and text—that is, through the power of orders and propaganda.

Even if dozens of committees were created, the Japanese people’s knowledge about floods did not advance one step.
A prime example of this was last year’s Typhoon Ruth.
In the autumn of 1951, this Typhoon Ruth that struck Japan received a truly peculiar treatment.
In other words, it was a “welcomed” typhoon.
At the same time, the attitude with which the Japanese people welcomed this typhoon appeared to epitomize the current state of Japan’s intellectual engagement with water.

**VI. The "Typhoon of Mercy"**

Typhoon Ruth was a typhoon that received what might be called the peculiar treatment of being a "welcomed typhoon."
The term "typhoon of mercy" was a phrase coined during this period.

The electricity crisis that had been gradually worsening since summer had driven various production factories to the brink.
The primary cause of this electricity crisis was that typhoons had been unusually scarce since summer that year, resulting in reduced rainfall and consequently a significant decrease in hydroelectric power generation.

First, let us begin with the October 10th newspaper article.
Due to insufficient rainfall since summer, river flows across the nation had gradually diminished, until by September they finally dropped below sixty-five percent of normal annual levels.
Emergency blackouts progressively spread nationwide, and as people grew convinced that persisting in this course would inevitably lead to catastrophe, both power authorities and the general public abruptly focused their attention on electricity.

The electricity crisis subsequently continued to deteriorate rapidly, with the flow rate available for power generation plunging to fifty-eight percent of normal by the 12th.
This marked nothing less than a record-breaking drought unseen in thirty years.
Nationwide, Lake Inawashiro—renowned as an electrical reservoir—saw its water level drop precipitously, registering the lowest summer drought levels ever recorded.
Though this lake's waters should normally have been conserved during this period to prepare for winter's dry season from December through March, managers were compelled to further draw down its levels and maintain strained power generation to address the immediate crisis.
The remaining usable water volume in this reservoir had dwindled to such pitiful levels that even exhausting all reserves would sustain operations for merely thirty days.

Amidst this commotion, the first report that Typhoon Ruth had appeared far out in the Pacific Ocean appeared in newspapers.
Therefore, this typhoon came to receive an unprecedented treatment entirely different from before—that is, it became a welcomed typhoon.
According to an announcement by the Central Meteorological Observatory around midnight on the 12th, a new typhoon—Ruth—had appeared off the coast of Rasa Island.
In a subsequent announcement at noon on the same day by the Central Meteorological Observatory, the maximum wind speed near the center was estimated to be 60 meters per second.
It was found that this wind speed was even more ferocious than that of Typhoon Jane, which had ravaged the Kansai region and claimed over 190 lives.

However, whether this would make landfall on Honshu remained entirely unknown at that time.
The newspaper headlines during this period proclaimed "Merciful Rain Is Certain," though there had never before been an instance of a typhoon being called "merciful rain."
On the 13th, as the typhoon drew nearer to mainland Japan, an evening announcement from the Osaka District Meteorological Observatory stated that its rainfall would cover Honshu—declaring Typhoon Ruth an ideal "merciful rain typhoon" that would resolve the current rock-bottom electricity crisis, words of welcome indeed.

In fact, on that very day, this typhoon had already demonstrated its beneficence, bringing an average of forty millimeters of rain to the power source areas of Southern Kyushu and raising dam water levels from sixty to seventy percent of full capacity.
The Central Meteorological Observatory, also placing great expectations on Typhoon Ruth, announced that rainfall at Lake Inawashiro—the power source for the Kanto region—would not fall below fifty millimeters.

The Tokyo region’s electricity situation had reached its worst state around this day, plunging into the direst circumstances where emergency blackouts of three and a half hours each had to be implemented across all four jurisdictional areas—without distinction between households, stores, or factories large and small.
Therefore, it was only natural that Typhoon Ruth came to be awaited.

In the end, this Typhoon Ruth wreaked havoc from Kyushu to the Chugoku region, then moved out to the Japan Sea and made landfall again in central Tohoku.
However, by that time, its force had already significantly weakened, so it retreated from off the Sanriku coast into the Pacific Ocean without causing major damage.
The rainfall amounts—504 millimeters in Miyazaki and 471 millimeters in Oita—were extraordinarily high; apart from the Hokuriku region, which received 50 to 100 millimeters of rain, most areas experienced rainfall of roughly 50 millimeters or less.

Despite this, the electricity situation improved rapidly, and according to the noon announcement on the 15th, the flow rates of rivers available for power generation had increased above the annual average in Kyushu, Shikoku, and the Chugoku region, with Tokyo Electric Power reaching 102 percent of its annual average.
For this reason, Tokyo Electric Power even issued an auspicious announcement stating that emergency blackouts would be suspended from the 15th for the time being.

If this were all there was to the story, Typhoon Ruth would indeed have been a merciful typhoon, the electricity situation would have improved because of it, and we would have had to reassess the value of typhoons.
In fact, there were times when one would occasionally overhear conversations where people spoke of having discovered—for the first time—the benefits of typhoons.
However, this is a complete misunderstanding; in reality, even when a typhoon arrives, Japan’s electricity situation can never become one that permits such optimism.
It is true that if they do not come, we face water shortages.
However, even when they come, they bring little benefit—such is the current state of Japan’s rivers.
The reason is that Japan’s current hydroelectric power systems can hardly utilize the vast floodwaters brought by typhoons.

As I have mentioned before, Japan’s hydroelectric power systems are, with few exceptions, almost entirely canal-type systems that lack reservoir lakes.
Thus, even when torrential outflows occur, there is no alternative but to let all water beyond what can be channeled into the canals flow uselessly back into the rivers.
Of course, there was certainly some benefit—despite the abnormal drought having allowed only about half the tunnel’s capacity to be utilized until then, thanks to the typhoon’s arrival, they could now flow water at full tunnel capacity.
Because rain that falls in the mountains does not immediately drain away all at once, once a heavy rain falls, one can manage without water shortages for some time afterward.
However, that was only a temporary matter; even the rain that Typhoon Ruth brought could not be utilized for the most part.
Welcoming Typhoon Ruth as a typhoon of mercy was, in fact, a meaningless endeavor from the very beginning.
And indeed, this was precisely the case: though the typhoon revealed its true nature as a merciful rain typhoon only during the two days of the 15th and 16th—the period when it raged most violently—the blackouts resumed from the 17th.
It was not without a sense of absurdity.

After all, as the newspapers reported, the improvement in electricity conditions brought by Typhoon Ruth lasted just a single day nationwide.
The question lies in why Japan’s leaders and power officials used the term “typhoon of mercy” for such an obvious matter.
The reason is that this typhoon, which brought a mere one-day improvement in electricity, was accompanied by significant damage behind the scenes.

VII. Japan’s Intellect

After Typhoon Ruth had passed, the newspapers dismissed it as a mere “nationwide improvement in electricity conditions lasting just a single day.”
In such instances, one could discern Japan’s intellectual character.
This was because the damage caused by this typhoon surpassed that of any previous typhoon in severity.

In Kagoshima—struck first—the maximum instantaneous wind speed reached forty-seven meters per second.
This raging storm brought destruction: thirteen houses completely demolished or severely damaged, fifteen thousand homes flooded above floor level.
The Miyazaki region suffered comparable devastation, with casualties exceeding all expectations.
That Kagoshima alone recorded eighty-three deaths leaves no doubt about the typhoon’s ferocity.

The Chugoku region also suffered extensive damage following this; the Sanyo Line was severed in multiple places, and telegraph and telephone communications fell into complete disarray.

The significant damage to maritime vessels was another undeniable characteristic of this typhoon.
Starting with the grounding of vessels such as the 7,000-ton Kongōmaru and the 2,200-ton Kinseimaru, maritime disasters involving ships both large and small occurred one after another; it was reported that in Hiroshima alone, the number of sunken ships reached twenty.
Even looking at the tally of damages ascertained by the 16th alone,

Deaths: 354 people

Missing: 284 people

Injured: Over 1,000 people

Given this, it caused damage orders of magnitude greater than that of Typhoon Jane, which had been said to be the most destructive up to that point.
The death toll during Typhoon Jane was over 190 people, yet it caused such an uproar.

Ultimately, subsequent investigations revealed that the number of completely and partially destroyed houses exceeded 40,000, with an additional 2,500 or more houses reported washed away.
The flooding of fields, breaches of levees, and washing away of bridges also reached enormous numbers, but what astonished was that the damage to ships, including minor losses, reportedly extended to over 5,800 vessels.

The material damage that had been confirmed amounted to fifty-three billion yen in losses related to the Ministry of Construction. Considering previous typhoon damage estimates and including private sector losses, even material damage alone could be estimated to reach at least three hundred billion yen or more.

However, this is not the whole story.
Later, an astonishing fact came to light.

That was a great tragedy that occurred in the upper reaches of the Nishiki River in Kuga District, Yamaguchi Prefecture.
In this region, which bore the brunt of the typhoon’s path in the early hours of the 15th, river breaches and landslides occurred frequently, completely severing all external transportation.
Due to the overwhelming scale of the damage, the prefectural authorities and others were unable to cope, necessitating the eventual deployment of the reserve unit.
The newspapers had prominently covered this as the reserve unit’s first deployment, but after a grueling ordeal of a march, the dispatched unit finally forged a path for vehicles and, by the 21st, managed to deliver relief supplies.

It was only then that the full extent of the damage became clear: in this district alone, the dead and missing numbered 309, while those with serious and minor injuries reached an astonishing total of over 1,200.
A typhoon inflicting such catastrophic damage had been rare in recent times.
Typhoon Ruth—hailed as a merciful typhoon in Tokyo newspapers—had in reality killed over six hundred people and injured more than two thousand.
Moreover, this so-called mercy proved utterly meaningless when its effects lasted a mere single day.

Of course, no matter how vehemently one argued such points，typhoons could not be halted，nor could flood control measures be rapidly implemented．Moreover，even discussing modifications to hydroelectric power systems remained nothing more than a pipe dream at that time．The argument that Japan’s national capacity rendered any solution impossible would inevitably surface．Yet throughout the week-long Typhoon Ruth commotion，the policies and proposals from government authorities appearing in newspapers consisted solely of articles bearing headlines like those below．

Coal Imports and Artificial Rain: Recovering Delayed Countermeasures

Industries Scrambling for Electricity

Power Source Development, New Government Agency, Next Fiscal Year: 20–30 Billion

Will the Electricity Rationing Order Be Enacted?

Power Source Development Even in the Capital

Public Utilities Commission’s Strengthened Flexibility Plan

“Five-Year Plan for Power Source Development: Anbon Draft Formulated, Permanent Electricity Countermeasures”

“Foreign Capital for Power Sources: The Draper Letter”

“Strengthening Public Utilities Commission Intervention”

“Financing Considerations for Electrification Enterprises: Government’s Electricity Countermeasures”

These were all articles bearing such headlines, but even a cursory glance at them revealed through what intellectual framework Japan had come to call Typhoon Ruth a “merciful rain typhoon.”

VIII. What Are Scientific Countermeasures?

Electric power had fallen into its current state of crisis, and flood control remained stagnant.
For those in charge, confronted with this pressing urgency, their minds must have been entirely consumed by the problem of how to overcome this crisis.
But now that they had reached this critical juncture, struggling would achieve nothing.
If struggling could achieve something, then it was better to struggle vigorously.
But when nothing could be done, it was better to stay asleep.

Whether it be developing power sources or implementing flood control, the counterpart was nature.
Nature proved a truly troublesome entity; no matter how many new agencies were created or government plans devised, if they did not suit its preferences, it would never accept them.
Nature remained by no means as obedient as the people.
Even when prohibited by ministerial decree, should a mountain wish to collapse, it would promptly do so.

Looking at various plans for Japan’s power source development, it appeared that in every case the financing issue was being addressed as the foremost major problem.
At least from what could be seen in newspaper articles and such, they gave that impression.
In other words, it seemed that the majority of people believed power sources would be developed if only there was money.
As I am a layperson, I do not know the truth.
However, in this world there are few things that can be accomplished if only there is money.
Without money it cannot of course be done—but conversely most things cannot be accomplished with money alone.
Problems involving humans can generally be settled with money alone—but when dealing directly with nature there are very few problems that can be solved with money alone.
It is essential to bear this firmly in mind.
In that sense if one looks at the examples of headlines listed in the previous section—the reason Japan’s resource utilization has not progressed should be clear to anyone.

Those who had directly witnessed the horrors of flood damage might regard scientific approaches to such disasters as mere academic theorizing.
Yet floods never exceed science’s domain.
The turbid torrent sweeping through a riverbed differs only in scale from water pouring from a teapot spout—a millionfold magnification of fundamental physics.

Rain falls and flows riverward.
Water volume rises when inflow surpasses outflow.
Flow velocity intensifies in tandem.
At critical thresholds of volume and speed, levees rupture at their frailest points.
This sequence defines flood and inundation phenomena.
From initial mountain rainfall to final embankment collapse—every phase constitutes an unbroken chain of natural processes.
To solve such problems without natural science’s aid would be impossible; this conviction forms our essential understanding of floods.

Of course, one could interpret such issues in the following manner.
In other words, flood control had already been exhaustively researched in Europe and America over several decades—or even a century.
Therefore, the solution was already known.
This became the view that it was no longer a matter of scientific research but rather one of engineering implementation.
In the relevant government agencies, they might argue that they had already conducted sufficient engineering research and surveys, but that implementation remained impossible simply due to a lack of funds.

If that were truly the case, then conducting new scientific foundational research now would be entirely unnecessary, and even if one were to conduct it, the view that this flood damage could not actually be addressed would hold true.
However, this way of thinking was in fact a view that had always been implicitly adopted—not limited to flood damage but encompassing all issues facing Japan during the war and even before it.
And it was this way of thinking that created today’s Japan without science.

The word "science" in Japan tends to be interpreted with a profoundly mistaken meaning.
It seems that the phrase frequently used by Prime Minister Tojo during the war—“make the impossible possible through the power of science”—may have profoundly misrepresented to the public the essential nature of science as an academic discipline.
Of course, this is not a problem with Tojo himself, but rather with the background that compelled Tojo to utter such words—that is to say, Japan’s intellectual standard—is what constitutes the problem.

Science is fundamentally not a discipline that makes the impossible possible.
If something makes the impossible possible, then that is magic.
Magic is the exact opposite of science.
In that sense, if we are to use the terminology of this approach, we must declare: "Make the possible possible through the power of science."
However, making the possible possible is in fact extremely difficult, and it is something that can only be achieved through the power of sound judgment.
In that sense, as the best definition of science, one could say that the essence of sound judgment most aptly expresses its true nature.

Even when speaking of scientific research on floods, it does not necessarily mean one must use only differential equations or precision machinery.
Of course, such things are used when necessary, but science is not solely difficult basic theories far removed from practical application.
Precisely examining the climatic conditions of Japan’s land, determining under what conditions rain falls, through what course it rapidly flows into rivers, and by what action that water breaches levees—investigating these matters rationally and in accordance with nature is precisely what constitutes scientific research on floods.

One might think such things would have already been done long ago, but in reality, they remained almost entirely unknown.
For example, regarding a certain river, how much sediment flowed out during a specific flood event constituted the most crucial data in flood control.
Furthermore, how much water flowed during that flood event was, of course, even more crucial data.
One would naturally expect such data to have been thoroughly investigated for nearly all rivers nationwide with each flood event, but examples where it was actually measured were almost nonexistent.
This is the actual state of Japan today.

Not only that, but whether deforestation was a direct cause of floods had not actually been confirmed until very recently.
Moreover, according to recent research, it became clear that this notion—in the literal sense of the term—was likely a superstition, leaving even us speechless.
Of course, it had been known in China since three thousand years ago that deforestation causes mountains to become barren and indirectly leads to floods.
Such so-called grandiose expressions do not belong to the language of science.
If deforestation were claimed to be the direct cause of floods, then from that statement alone, the following law should immediately emerge.
In other words, it would be a law that if trees were planted to their pre-war state, floods would cease.
However, that was beyond dispute and utterly inconceivable.
Rivers as devastated as these could not be expected to regain their vitality through mere afforestation alone.
Of course, this was not to say that rampant deforestation was permissible.
Planting trees remained extremely important both for securing forest resources and for long-term flood control, and there was no issue with that act itself.

However, while fully acknowledging the necessity of afforestation, this signifies that we must also find a path for how to treat rivers.

When it comes to scientific flood countermeasures, Japan—despite being a dying, impoverished nation—remains prone to regarding the formulation of idealistic plans that merely mimic the lavish forms of American-style measures as “scientific.”
However, that is an outrageously mistaken notion.
To adapt to Japan’s actual circumstances—minimizing damage within existing financial constraints and formulating optimal measures suited to the nation’s current conditions—is precisely what constitutes scientific countermeasures.
That said, how much of “there being no money” is actually true remains unclear.
When we observe how, in recent years, the state has been squandering vast sums with utter nonchalance, even the assertion of “there being no money” begins to sound like a hollow mantra.
In truth, it seems almost as if the issue is not that there is no money, but rather that something else is lacking.
First, clarifying that point constitutes the first step in scientific flood countermeasures.

IX. The Dying Land

Japan’s rivers today present a tragic sight.
During floods or snowmelt surges, when standing atop the levee and watching the water flow away, one could vividly see within it the form of a land marching toward ruin.

Standing at the mouth of the Ishikari River during snowmelt and watching the swirling muddy current flow past, I came to think this was literally the sight of Japan's land being eroded away.
The turbid flow naturally contained an immense quantity of soil particles.
A significant portion of that soil came from farmland or exposed mountain slopes.
To say our land was being washed away became not poetic metaphor but scientific fact.

This phenomenon was not limited to the Ishikari River but held true for rivers nationwide; moreover, it was observable not only during snowmelt periods but whenever floods occurred.
The soil carried seaward by that turbid flow consisted chiefly of particles and colloids.
That these particles and colloids constituted the most vital components of soil fertility required no explanation.
In addition, though invisible to the eye, dissolved substances serving as fertilizer components were naturally also present in great quantities.

Just how much soil and fertilizer components that turbid flow was washing away to the sea constituted a critical issue for national land conservation.
Naturally assuming such matters had already been thoroughly researched, I sought out specialists in that field to hear their accounts.
Yet to my astonishment, I was told that while there seemed to be a few examples of such investigations having been conducted on Honshu’s rivers, they could safely be considered virtually nonexistent.

Therefore, concluding that measuring it ourselves would be the quickest approach, we—the members of the lab—resolved to begin this investigation. For this purpose, snowmelt flooding offered the most practical conditions for measurement. Thus we decided to conduct more detailed measurements of these substances inevitably lost from our land each early spring, focusing specifically on the Ishikari River’s snowmelt floods.

These measurements were conducted during three post-war snowmelt periods at a location near the mouth of the Ishikari River, with Assistant Professor Arakawa of Hokkaido University conducting the surveys during the first two years and Dr. Sugaya performing highly detailed observations of the third year’s snowmelt flooding.
The results revealed something astonishing.
For just the Ishikari River alone during snowmelt flooding periods, it was found that approximately 2.5 million tons of suspended sediment flowed out through the river mouth, while dissolved fertilizer components amounted to around 700,000 tons.
In other words, it became clear that the quantity of material carried away to the Sea of Japan in a single spring reached an unimaginably enormous total of 3.2 million tons.
That too was astonishing, but there existed something even more astonishing.
That we had been losing this much of our national land every year without anyone knowing until now.

One might imagine conducting such research to be an extremely difficult undertaking, but in truth there was nothing difficult about it whatsoever. We went to Ishikari River's iron bridge, lowered a water sampler from its span to collect river water, and filled one-liter bottles with it. We placed several such samples into a rucksack, carried them back to the lab, then analyzed the water and measured the sediment that settled at the bottom. This was all that was required to conduct the research.

Of course, since the mud content differs between areas near the river’s surface and those at its bottom, to conduct precise measurements, it was necessary to collect a fixed amount of water from various depths across the river’s cross-section and measure both the suspended sediment and dissolved substances contained within.
However, since such precise observations did not need to be conducted frequently, we carried out the survey only five or six times.

Along the river’s cross-section, we collected water from various distances and depths and examined the distribution of suspended sediment.
However, it was found that the representative point yielding the average value was always located at a fixed depth below the surface of the river’s thalweg.
Since this fact became clear, from then on, we collected water at that depth and measured the amount of mud contained within it.
In other words, since it became possible to conduct observations at a single point, the measurements became extremely easy.

All that remained was to multiply this observed value by the river’s flow rate and perform the calculation.
As river flow rates were measured by river authorities, obtaining that data made this research an exceedingly simple matter.
This kind of research had never been left undone because it was difficult; people simply had not done it.
That was what proved most troubling.

The actual observations were conducted according to the following procedure.
For the representative point yielding average suspended sediment concentration, they collected water samples and took measurements every five days.
They continued these observations through three distinct periods: initial flooding from late March to late April, subsequent flooding until mid-May, and finally receding waters until mid-July.
Through all three periods combined, they discovered that total material flowing out to sea reached 3.2 million tons.

The question of where such an enormous quantity of soil originated constituted a critical issue.
Therefore, Dr. Sugaya performed particle analyses of mud collected during each period while simultaneously examining snowmelt timing at different elevations throughout the watershed.
Through this investigation, the soil's provenance became largely apparent - approximately 700,000 tons were confirmed to have flowed from cultivated land, with the majority of remaining sediment estimated to stem from riverbed erosion.

Regarding this same Ishikari River, we collected water from an upstream location just emerging from the mountainous region during the same period and measured its suspended sediment load.
However, it was found that there was almost no suspended sediment load there.
The Daisetsuzan mountain range, where the Ishikari River’s headwaters lie, remained mostly untouched natural forest; consequently, it was found that in the mountainous areas, relatively little sediment flowed into the river.
That this was actually a troubling matter lay in the fact that the majority of sediment flowing out to sea originated from the plains—that is, farmland—or their surrounding areas.

Now regarding riverbed scouring—this massive occurrence of scouring demonstrates that the Ishikari River had not attained a stable state following its improvement works.
There exists a cross-sectional diagram of the river measured by the Ishikari River Flood Control Office in 1931.
When similar measurements were taken at the same location during spring of 1950 and compared with those from 1931, it was discovered that during this interval, riverbed scouring of approximately one meter in shallow zones and two meters in deeper sections had occurred.
The sediment transport volume calculated from this scouring amount was found to correspond almost exactly with the residual quantity derived by subtracting farmland runoff from the muddy water analysis data.

Natural phenomena such as rivers achieve stability only after an extremely long period of harmonious interplay among various forces.
Therefore, when part of one is modified, rivers require an extremely long period to settle into their next stable state.
Thus, adding artificial modifications to nature demands meticulous consideration and research.
The ongoing submergence of Niigata City into the sea due to the Shinano River renovation works stands as a prime example of this phenomenon.

From the perspective of soil conservation as well, such knowledge is essential; yet even issues like comprehensive land development cannot be satisfactorily carried out without this kind of foundational data.
For example, among the comprehensive development plans for the Ishikari River basin, a proposal has been made for a canal connecting Ishikari to Tomakomai.
However, these facts have not been considered at all in the plan.
If they intend to build such a canal, they must carefully examine what further changes the Ishikari River will undergo.
Even in its current state, every early spring alone sees 2.5 million tons of suspended sediment load being transported; when converted to the volume of wet soil, it amounts to 2.1 million cubic meters.
If even a portion of this enormous amount were to accumulate within the canal, it would spell disaster.
Comprehensive development cannot be achieved merely by fiddling with 1:50,000 scale maps.

Even if the Ishikari River carries three million or five million tons of soil to the sea each year, some might dismiss this as no grandiose issue like “a dying land.”
However, my true contention lies in this: Japan’s policymakers and scientists alike conduct no research whatsoever into these matters.
Or rather, it is precisely in their failure to even recognize the problem’s existence that we discern our nation’s land silently treading the path to ruin.
(July 1952, *The Excavation of Japan*)