The Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake which hit Hokkaido on September 6 with the Japan’s seismic intensity scale of maximum 7 caused very violent landslides, resulting in the stoppage of Hokkaido Electric’s Atsumi thermal power plant, the imbalance of power supply/demand due to the consequent stoppage of the other power plants, followed by the blackout all over the Hokkaido District after all.

Regarding how the medical gases were supplied and industrial gases were produced and delivered in the midst of discontinued power supply, we approached the footsteps of the disaster responding measures taken by Air Water which has a dominating share in the regional gas market over the area.

The feature of this earthquake is that the whole Hokkaido area was plunged into blackouts. Although there was fortunately neither human casualty nor damage to the ASU and filling stations, the continued outage of electricity has been affecting the collection of information to a limited extent and disturbed any movement of supports for restoration. In addition the transformation of substances was limited as Hokkaido is separated from the mainland by sea. Although care had been taken to the procurement of inventory for the region having difficulties to back up in itself, the earthquake newly told us about the necessity of an advanced backup system for disasters.

At 6:37 three hours after occurrence of the quake on the early morning of 6th, Air Water started the first meeting of the Disaster Countermeasures Headquarters of Air Water Hokkaido in its head office (Chuo-ku, Sapporo City). The Air Water staff who rushed on foot or by car collected information of disaster situation over the group. Instead of the internet or ordinary telephone which could no longer be used, they collected information by mobile phone only. All of the three air-separation plants in the region was out of operation, and the on-site plants supplied purging gas from the liquid stock.

Designating the supply of medical gases as a top-priority issue, Air Water started with safety confirmation of the HOT patients and the procurement of backup oxygen cylinders for oxygen concentrator or artificial respirator immediately after the outbreak of the quake.

Due to the rampant crime-infested calls in the confusion of the disaster, many HOT patients did not respond to calls and therefore the staff of sales office went out to visit to confirm safety of one patient after another basing on the patient list. The filling stations in the Asahikawa Area recovered electricity 9:14 on 6th. Then they restarted filling of medical O2 and at the same time gathered the tank trucks and cylinders for filling.

Under the continuance of blackout, more backup cylinders would be required. So, medical oxygen cylinders were emergently transported from the mainland Honshu. Tohoku Air Water and Kanto Air Water transported the cylinders at three times by ferry from Hachinohe Port to Tomakomai Port together with foodstuff and drinking water.

The power supply in the Hokkaido District gradually restored from September 7 to 8. The company activities were shifted to the support of restoration from the disaster following the recovery of power supply system. The LPG mobile power supply vehicles of Air Water’s original development contributed to the activities. Particularly, the eleven vehicles of light-truck type were said to be running around busily for the power procurement in the stricken area.