Katsuhiko Ishibashi

Katsuhiko Ishibashi (石橋 克彦, Ishibashi Katsuhiko; born August 8, 1944) is a professor in the Research Center for Urban Safety and Security in the Graduate School of Science at Kobe University, Japan and a seismologist who has written extensively in the areas of seismicity and seismotectonics in and around the Japanese Islands.^[1] He also coined the term genpatsu-shinsai (原発震災), from the Japanese words for "nuclear power" and "quake disaster".^[2][3]

Katsuhiko Ishibashi has said that Japan's history of nuclear accidents stems from an overconfidence in plant engineering. He was a member of a 2006 Japanese government subcommittee charged with revising the national guidelines on the earthquake-resistance of nuclear power plants, published in 2007.^[4] His proposal that the committee should review the standards for surveying active faults was rejected and, at the committee's final meeting he resigned claiming that the review process was "unscientific"^[4] and the outcome rigged^[5][6] to suit the interests of the Japan Electric Association, which had 11 of its committee members on the 19-member government subcommittee^[6] and that among other problems the guide was "seriously flawed" as a consequence because it underestimated the design basis earthquake ground motion.^[2]

In May 2011, he said: "If Japan had faced up to the dangers earlier, we could have prevented Fukushima".^[7]

Publications

• Ishibashi, K., "Why worry? Japan's nuclear plants at grave risk from quake damage", International Herald Tribune and The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (August 11, 2007)
• Ishibashi, K., "Status of historical seismology in Japan", Annals of Geophysics, Vol.47, 339-368 (2004)
• Ishibashi, K., "Seismotectonic modeling of the repeating M 7-class disastrous Odawara earthquake in the Izu collision zone, central Japan", Earth Planets Space, Vol.56, 843-858 (2004)
• Miyoshi, T. and K. Ishibashi, "Geometry of the seismic Philippine Sea slab beneath the region from Ise Bay to western Shikoku, southwest Japan, Zisin" J. Seismol. Soc. Japan, Ser. 2, Vol.57, 139-152 (English abstract) (2004) (in Japanese)
• Itani, Y. and Ishibashi, K., "Horizontal crustal strain in the Izu Peninsula - Mt. Fuji region derived from GEONET data and its tectonic implication, Zisin", J. Seismol. Soc. Japan, Ser. 2, Vol.56, 231-243 (English abstract) (2003) (in Japanese)
• Harada, T. and Ishibashi, K., "The 1958 great Etorofu earthquake was a slab event: Suggestion from the mainshock-aftershock relocation", EOS, Vol. 81, No. 22 Suppl. WP157 (2000)
• Ishibashi, K., An Era of Underground Convulsions: A Seismologist Warns, Iwanami Paperbacks, Iwanami Shoten (1994) (in Japanese)

See also

• Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant
• Pacific Ring of Fire
• Nuclear power in Japan
  • Seismicity
• Fukushima I nuclear accidents
• Kiyoo Mogi
• Geology of Japan