Support activity using WINDS satellite link in the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake

On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake, with a magnitude of 9.0, struck in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of northeastern Japan's Tohoku region. It was the fourth-strongest earthquake in recorded history, and triggered a giant tsunami that inflicted enormous damage along Japan's eastern seaboard. In some areas, the tsunami waves topped 15 meters and destroyed buildings and geographical features. Under these conditions, most communication lines were rendered unusable, so collecting of information on the disaster area's status by the national, and even local, government was difficult. To support the countrywide rescue and relief operation, the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) structured a satellite link between the disaster-hit area in Miyagi and Tokyo by using the Wideband InterNetworking Engineering Test and Demonstration Satellite (WINDS). The communication line of about 30Mbps was configured by using a transportable VSAT with a 1.0 m diameter antenna and 40W high-power amplifier. On this line, a high definition TV conference system, IP phone, and file transfer tools are operated along with Internet connectivity. These systems enabled the situation to be understood and instruction to be given in the disaster-hit areas. In this paper, we present the communication system structured using WINDS for this support, and discuss the requested system at the time of the disaster.