ABSTRACT

Disabled people’s issues have seldom been discussed in the disaster policy literature and not until the UNISDR’s Sendai meeting in 2015 were disabled people mentioned in international policy frameworks. This chapter provides empirical accounts of the social roots of disaster risks among persons with disabilities (PWD) following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE). It considers the theoretical accounts of their difficulties, constraints and limitations from a social model of disabilities, and provides an action framework to deal with their root causes.