"Fire of rice sheaves"

     About 170 years ago, on November 5th, 1854 (December 24th, 1854), Goryo Hamaguchi, who ran a soy sauce brewery in Chiba Prefecture, was visiting his hometown of Wakayama Prefecture and staying there. A huge tsunami caused by a sudden earthquake hit the Kii Peninsula.
     At that time, Hamaguchi Goryo set fire to rice sheaves (piles of rice straw that he had harvested and piled up) to guide the villagers fleeing from the tsunami to higher ground, even though they were a valuable property of his family. Did.
     After that, Hamaguchi devoted his personal fortune to the disaster-stricken village and worked hard to rebuild it. He also worked on building embankments to prepare for tsunami. It has been handed down as an anecdote.

Enactment of “World Tsunami Awareness Day”

     To deepen understanding and interest in the threat of "Tsunami", which still causes great damage to people in countries and regions around the world and has become a universal language, and countermeasures against it, we named it after this "Inamura no Hi". November 5th was designated as World Tsunami Awareness Day.
     At the United Nations General Assembly held in December 2015, 142 countries made a joint proposal at the initiative of Japan, and it was unanimously adopted.

Please also refer to this for "World Tsunami Awareness Day"