The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake, which occurred on March 11, 2011, triggered an extremely large tsunami. More than 15,000 deaths and 3,400 people missing were confirmed and 92.4% of the fatalities in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures resulted from drowning. In Japan, it is basically prohibited to evacuate by automobile in case of tsunami because there may occur traffic congestions and accidents. However, Central Disaster Management Council of Japan reported that about 57% of evacuees used their automobiles to reach the upland refuges. This resulted from the social situations in the coastal residential areas in Japan. Aging of population is rather fast especially in the affected areas by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, and the number of people in need of nursing care is increasing. Based on these circumstances, many people drove to the elevated areas after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake although the use of automobile was prohibited. This study aims to reveal the permissible limits of tsunami evacuation using automobile based on a series of driving simulator experiments. The authors perform numerical simulation of tsunami propagation, and the results are visualized from driver???s point of view using 3D computer graphics (CG). The CG is installed to a driving simulator, which consists of three LCDs, steering wheel, and brake and accelerator pedals. Several tsunami scenarios are employed in the driving simulator experiments to reveal the effectiveness of evacuation using automobile quantitatively
