This year's typhoon season has started. There is no telling when a large-scale earthquake will take place. The spread of the novel coronavirus has made it more difficult to prepare for disasters.
On Disaster Preparedness Day (Sept. 1), disaster drills are held in various parts of the country. Many local governments limit the number of participants and change the content of the drills to prevent coronavirus infections. Hopefully, even if drills cannot be conducted to a sufficient degree, efforts will be made not to reduce disaster preparation awareness.
Local governments must take thorough measures against the coronavirus at evacuation centers. It is indispensable to take measures such as keeping an appropriate distance between evacuees and setting up partitions between them. Compared to past situations, reducing the capacity of the centers will be unavoidable.
You must not hesitate to evacuate for fear of infections, but staying on the second floor of your house is one option if you can secure safety there. You can also stay at a hotel or at the home of an acquaintance. If you have no choice but to stay overnight in a car, you need to check the surroundings to avoid flood risk.
It is important to think in advance about where to run away in case of emergency. When people head to places other than evacuation centers, it is desirable that local governments and communities can keep track of their whereabouts to avoid confusion in efforts such as the search for missing persons.
Adding masks and thermometers to household emergency supplies may be a good idea.
The most important thing is for local governments to provide accurate information. Hazard maps showing areas at high risk of landslides and flooding must be made thoroughly known to local residents, and evacuation information must be provided promptly in case of heavy rain and other natural disasters.
There are still many problems to be addressed regarding how to encourage residents to evacuate.
Last year, the central government began operating a system to announce the risk of disasters caused by heavy rain and the actions residents should take according to a five-level warning scale.
However, it has been pointed out that it is difficult to understand which is more imminent between "evacuation advisory" and "evacuation instructions," both of which are part of Level 4, in which all residents are required to evacuate from dangerous places.
Therefore, the central government intends to abolish the "advisory" and merge it into "instructions." The government is said to aim to revise the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Law during next year's ordinary Diet session. It must give full explanations to avoid confusion that could be caused by the change of the expressions.
Most local governments use public radio systems to deal with disasters, but they have a disadvantage in that it is difficult to listen to announcements during heavy rain or a typhoon. In the heavy rain that hit the Kyushu region in July, it is said that a special radio with a function to automatically receive evacuation information, as well as normal broadcasting, proved effective.
As there are some people who do not have smartphones, it is difficult to effectively spread evacuation information to them. Efforts should be made to secure a wide range of communication methods, including distribution of the special radios for evacuation information.
-- The original Japanese article appeared in The Yomiuri Shimbun on Sept. 1, 2020.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
