Many people have surely felt the threat of raging nature. Disasters such as heavy rain and earthquakes have hit various parts of the country one after another in recent months.
This year's Disaster Drill Day comes as the Hokuriku and Tohoku regions are struck by heavy rains. Unstable weather conditions, including autumn rains and typhoons, will continue. Preparations for disaster must be checked.
First, preparations for evacuation must be confirmed. In the heavy rains in western Japan in July, many of the about 220 victims died in their homes. A special heavy rain warning was issued in 11 prefectures. Evacuation instructions and advisories were issued for up to 8.6 million people, but the number who took shelter at evacuation centers as instructed or advised came to less than 30,000.
It is essential for people to have self-help preparedness, such as knowing about the level of danger to themselves posed by an impending disaster and evacuating quickly in times of emergency. Information dissemination to help support evacuation is also indispensable. The government's Central Disaster Management Council will launch work to verify whether there was any problem with information dissemination during the heavy rainfall in western Japan.
Delays in the issuance of evacuation directives has been pointed out. In a Yomiuri Shimbun survey of heads of disaster-stricken municipalities, most of them said a review of the system is necessary. As disasters tend to become extremely severe, some people say that the situation cannot be assessed adequately by conventional methods. Problems found through the survey must be used to work out countermeasures.
Constant vigilance is required for the occurrence of great earthquakes and volcanic eruptions at Mt. Fuji and other mountains. The government's comprehensive disaster drill on Saturday was planned on the scenario of a huge earthquake in the Nankai Trough. If the earthquake actually happens, intense shaking and huge tsunami will wreak havoc on extensive areas, centering on western Japan.
Bolster quick responses
One matter of concern is the disaster response system. Its fragility was exposed when an earthquake with the maximum intensity of lower 6 on the Japanese seven-stage seismic scale hit northern Osaka Prefecture in June.
The disaster occurred during morning commuting hours on a weekday. Urban functions such as transportation networks were paralyzed for many long hours. Even the assembling of officials at the Osaka prefectural government in charge of disaster response was delayed considerably.
Individual local governments should strengthen rapid response capabilities by conducting repeated drills.
It is also imperative to improve observation technology capable of sensing unusual conditions in the earth and atmosphere.
Extreme weather, such as heavy rains and intense heat that happened this summer, could happen again in the years to come. The state of the atmosphere has changed partly due to global warming. It is hard to take countermeasures without a sufficient grasp of the real situation.
A council of the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry in August submitted recommendations on priority meteorological subjects to be tackled over the coming decade. The panel sets high-level technology targets for weather observation and forecasts.
The highlight of the envisaged technologies is a "Severe Storm Alert" system to warn of heavy rain, thunderstorms and wind gusts. The Japan Meteorological Agency aims to forecast the occurrence of such phenomena one hour earlier with high precision and announce its forecasts. As for typhoons, the margin of error in the forecast of their possible routes three days ahead is meant to be reduced from the current 250 kilometers to about 100 kilometers.
The development of such technologies will lead to people taking prompt action to protect themselves, including early evacuation. Steady realization of disaster prevention technologies is called for in this regard. Improvement and expansion of observation networks for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions must also be tackled urgently.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Sept. 1, 2018)
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
