Japan to assign disaster preparedness officers to each prefecture

Tokyo (The Uttam Hindu): Japan Cabinet Office's disaster management division plans to assign designated officers to each prefecture starting next fiscal year as a preparation for possible major disasters such as a Nankai Trough megaquake or a Tokyo metropolitan earthquake, local media reported.

The Cabinet Office is moving forward with plans to deploy approximately 50 officers across prefectures to focus on promoting stockpile management and volunteer collaboration in normal times while taking charge of assessing damage and organising evacuation shelters during disasters, Xinhua reported. To support the initiative, the Cabinet Office plans to double its current staff of 110 and seek a corresponding increase in its budget for the upcoming fiscal year, according to national broadcaster NHK, citing interviews with government officials. The latest initiative is part of the broader goal of establishing a "Disaster Management Agency" by fiscal year 2026.

Recent disasters, such as the Noto Peninsula earthquake, revealed challenges such as limited supplies in municipal stockpiles and delays in setting up evacuation shelters in Japan. The Japanese Government has an emergency broadcasting system called “J-Alert.” This system ensures that critical information reaches people in affected regions during various crises, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, civil protection, and more. J-Alert employs various methods to communicate with the public.

Besides, since 2007, smartphones have been installed with an earthquake early warning system that sounds an alarm immediately before an earthquake strikes. The first of its type in the world, this system generates an alert based on initial small tremors that occur seconds or tens of seconds before a large quake, urging people to prepare for evacuation. The system uses seismometers and seismic intensity meters that measure the tremors from the Japan Meteorological Agency (roughly 690 locations nationwide) and a seismographic observation network from the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (roughly 1000 locations nationwide).