Most governments review quake projections

March 20, 2014

90% of local gov'ts reviewing quake damage projection: Mainichi survey

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140320p2a00m0na008000c.html

Some 90 percent of prefectural governments and major cities across Japan are reviewing or newly devising their quake damage projections in the wake of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, a Mainichi Shimbun survey has shown.

The survey was conducted between February and March to coincide with the third anniversary of the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. All 47 prefectures responded, as did 19 of the 20 major cities -- excepting only the city of Osaka.

The questionnaire found that some 90 percent of local governments are reviewing or newly devising the quake size and damage projections based upon which regional anti-disaster plans are formulated. In the meantime, all 66 local governments that responded to the survey have already begun reviewing their regional disaster prevention plans -- an indication that the 2011 quake and tsunami disasters and the ensuing Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant crisis have significantly changed regional anti-disaster planning.

In April 2012, during the first review of its kind in six years, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government raised the maximum number of anticipated fatalities that would result from a magnitude-7.3 quake centering on northern Tokyo Bay from 4,700 to 9,700.

Nearly half of the local governments cited "formulation and enhancement of anti-nuclear disaster measures" and "reviews and enhancement of anti-tsunami measures" as major revisions to be made in their regional disaster prevention planning. All of the 50 local governments that had not drawn up their business continuity plans prior to the 2011 calamity have either already devised them, or are now planning to do so in the wake of the triple disasters.

The 2011 catastrophe brought tsunami and other damage to extensive areas, prompting local governments across the country to provide personnel and material support to disaster-hit areas. Based on the experience of March 11, 2011, 38 of the 46 local governments that hadn't worked out their support plans prior to the 3.11 disasters, as well as 47 of the 49 local governments that had been without plans to accept such support, have either devised or are now planning to draw up such plans.

As for anti-nuclear disaster measures, 40 percent of the local governments said they are stockpiling potassium iodine to prevent residents' thyroid glands from being affected by exposure to radiation.

March 20, 2014(Mainichi Japan)