Panel urges Tokyo workers to wait a day to head home after big quake

Tuesday 28th October, 09:14 AM JST

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majimekun at 10:47 AM JST - 28th October

If you teach your kids and family how what to do in case of earthquake, you don't have to worry about them in case of disaster. Before you manage to arrive at home, lots of bad things could happen to them. People should gather in open spaces instead of trying to go back home. I've already spotted the parks I'd go to in case I survive the first hit.
ptolemy at 11:00 AM JST - 28th October

While preparations and drills are well and good, having lived in California for 12 years I can guarantee 3 things, and this is human nature, not culture dependent. One, people will panic and their panic will cause pandemonium. Two, a small portion of people will loot, steal, and riot. Three, the first two will take away from emergency responders doing their job and the injured will suffer because of them. Some people under the best circumstances cannot follow basic rules (don't eat, put on makeup, or talk on cell phones on trains) again under normal circumstances, and you expect them to follow rules in a crisis.

It becomes a Hobbesian world then, a state of nature, until the powers that be restore order.
soldave at 11:19 AM JST - 28th October

majimekun - You can teach all you want but when something like an earthquake/tsunami/Godzilla attack or whatever happens, people invariably revert to instinct and not what they've been taught.
Disillusioned at 11:19 AM JST - 28th October

Gees! What a fastidious bunch! I said, "The first available train out of Tokyo." Because I don't want to swim across three rivers!
tmarie at 11:31 AM JST - 28th October

"The first available train out of Tokyo."

That could take weeks or months depending on the damage. I personally fear a quake here that will cause the damage that happened in Kobe years back.
wanderlust at 11:37 AM JST - 28th October

Al Aletzhauser, who wrote the House of Nomura, also wrote Quake, which is a fictional account of a Tokyo big quake, based on many of the occurrences and events of the Great Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake. Although fiction, it makes sense to many of the residents of Japan, and conveys a good image of what could happen....
Patrick Smash at 12:04 PM JST - 28th October

Would the shops and bars close and the internet go down? I'll stay in me office if there are a few cans of Guinness, a bit of food, and plenty of left-handed reading reading materials available.
belachan at 02:11 PM JST - 28th October

So if everyone follows the recommendation, 6.5 million people will be on the streets 24 hours after the quake, apparently needing to use the toilet? :P
hoserfella at 02:16 PM JST - 28th October

When and if the big one hits Tokyo, authorities here will respond to it with the same reaction Kobe had; complete and unreserved failure. The Japanese are very good at many things, but taking charge and responding to a myriad of unplanned events are not among them.
frontandcentre at 02:21 PM JST - 28th October

ha ha - try and stop me!

(Ishihara's armed riot police might be ordered to shoot gaijin on sight, however)
realist at 02:29 PM JST - 28th October

In othere words - total chaos and confusion. Much like every day in Tokyo, really . . . Sorry, but if I am still alive, I wont be hanging around in central Tokyo, or what`s left of it. I will be heading out of the city, by hook or by crook. The Japanese can obey the people in orange suits as they like. Gaijin will be less welcome in the event of a major earthquake - lets remember what happened after the 1923 earthquake - when over 600 Korean residents were massacred by the mass panic among the Japanese. History tends to repeat itself - especially here, where they tend to forget or re-write it.
dennis0bauer at 03:58 PM JST - 28th October

Yeah duck and cover, it is really safe underneath a table when the rest of the building collapsing on top of you, i would go outside and try to go to an opens space.
Farmboy at 07:47 PM JST - 28th October

There does seem to be a toilet focus in this report...was the author trapped in a cubicle I wonder? Those little plastic bag thingies for the expressway might be just the thing.

And yes, waiting patiently in your about-to-collapse place of employment is just SUCH a great idea.
zaichik at 04:54 AM JST - 29th October

"The first available train out of Tokyo."

The first available shinkansen out of Niigata to Tokyo was over 2 months after the Chuetsu Earthquake. You could be waiting a while, my friend.
linro at 09:21 AM JST - 29th October

Da! Da! Da! to most of the responses Japan has made is own people probably the best prepared society for natural disasters in the world, for the size of the country it has to cope with more that any in the world for a start, Tsunami's Volcanoes, earthquake, typhoons and Gaijin's.!! if you what to dispute it fine but take 100,000 Japanese living abroad and 100,000 foreigners living in Japan who out does the other, when it does come to crime!!Since I am a Gaijin I will leave out the looting! ! and now do you want to talk about Illinois, Hurricane Katrina! ! You guy's have a very safe life and more chance of surviving after a major Natural disaster in Japan than any where else in the world , get real!