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2.35 million take part in nationwide disaster drill

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I guess that headwear is better than nothing (?) but I also guess even cheap construction helmets would be better.

Maybe they cost too much (for the kid's school in the photo) or there's no kid's size?

I've been thinking of buying a couple of construction helmets for my wife and I (sorry, not tin foil)

We only have one floor above us but that's enough to be concerned.

Cheapest ones are from under 3,000 yen.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

God bless Japan and God Bless brilliant Japanese engineering

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“I order all the ministers to do their best to respond swiftly and appropriately by placing top priority on people’s lives,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the start of the drill.

That would be the first rime in Japanese history a politician ever did.

Typical dog and pony show. Things were so disorganized here in Sakae in Nagoya today the police ended up calling it off. Too many shoppers not wanting to cooperate, too many salarymen standing around smoking and not participating, and too many obaachans pushing their weight around. Turned into a disorganized mess. Just as a real disaster is going to be. When the real thing happens all this practice gives way to panic and chaos.

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Lets hope it will never hit. Wishful thinking i know.

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Brilliant idea!!! Stock lots of toilet paper.

Earthquake!!!!

First you say it!! Then you do it!!

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

I wonder why Okinawa was excluded from this exercise. We had nothing going on here. Maybe we do ours separately?

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I wonder why Okinawa was excluded from this exercise. We had nothing going on here. Maybe we do ours separately?

You evidently were not in the right place at the right time to know about it. Watch the local news tonight, this will be on the news, and odds are it will be the top story as well.

The evacuation drill practice takes place in conjunction with the prefecture and typically focuses around the Naha and Naha Airport areas.

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2.35 million, out of a population of 150 million. I have not been in Japan for one of these in many years, I always seem to be on assignment somewhere else but if I remember right, this is a bunch of old men, pensioners, running around in day-glo vests telling everyone else what to do. Of course when a real desaster hits, these are the first one to die. School kids in World War 2 relic quilted hoods? I always kept a survival kit around, bottled water, flashlight, first aid kit, blankets, dried food, etc. It's best to be prepared to take care of yourself and your family and not depend on someone else.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

ReformedBasher, I think they are to protect from falling shards of glass and sparks as well, so they extend to the shoulders, a construction helmet wouldn't offer as much protection from those risks.

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The thing about Japan is that being on one of the most active parts of the so-called Ring of Fire, the home island of Japan not only has earthquake hazards (and the related tsunami hazards), but also volcanic eruption hazards, as we note by many volcanoes. Most of them still classified as active, including the famous Fuji-san.

We can only take disaster preparedness so far, unfortunately, as we saw from the enormous damage from the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 and the 2011 Tohoku region earthquake and tsunami.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I'm sorry but, these drills seem to do very little. When the 'big one' struck a couple of years ago very few people had any idea what to do and many did exactly the opposite to what common sense would tell you. I remember it very well. I was walking down the street shortly after the main quake and one of the major aftershocks hit. All the people ran under a vinyl awning for protection. It was right across the road from a fire station and all the firefighters ran out screaming at the people to get out in the street. I was standing in the middle of the street wondering what the heck these people were doing. From all the drills and consistency of earthquakes the people just seemed to go into shock and huddled together like that scene from iRobot. I also should comment on the way the wheels totally fell off the infrastructure, despite many years of drills and contingency planning. All the trains stopped! The Toei-Oedo line in Tokyo is supposed to be the emergency services train line in the event of a major earthquake, but it was stopped all night! It took my mate 8 hours to get from shinagawa to Chiba. There were people walking home from Tokyo to Chiba all night until 8am the next day. Yeah, the 2011 quake was an unprecedented event, but isn't that what these drills are supposed to prepare people for? I come from Australia and experienced three earthquakes in 40 odd years there, but it knew what to do. Why didn't the Tokyo people know after so many years of drills and experience?

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People will not be ready for disasters.no matter what country. Here in American the folks here just wait and see if it comes their way. They will drive right high waters and keep on going, until they get wash away that's when they yelling for help .

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@Himajin

ReformedBasher, I think they are to protect from falling shards of glass and sparks as well, so they extend to the shoulders, a construction helmet wouldn't offer as much protection from those risks.

That sounds like a good reason. If the kids are inside a school gym/hall, I guess there's a good chance it's over-engineered ( very strong) considering they're often used as a local evacuation shelter.

Thanks for the insight.

@ the imbeciles above

So, you suggest no drills...?

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@Tom

I wonder why Okinawa was excluded from this exercise. We had nothing going on here. Maybe we do ours separately?

It might be because the area from Kyushuu west is relatively safe from Earthquakes ?

The areas most at risk are the areas around Tokyo bay where a lot of the land has been reclaimed from the bay and which also straddle one of the big fault lines. If an earthquake hits that fault line everything up to and around Hibiya will sink.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

The Toei-Oedo line in Tokyo is supposed to be the emergency services train line in the event of a major earthquake, but it was stopped all night!

http://news.mynavi.jp/series/trivia/090/

Lies by Disillusioned. I should know because I took the said line that night.

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The government has stepped up its disaster response since the devastating 2011 earthquake in northeastern Japan which triggered a tsunami and sent reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant into meltdown.

How so?

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God Bless Japan - I'd seen enough of suffering since (my stay) 2011! One Love!

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Can anyone immagine the erupting power of 91years or more?

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

RB, no problem! MIL had a similar hood from WWII, it looks the same and was for fires.

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I wonder why Okinawa was excluded from this exercise. We had nothing going on here. Maybe we do ours separately?

okinawa isn't a part of japan really, it has loads of japanese speaking people, but as far as i know its not a part of japan in the same way that hokkaido or the senkaku islets are. i could be wrong though.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Cute hats!

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