TOKYO — Japan launched a new national agency on Monday to strengthen disaster preparedness and coordinate responses to major earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions, Kyodo News reported. The Tokyo-based National Disaster Management Agency, headed by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, will establish regional hubs to improve coordination with local governments and prepare for potentially devastating earthquakes along the Nankai Trough, the Japan Trench and the Chishima Trench, as well as one directly beneath metropolitan Tokyo.

Source: Kyodo News via AloJapan

Reconstruction Minister Goshi Hosono will concurrently serve as disaster management minister, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said. It is the first agency established directly under Cabinet supervision since the Digital Agency in September 2021, Kyodo said. The agency will support municipalities facing budget constraints and shortages of disaster-management specialists, its minister will have the authority to recommend improvements to other government bodies, and its priorities include improving evacuation shelters, reducing disaster-related deaths and ensuring essential supplies reach displaced residents. It will also oversee reconstruction in earthquake-hit regions.

Source: Kyodo News via AloJapan

"Take proper action": the launch-day emergency request

Hosono, who became the first chief of the agency, used a launch-day press conference to urge people to stockpile food and secure furniture as part of strengthening disaster preparations in normal times, Jiji Press reported. Noting that there are limits to what central and local governments can do in a massive disaster, he said: "I hope that you all take proper action." Under the agency's "emergency request", people were urged to secure furniture to walls, stock up on food and water and check the locations of evacuation shelters; similar requests went to central ministries and local governments, and ministries were asked to review their business-continuity plans.

Source: Jiji Press via Qazinform

The request asks households to keep at least three days' and preferably a week's worth of food, water and emergency toilets, the Seoul Economic Daily reported, citing the Nikkei and other Japanese outlets. The word "urgent" fuelled anxiety online in Japan, with some social-media users asking whether a war or a megaquake was imminent. Hosono had already addressed that fear at an October 30 news conference, saying the request was not based on any specific information foreshadowing a war or a disaster, and was meant to make routine preparedness a habit because a disaster can strike at any time.

Source: Seoul Economic Daily

At the launch news conference, Hosono cited the official risk estimates behind the push: the probability of a megaquake along the Nankai Trough within the next 30 years is estimated at 60% to 90% or more, and the probability of an earthquake directly beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area at 70%, the Seoul Economic Daily reported. The agency, created by upgrading the Cabinet Office's existing disaster-management division, will track 106 preparedness items — from making schools, hospitals and infrastructure earthquake-resistant to improving shelter toilets, beds and heating and cooling — and ministries and prefectures must report progress by the end of the year.

Source: Seoul Economic Daily