Japan: Improving disaster preparedness - Opinion

According to an opinion for the Japan Times, reporting on the deaths of dozens of people in severe landslides and flooding that engulfed hilly residential areas of Hiroshima on Wednesday, while alerts coming from local authorities would help residents to take precautions, early warnings must be used to urge residents to evacuate while it’s still safe to do so.

In the Hiroshima landslides, the local authorities delayed issuing evacuation advisories for local residents because of the danger of having people evacuating their homes at night in stormy weather. Officials admitted that the evacuation advisory for residents was issued too late.

The Hiroshima municipal government says it will look into what went wrong with its disaster response and improve the city’s anti-disaster procedures. The Japan Times also recommends the lessons learned from the city to be shared with other municipalities vulnerable to similar disasters.