Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida yesterday staged a televised disaster drill based on a fictional earthquake in the capital region, as his country marked the centennial of the real-life 1923 Great Kanto Quake that killed more than 100,000 people.
The magnitude 7.9 earthquake that struck the Sagamihara area southwest of Tokyo on Sept. 1, 1923, just before noon triggered a widespread inferno in the region, causing most of the victims to perish in the fire. The blaze destroyed nearly 300,000 Japanese paper-and-wood homes, as the country suffered major social and economic damage just as it was seeking to modernize.
In the aftermath, thousands of ethnic Koreans were killed as police and others responded to baseless rumors that Koreans were poisoning wells. The rampage has never fully been acknowledged by the government.
Photo: AP
Japanese officials are worried another devastating tremblor could happen again. The drill yesterday simulated the aftermath of a fictional magnitude 7.3 temblor in central Tokyo at 7am. Kishida and his Cabinet ministers, wearing matching light-blue uniforms, walked to the prime minister’s office for an emergency response meeting to discuss initial measures with hypothetically hard-hit Sagamihara City, the 1923 epicenter.
Japan, which sits on the so-called Pacific “ring of fire,” is one of most quake-prone countries in the world. A magnitude 9.0 quake on March, 11, 2011, off Japan’s northeastern coast triggered a massive tsunami, killed more than 18,000 and triggered a nuclear disaster.
Earthquake drills were also conducted at municipalities and schools across the nation. At elementary schools, children squatted under desks to protect their heads from falling objects.
Kishida was to join a joint earthquake drill hosted by Sagamihara and joined by eight citie, including Tokyo.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters that Sept. 1 this year represents more than the centennial of the Great Kanto Quake. It serves as a lesson to building structures with more resilience to quakes and fire.
“We will not let the memories of the Great Kanto Quake weather away and [will] do our utmost to take comprehensive measures” as the country braces for another big one in Tokyo and elsewhere, Matsuno said.
In other news, Japan’s summer this year was the country’s hottest since records began in 1898, the weather agency said yesterday.
“Average temperatures in Japan are the highest for summer since 1898,” the agency said.
From June to last month, the agency recorded “considerably higher” average summer temperatures in “northern, eastern and western Japan,” it said in a statement.
“The average temperature anomaly in Japan, based on observations at 15 locations, was +1.76oC, far exceeding that of 2010 (+1.08oC), which was the highest since statistics began in 1898 and the highest for summer,” it said.
“Warm air tended to cover northern Japan and warm air flowed in from the south, resulting in considerably higher average summer temperatures in northern, eastern, and western Japan,” it added.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
RSS