Japan is preparing to create a disaster management agency responsible for everything from disaster preparedness to reconstruction, learning from past disasters including the Jan. 1 Noto Peninsula earthquake.
Disaster-related deaths exceeded 220 in the 2016 quake disaster in Kumamoto Prefecture and topped 240 in the Noto Peninsula temblor.
The government plans to strengthen its crisis management system in preparation for possible huge disasters, such as a Nankai Trough megathrust quake off the country’s Pacific coast and a temblor directly under the Tokyo metropolitan area.