3. Realizing a “safe city” that protects the lives of Tokyo citizens

“Preparation” is essential to ensure the safe lives of Tokyo citizens. A major earthquake directly hitting the Tokyo area can occur any time. Natural disasters are causing severe damage, and international terrorism is posing an increasing threat. We must also pay attention to developments in North Korea, which is seriously undermining the peace of our country through repetitive reckless acts and nuclear tests. With these realities in mind, we will relentlessly work on measures in cooperation with the national government as well to establish safety and security with the spirit of “Be prepared.”

Further promoting “self-help,” “mutual-help,” and “public assistance”

To promote both measures for “self-help” and “mutual-help,” which are based on our resident’s understanding and support, and measures for “public assistance” provided by the TMG, we will formulate a project plan that is easier to understand. The plan, which is tentatively called Safe City Tokyo: Disaster Management Plan, will incorporate new perspectives, such as visualizing the effect of disaster preparedness measures, promoting women-centered measures, and lessons from the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. It will be released by the end of this fiscal year.

It is estimated that in the event of a major earthquake directly striking the Tokyo area, 5.17 million people will be stranded, unable to go home. So far, the TMG has taken such measures as calling for people to not return home en masse and securing temporary shelters. To further promote measures for stranded people, the TMG set up a panel of experts yesterday. The panel will discuss how such measures can be strengthened, including raising trends throughout society for people to help each other.

Preparing for floods and sediment disasters

Japan has been hit by large floods and sediment disasters in recent years. We will steadily proceed with the development of the Kannana-dori Avenue (Ring Road No. 7) Regional Underground Regulating Reservoir, which I inspected last month, and the designation of sediment disaster alert areas in about 15,000 locations. By implementing both structural and non-structural disaster mitigation initiatives, we will accelerate efforts for realizing a “safe city” that protects the lives of Tokyo citizens.