disaster prevention drill

So September 1 is national disaster prevention day in Japan (because as we all know, Japan is a very natural disaster-prone country), and so I'm sure there were events going on all over the country in relation to that. In Chiba each year there are events, but this year was a little bit special! There's something called the Coalition of Nine Regional and Local Governments, including prefectures and major cities in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and every year they hold a joint disaster prevention drill. This year's host happened to be Chiba, so everything happened on a much larger scale than usual.

There were drills taking place all over the city, but the main event took place in the Soga Sports Park, which is a huge area for sports that includes Fukuda Denshi Arena, the home stadium for Chiba's pro soccer team JEF United, Fukuda Denshi Arena, where my frisbee team has a big joint practice every month, and more playgrounds and fields.

I went with a couple of new arrivals to Chiba City, and although disaster prevention drills may not sound super exciting, it was actually really cool! We got to see things like tanks/helicopters/fire trucks/water trucks and other vehicles that get employed in disaster situations, other cool technology like a little plane that can be launched by hand to connect wireless transmissions over a wide area, and things like baths/showers/toilets that get set up in emergency areas (which was cooler than it sounds, I promise).


Other highlights included getting to see them make emergency rations and even get some, seeing them work on a replicated burning building, and getting to ride the earthquake truck, where we first felt a simulated earthquake of the same magnitude of how March 11 felt in Chiba, then how it felt in Tohoku. (It was pretty intense.)

PM Abe is in there somewhere, I promise

But the biggest highlight of the day was seeing the Prime Minister! I had no idea that he would be there (but my coworkers apparently did), but I guess the joint disaster prevention drill was big/important enough for him to be there, so he came! I couldn't get any good pictures, but I was definitely less than 20 feet away from him and one of the people I came with even shook his hand! It was pretty cool to see him in person and also dressed in work clothes (or maybe it was some sort of uniform? Rescue worker-ish). The mayor was also dressed the same way (it was interesting to see him in not a suit for once) and was also looking super happy, though I can't say I blame him!

Anyway, I thought I was pretty well-informed about disaster prevention before, but this was a good chance for a refresher and also get to some new information (and free stuff!), so I'm glad I went! Apparently the joint disaster prevention drill takes place in a different member city each year, too, so going this year was pretty lucky. :)