Tokyo says it is ready for Covid-19. What about earthquakes?

TOKYO – Long before the Covid-19 pandemic overwhelmed Olympic planners with the monumental task of preventing a super-spreading event, another worst-case scenario loomed over the Tokyo Games.

Earthquake.

Japan knows the risks well: earthquakes, past and future, rarely depart from the thoughts of the Japanese. Entire government departments are devoted to earthquake preparedness, schoolchildren and office workers are routinely put on hands-on training, and architects and builders design skyscrapers meant to sway but not collapse.

Being prepared is a daily exercise because the inevitable comes any day. The numerous earthquakes felt in central Tokyo each month, which are hardly noticed, are a reminder. In February, a major earthquake shook eastern Japan, reminding the country of the 10th anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 19,000 people and triggered a nuclear meltdown in 2011.

The only certainty is that another big one is coming. but when? And what if it happened during the Olympics, or the Paralympics that follow?

Nowhere values ​​”if not” dynamism more than Tokyo. Even without foreign spectators, there would be thousands of overseas athletes, coaches, staff and media concentrated in one of the world’s largest and most densely populated capitals as the world watched what was designed to be a celebration of Japanese athletics and culture.

This poses a challenge to Tokyo 2020 organizers, who were preparing even before the coronavirus pandemic for what is likely to be the most important Olympic Games in history.

Local governments, schools, businesses, and the country’s military are constantly preparing for the threat of an earthquake, not to mention a tsunami or hurricane. But Olympic visitors to the giant city—many of whom have never felt an earthquake, let alone know what to do in the event of a serious one—can cause chaos and panic even in the most well-planned disaster response operation.

“Japanese tend to have a basic layer of knowledge when it comes to disasters,” said Robin Takashi Lewis, a disaster specialist who worked with nonprofit groups during the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. But “things get 10 times more complicated when you add factors like language, lack of cultural understanding, and other weaknesses that people have as visitors.”

All new buildings in Japan, including the Olympic stadiums, are subject to strict earthquake standards. New construction must be able to withstand an earthquake of 6.0 or greater in the degree of vibration on the Japan seismometer.

In Tokyo, Akinori Fukao, head of earthquake resistance at the urban buildings division of the Tokyo metropolitan government, said the government has worked with building owners to reinforce older structures, particularly along the city’s main roads where planners were concerned about debris that might block roads. Used by emergency vehicles.

Several Olympic stadiums have been built in the Tokyo Bay dump, although officials at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism say they have protected against soil liquefaction — where soil loses its strength and hardness — in the event of a severe earthquake.

But many venues, including the Aquatics Center, are built on land below sea level, making them vulnerable to a tsunami-induced earthquake, as happened in 2011.

Experts said that the shape of Tokyo Bay, with its curved and narrow entrance that opens into a wide and wide bay, is not conducive to large tsunamis. But not all places exist. For example, this surfing site is located on an unprotected stretch of the east coast of Japan.

The wild card is the number of temporary venues that are built only for the Olympics, including the large stands. Government engineers insist they will adhere to Japan’s strict building codes, with additional reinforcements to deal with earthquakes.

If there is an earthquake with a magnitude of 4 or higher on the Japanese seismic scale – out of a possible 7 – the Land Ministry or the Olympic Organizing Committee will likely call for a temporary suspension of the Games until the agency’s 12,000-plus engineers can check the buildings for structural integrity. .

Before the pandemic, when Japan expected to receive hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors, the main concern was communicating earthquake protocols to officials, athletes and media people who might not react as calmly as ordinary Japanese. Imagine a stampede for exits at any of the stadiums. While the fans will be limited to the Japanese, and the arenas will be at half capacity, there will be tens of thousands of foreign athletes, coaches, officials and media.

Describing a joint disaster declaration, Kazuki Matsumoto, an official at the Land Ministry, said, “If only for the Japanese, we could say ‘earthquake happened.’ “.

Several parks and office buildings around Tokyo have been designated as evacuation sites for those who may not be able to reach their hotels. But it is not clear how visitors will know where to go.

Summer Olympics Basics

Expect tremors

With events in many areas – the marathon in Sapporo, baseball in Fukushima and surfing in Chiba – organizers will have to think about how to get visitors out of the country quickly in the event of an emergency. “Do people register with their embassies when they arrive?” Lewis said. “Is there a system to keep track of where people live?”

The Ministry of Land has developed an earthquake preparedness and response app in 14 languages, and plans to place informational posters at airports, train stations and hotels to encourage visitors to download it. But the Olympics’ risk messaging now focuses more on the coronavirus than on earthquakes or other natural disasters.

Japan typically measures earthquakes using the Japan Meteorological Agency’s seismic intensity scale, from 0 to 7. A 1 means that some people in a quiet room can feel them; 3 When most people feel swaying; a5 When dishes fall off shelves and furniture may fall apart.

On average over the past five years, central Tokyo has experienced about 60 perceptible earthquakes (1 or higher on the intensity scale) each year, according to Naoshi Hirata, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and chair of the headquarters’ earthquake research committee. To promote earthquake research. Only one of the 60 earthquakes last year recorded an intensity of at least 4. An earthquake in February of this year scored about 4 in Tokyo and 6 in Fukushima.

“So it is very likely that you will feel an earthquake during the Olympics,” Hirata said. “But it doesn’t have to be a very devastating earthquake.”

The challenges that Olympic organizers face are formidable. A large earthquake is unlikely, but small earthquakes are likely. What if a square full of foreign officials and media began to shake? What if the athletes in the Olympic Village shook while they slept? And what if it was really big?

Historically, Hirata said, large, destructive earthquakes have hit the greater Tokyo area about once every generation. Using the Richter scale familiar to Americans, the Earthquake Research Commission puts a 70 percent chance of an earthquake of magnitude 7 or greater in Tokyo in the next 30 years.

The most recent was in 1988, 33 years ago, but Hirata cautions that earthquakes are not regular events; Tokyo is not necessarily late. He said the next big blow is just as likely to hit tomorrow as it was on the same date in 1988.

“The chance of a very big earthquake in the Olympics period is very small compared to the chance of Japanese people having such an earthquake in their lifetime,” Hirata said. “Of course, there is still a chance that we have been hit a few times here, and we have to prepare for such a huge earthquake.”

Other Japanese scholars are more concerned about the timing. Hiroki Kamata, professor emeritus of Earth sciences at Kyoto University, noted that a major earthquake hit the area now known as Tokyo in 878, nine years after the Great Jogan earthquake and tsunami, which is often compared to the Great East Japan earthquake of 2011.

“We cannot say that the earthquake will occur on a particular day in a particular month,” Kamata said. “But we can calculate and say that such stresses occur in the ground, and it is likely that an earthquake will hit a certain area around this time.”

There is a history of Olympic-time earthquakes in Japan. Just days before the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, the New York Times carelessly reported that the earthquake “rattled the plates.”

After the Great Kobe earthquake in 1995, which killed more than 6,000 people, some wondered if it would hinder preparations for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. German Olympic officials wanted assurances that they would be safe.

On opening day, a 6.6 earthquake was felt in Tokyo, but not in the Olympics, about 100 miles away.

But in the middle of those Winter Games, a magnitude 5 earthquake struck near Nagano. The ten seconds of shaking did not affect the competition, but it shook the family, shook the press center and caused the nearby high-speed trains to stop. (German skater Markus Eberl “keeped his balance without difficulty after the slight jolt, but fell further down the hill,” The Times reports of the men’s slalom.)

In 2018, Sapporo withdrew its bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympics after a deadly earthquake struck the region, refocusing priorities.

This year, the Tokyo Games are being promoted as a way to help revitalize Fukushima, an area devastated by nuclear meltdown after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Rehearsing for disaster

Visitors may take comfort in the fact that Japan’s emergency preparedness is extensive, with many agencies conducting annual exercises that amount to disaster preparation.

In a typical fall 2019 exercise in Tama, a suburb of Tokyo, 500 emergency responders, medical professionals, self-defense personnel and volunteers performed an hour-long simulation in the humid heat on a large group in the park. Many structures made of plywood were made to look like they had just been hit by a massive earthquake.

Some of the buildings had receded into the mud, while others were painted with several large cracks. Helicopters circled, and rescue workers lowered into belts to retrieve victims from a rooftop. Drone flew on damage. Fire trucks, army trucks, ambulances and police officers on motorbikes scrambled with crews to put out the flames or rescue people trapped under the rubble. Trained dogs sniff victims and explosives.

Elsewhere, doctors, nurses, and even dentists practiced treating volunteer college students who had been artificially injured or told to act as if they had a broken bone. Sanitation workers demonstrated how they could erect a makeshift toilet over a manhole in less than five minutes.

“Japan has a lot of earthquakes and typhoons, and there are a lot of risks and disasters,” said Yoshiaki Sato, former director of disaster prevention planning and emergency services for the Tokyo metropolitan government, who oversaw the Tama drill. We don’t know when they will come. We only know that these disasters will definitely happen at some point.”

“We are working to prepare for anything to be okay,” he said.

Makiko Inoue and Kantaro Suzuki contributed reporting.

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