June 20, 2018

The Japanese Communist Party established an investigative task force immediately after a powerful earthquake struck the northern Osaka region on June 18, and dispatched the team led by JCP Dietmembers to the affected areas.

At the Osaka prefectural and city government offices, they received an explanation on the extent of the damage from crisis management officials. They also went to schools and public facilities in other hard-hit cities to check on the state of the damage.

After returning to Tokyo, the team members on June 19 held a meeting in the Diet building and the team leader, Yamashita Yoshiki, a JCP vice chair and also an Upper House member, reported on the results of their survey in Osaka.

According to the report, collapsed brick walls, burst water pipes, fallen advertising displays, stuck elevators, and water/gas/electricity lifeline losses resulted from the quake. This report revealed that Osaka had not learned lessons from the past disasters.

They discussed post-earthquake countermeasures, confirming the need for all JCP branches and assemblypersons' groups to comprehensively check around their neighborhoods, including visiting live-alone elderly people, and make proposals to each municipality in order to make their communities safer places to live.