Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2012 March 14 - 20 [TOKYO]

JCP: Tokyo must spend more on disaster prevention

Japanese Communist Party member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Shimizu Hideko at a special budget committee meeting on March 13 urged the Tokyo governor to strengthen disaster prevention measures, including measures against tsunamis and better quake-resistant construction methods, in which Tokyo lags behind.

Shimizu referred to a Kanto quake in 1703 in which a 2-meter tsunami hit Tokyo, causing many casualties. The JCP assembly member demanded that the metropolitan government examine sedimentary deposits in Tokyo Bay in order to accurately assess tsunamis that occurred in the bay in the past.

Shimizu pointed out the possibility that many buildings will collapse in the event of a quake of seismic intensity of 7 hitting Tokyo. She called for safety measures to be taken near rivers and sea-coasts as well as for examining the quake resistance of sewage systems and taking measures against soil liquefaction.

Shimizu also criticized the Tokyo government in its application to invite the 2020 Olympic Games for not referring to the damage of the 1703 tsunami in Tokyo and trying to minimize the destruction of property in the Great East Japan Disaster. She said that the Tokyo government, by pretending that the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis hitting Tokyo is minimal, is being dishonest in its application to host the Olympic Games.