Tokyo, Sep 13 (ANI): Japan's Tokyo Metropolitan Government has unveiled a draft plan, which has been designed to sharply reduce the death toll from a major earthquakes in near future.
The draft represents the first revision of the regional disaster mitigation plan since 2007 and takes into account new assumptions for damage in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011.
Through the plan, featuring enhanced quake resistance measures for homes and expanded firefighting steps, Tokyo aims to cut by 6,400, or 60 percent, the estimated toll of up to 9,600. The figures are based on a scenario of a magnitude 7.3 quake striking on a winter evening, with the epicenter in the northern part of Tokyo Bay, the Japan Times reports.
Under the plan, the metropolitan government will aim to increase the number of homes that meet quake-resistance standards to 95 percent of the total by fiscal 2020 from 81 percent at present.
The draft says areas densely packed with wooden homes will have more parks and streets to act as fire breaks. These measures are intended to reduce the death toll by 60 percent, evacuee numbers by 40 percent and the number of destroyed structures by 60 percent.
Also new in the plan are measures to protect residents from radioactive substances from a nuclear power plant in a distant location, a lesson learned from the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 facility, the paper said.
Under the plan, a task force would also be set up at the metropolitan government's disaster mitigation headquarters when such a crisis happens and would provide information such as radiation levels in the air, it added. (ANI)
|
|
Comments:
