Japan Drafts Guidelines for Local Govts during Major Quakes

Tokyo, June 29 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government has drawn up draft guidelines for municipalities to enhance preparedness for large-scale earthquakes in a bid to improve the effectiveness of local disaster countermeasures, informed sources said Monday.

The draft guidelines specify methods for estimating the number of doctors, nurses and other personnel, as well as ambulances, needed to rescue injured people, based on damage estimates for each of the country's 47 prefectures.

The draft, compiled by the Cabinet Office, calls for a quantitative analysis of shortages and surpluses of personnel and relief supplies compared with existing earthquake response measures.

To address potential shortages of ambulances, the guidelines introduce measures such as using private vehicles, with the cooperation of local residents, to transport injured people if ambulances are unavailable. The draft also underscores the need to utilize private buildings as evacuation sites.

Meanwhile, the draft calls on medical institutions to estimate the number of seriously injured patients they can accept within a regional health care zone covering neighboring municipalities to assess whether there are sufficient hospital beds.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]