Operation of Evacuation Center and Support fornon-Japanese
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The International Center as an evacuation center
Non-Japanese residents of Kumamoto City
Details of activities after Kumamoto earthquake
Evacuation center operation
Evacuation center patrols
Multilingual informationCounseling sessions to assist non-Japanesedisaster victims with daily life
Kumamoto International Foundation
Deputy Director-General Tomomi Katsuya
TEL: 096-359-2121 FAX: 096-359-5783
E-mail: katsuya@kumamoto-if.or.jp

1. The International Center as anevacuation center Kumamoto City International Center: Opened on Sep. 1,
1994 (7 stories above ground, 2 stories below)
 Free space on first and second floors (directly managed
café on first floor to encourage and popularize fair trade) Rental meeting rooms from the third to seventh floors(kitchen on fourth floor) Daily Japanese Club is held every Tue., Wed., and Sun. for
non-Japanese people to learn Japanese.
 About1,200 people are enrolled as volunteers, including
Japanese language teachers, language volunteers, andmedical interpreters.
 An emergency drill for non-Japanese people and volunteer
interpreter training are held annually in collaboration withmedical institutions.
 Not an officially designated evacuation center. In theKumamoto City Regional Disaster Prevention Plan, it isstipulated as a evacuee response facility for non-Japanese.

2. Non-Japanese residents of Kumamoto City
本市の外国人の状況
Number of non-Japanese residents 4,497(As of Mar. 31, 2016)
Chuo Ward
2,220
Higashi Ward
796
Kita Ward564
Nishi Ward
550
Minami Ward
367
Population of Kumamoto City 732,780
Percentage of non-Japanese 0.6%
Non-Japanese Communities
Chinese Community Hoyu
Korean Residents Union Mindan
The Association of non-Japanese Wives of JapaneseTaiwanese CommunityRussian Community
Filipino of Kumamoto (FOK)
Vietnam
Romanian Community
Islamic Center
KUMUSA
Indonesian Community
Chinese Students Organization

DateDay ofweek

Time

Apr. 14

Thu.

21:26

Apr. 15

Apr. 16

Apr.17

Fri.

Sat.

Sun.

Situation
Seismic intensity 6 lower

Kumamoto City International Center’s actions
No non-Japanese inside when the earthquake occurred
Staff members went home after brief safety confirmation

22:00

Closed

01:00

Request from Kumamoto City to open evacuation
center: Opened
Evacuees: 3 Korean and 1 Japanese
Sent disaster massages (Facebook, e-mail)
Posted disaster information on website22:00

Suspended normal operations, closed the Center

01:25

Seismic intensity 6 upper
Gas and water supply
unavailable

Posted multilingual information inside

04:00

Public transportation
unavailable

Request from Kumamoto City to open evacuation
center: Opened around the clock, normal operations
suspended
Evacuees: Approx. 20 Japanese
Posted multilingual information
Tourists from overseas and media representatives

06:00

Overnight evacuees: 147 (38 non-Japanese)
Safety confirmation forrespective people byembassies and consulates,and bus arrangement forevacuation

Requested blankets, water and food for 30 people fromthe city
- Relief supplies could not be delivered because it is nota designated evacuation center- Afterward, bread and bananas were delivered from theinternational department of the city
A support group for non-Japanese, Kumustaka, started
to prepare meals outsideDate

Day ofweek

Apr. 18

Mon

Apr. 20

Wed.

TimeSituation

Kumamoto City International Center’s actions
Plans for a multilingual disaster relief support center andpatrols of evacuation centers, etc. could not be
implemented because of insufficient staff to operate
evacuation centers, etc.

Service resumed onconventional JR lines betweenKumamoto and Fukuoka

A support team from the national council of multiculturalmanagers visited Kumamoto.
Staff members were dispatched to the Kyushu bloc of thelocal internationalization association.
The status of evacuation centers in each area wasconfirmed.
A multilingual disaster relief support center was opened.
We started patrolling evacuation centers.
Support staff stayed overnight at the facility along withevacuees.

Apr. 23Sat.

11:00

We started meetings with the international department ofKumamoto City.
Information was selected to be translated into multiple
languages based on meeting materials from theKumamoto disaster countermeasures office.
Full-scale interviews with non-Japanese evacuees began.

Apr. 24

Sun.

Apr.30Sat.

Closed evacuation center and stopped preparing meals
outside.

May. 1Sun.

First counseling session held to assist non-Japanesedisaster victims with daily life

May. 3Tue.

End of measures for non-Japanese evacuees.

Filipino consulate counselingmeeting

4. Evacuation center operation
Details of operation 1•Staff members: regular members: 10, part-time staff members: 9, café staff members: 3, hall staffmembers: 3
Other disaster-preparedness center staff members and guards: 3. Total: 28•

Assignment of roles:

Monitoring people going in and out of evacuation centers, reception: disaster-preparedness
center staff members and guards
Preparing meals outdoors: Non-Japanese support group Kumustaka, KIF café staffmembers
Other duties: KIF staff members•Work shifts: Monitoring people going in and out of evacuation centers, reception: Handled by disasterpreparedness center staff members and guards on an around-the-clock basis
Evacuation center- Night duty: Regular staff members: 2 (on the first and second floor), Kumamoto City
international department staff member: 1- Part-time staff members took inquiries and answered phones•

First and second floor opened as an evacuation center, third floor used to house multilingual support
center staff members and support staff members•

Others: No problems with electricity and water, etc. Tanks for holding rainwater on the rooftop and watertanks underground.
Portable gas burners and rice cookers available in kitchen and cafe
Rice and instant curry stocked for preparation of curry at the café, as well as bananas.

Details of operation 2- Information offered: Status of the earthquake, transportation, evacuation centers, publicbaths- Cultural matters: food and places for praying- Commodity procurement: food, water, blanket, baby formula, diapers, sanitary goods,underwear, toothbrushes, towels, etc.
- Information provided in individual interviews with non-Japanese victims to help enableself-reliance
Tourist (from Canada): Transportation information
Volunteer (from France): Volunteer information
Family of non-Japanese student (Bangladesh): Future status of earthquake, living space,transportation information*Moved here from other evacuation center after experiencing stress because information
was all in Japanese.
Technical intern (from China): Information regarding Aso (internship location), informationon accommodations.
Dancer (from Russia): Earthquake information, where to live in the future

Family of non-Japanese student (from Tanzania): Where to live
English teacher (from Egypt): Lost house and classroom, not sure what to do
Family of non-Japanese student (from Sri Lanka): After giving birth a baby, sheevacuated and planned to go back to her home country in a few months. Discussed
where to live, etc.

Richmond Hotels provided 400
Halal boxed lunches for Muslims.

5. Evacuation center patrols
Obtained information about non-Japanese from the City’s international department, to be
used for disaster preparedness.
Information on non-Japanese included nationality, age, gender, address and residentstatus.
KIF classified the information according to evacuation center areas.
We located their residences on a map and determined patrol areas based on information
on non-Japanese from various evacuation centers. Groups of several people patrolled
nearby places on bicycles. Despite some traffic jams, there were no significant problems.

Grasping the status of non-Japanese disaster victims1. Patrolling evacuation centers: Visited 50 evacuation centers starting on Wed., Apr. 20
2. Interviews by phone: Contacted almost all evacuation centers.
- Situations were sometimes unclear because support staff members from other prefectures
served as reception staff.
-Staff did not know if non-Japanese were present, because there were many evacuees andreception was not properly handled.

-Some victims appeared to be staying in their cars, but it was unclear.

-Some victims were absent during the day, and their status was unclear.

3. The status of non-Japanese victims became clear to some extent through cooperation withmembers of non-Japanese communities and key people with whom we have built relationships.
-On the other hand, it was difficult to grasp the status of some individuals who reside in
Kumamoto because of international marriage or business.

-It was also difficult to grasp the status of people who didn’t belong to communities.

4. People who were involved in KIF, or volunteers at KIF, told us that there were non-Japanesein evacuation centers where they evacuated or some non-Japanese were in trouble.

-Without these people, we would have been unable to obtain this information.

5. We got information directly from KIF staff members who patrolled evacuation centers or fromreceptionists at evacuation centers.
- Contact came when only there were some troubles such as language difficulties. If there wereno problems, we would not have gotten any information.

6. Multilingual information
1. Right after the earthquake, we started offering information in English (onFacebook, etc.)
As there was no information from the local government, we offered informationfrom the government including Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Translators: KIF staff members
2. On Apr. 23, we began holding regular meetings with Kumamoto City, so we wereable to offer administrative information on the Center’s bulletin board and website,
etc. translated into multiple languages (English, Chinese, Korean).
Translators: Staff members of the Kyushu bloc in the Regional International
Association, and translators cooperating nationwide.
- Some information that arrived on the day was not able to be translated in time.
Others- The non-Japanese support group Kumustaka also offered various kinds ofinformation translated into multiple languages.
- Osaka University also offered information translated into multiple languages on aon a disaster information website. They translated information into some minorlanguages that we were not able to handle.

Information offered in multiple languages

7. Counseling sessions to assist non-Japanese disaster victims with daily life
- Details of counseling sessions
Held at Kumamoto City International Center:
First meeting: Sun., May 1, second meeting: Sun., May 8,
fourth meeting: Sun., Jun. 12
Held at Kumamoto University:
Third meeting: Tue., May 31- Categories of counseling: Residence status, laws, administrative procedure,housing, psychological care
- Number of times counseling was provided
First meeting,
48; no. of visitors, about 80
Second meeting,
50; no. of visitors, about 120
Third meeting,5; no. of visitors, 9
Fourth meeting,5; no. of visitors, 5- Contents of counseling
How should I list my address when changing my residence status?
I lost my job because of the earthquake. How can I renew my residence status?
How do I obtain a Disaster Victim Certificate
Though my house was damaged and became unlivable, do I have to pay the rent?
Want to know if my present apartment is safe or not.
Can’t sleep at night. Feel unrest when alone. Can’t stop fearing tremors.

First counseling session to assist non-Japanese disaster victims
with daily life
Sun., May 1

Second counseling session to assist non-Japanesedisaster victims with daily life
Sun., May 8

Disaster (Earthquake) Preparedness Seminarfor non-JapaneseLet’s learn from the Kumamoto earthquake!
Two earthquakes with a seismic intensity of 7 hit the Kumamoto area,
followed by continuing aftershocks. You were probably full of anxiety rightafter the earthquake, feeling great fear of sudden violent jolts, not knowing
what had happened, what to do, where to go, and whom to depend on, etc.
We are afraid that many people still cannot go home because of fear ofearthquakes, while others cannot sleep well due to the trauma.
With this in mind, we plan to hold a seminar so we can think together about
the mechanisms of earthquakes, what happens afterwards, and how weshould behave when an earthquake occurs in the future. Let’s take thisopportunity to learn more about earthquakes.
Date and time: July 16, Sat., 2016, 1:30 P.M. – 4:30 P.M.
Venue: Kumamoto International Center 2F Interaction Lounge
Content: *English and Chinese interpretation available- Experience of the earthquake- Let’s learn about the mechanisms of earthquakes and potential
disasters in Kyushu!
- Let’s examine case studies of how to behave when an earthquake
occurs, based on individuals’ experiences.
- Let’s learn what preparations are necessary day-to-day.
Lecturer: Tuguyuki Ichii (Japan IsraAID Support Program Foundation)
Fee: Free
Other content: Disaster preparedness kits exhibitedFree disaster preparedness goods for all participants[Application and inquiries]
Kumamoto International Foundation
Kumamoto International Center, Planning team
TEL 096-359-2121 FAX 096-359-5783
e-mail: pj-info@kumamoto-if.or.jp