### Section 11. Disaster Countermeasures

## (1) Natural Disasters and Police Activities

In 2008, there were 51 fatalities and missing persons, and 851 injured persons caused by disasters such as typhoons, heavy rain, strong wind, high tidal waves and earthquakes. There were also aviation disasters such as fires of airplanes. The situation of major damages caused by natural disasters from 2004-2008, are shown in Table 4-5.

Table 4-5 Situation of Major Damage by Natural Disasters (2004-2008, as of April 30, 2009)

Year	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Fatalities, Missing Persons (persons)	285	45	58	30	51
Injured Persons (persons)	7,775	1,543	676	3,074	851
Completely or Partially Destroyed Houses (houses)	33,476	5,335	2,304	9,946	256
Houses Washed away (houses)	20	1	0	0	0
Houses Flooded (houses)	167,713	26,113	15,850	11,819	35,650
Damaged Roads (locations)	11,716	2,253	1,197	1,573	1,509
collapsed Mountain Cliff (locations)	6,959	1,458	4,741	1,517	832

## 1 ) Earthquakes

In June 2008, an earthquake struck Iwate Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture, and in July another earthquake occurred just north of the seashore of Iwate Prefecture. These earthquakes led to 24 fatalities/missing people and 648 injuries (as of 30 June 2009).

The main earthquakes and measures taken by police in response to them in 2008 are as follows.

### a. The Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku Earthquake in 2008

This magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck at 8:43 am on June 14 2008 within the southern part of Iwate Prefecture. The earthquake was measured as a shindo (the Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale) strong 6 in Oshu City, Iwate Prefecture and Kurihara City, Miyagi Prefecture, and a weak 6 in Osaka City of Miyagi Prefecture.

This earthquake led to 13 deaths, 10 missing person cases, and 427 injuries (as of April 30, 2009).

### b. The Iwate Coast Earthquake

This magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck at 12:26 am on July 24 2008 off the coast of Iwate Prefecture. The earthquake was measured as a shindo weak $ 6^{1} $ in Hachinohe City, Gonohe Town and Hashikami Town of Aomori Prefecture.

This earthquake led to 1 death, and 210 injuries (as of April 30, 2009).

### c. Measures Taken by the Police

The relevant Prefectural Police organizations set up Disaster Security Headquarters headed by the chief of the respective police organizations and engaged in the gathering of damage information, the provision of evacuation guidance for isolated residents, and searches for missing persons. In addition, the NPA set up a disaster security headquarters headed by a director of the Security Bureau and took necessary measures to support prefectural safety commissions and other relevant agencies by dispatching region-wide emergency support teams and helicopters. $ ^{2} $

Note 1: The Iwate Coast Earthquake was measured as a shindo strong 6 by a device set up in Iwate Prefecture, but this device was deemed to have calibration problems. The Japan Meteorological Agency thus judges this earthquake to have an unclear shindo.

2: The NPA and the prefectural police organizations of Hokkaido, Aomori, Yamagata, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Niigata, Yamanashi, Nagano, Shizuoka, and Aichi dispatched a total of approximately 1,430 people over 8 days for region-wide emergency support teams in response to the Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku Earthquake in 2008. Additionally, the NPA and the prefectural police agencies of Hokkaido,