Security Headquarters headed by the chief of the respective police organizations and engaged in the gathering of information on damage and traffic control. The NPA set up the Disaster Security Headquarters headed by the Director General of the Security Bureau and the relevant regional police bureaus also set up headquarters for disaster countermeasures, and both took necessary measures. Nagano, Aichi and Yamanashi prefectural police dispatched helicopters at the request of the Public Safety Commission of Shizuoka Prefecture.

## (2) Activities of Police Teams of Rescue Experts of Interprefectural Emergency Rescue Units

In April 2005, Police Team of Rescue Experts (P-REX) $ ^{1} $ , teams which possess extremely high disaster relief capabilities, were established within the Interprefectural Emergency Rescue Units of 12 prefectural police organizations $ ^{2} $ . The Police Teams of Rescue Experts were dispatched to afflicted areas of the torrential rains in the Chugoku Region and the Northern Part of the Kyushu Region in July 2009, and have so far been also mobilized to disaster scenes of the train accident on the Fukuchiyama Line of West Japan Railway Co. (JR West), the Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake in Niigata Prefecture in 2007 and the Iwate-Miyagi Inland Earthquake in 2008 for the rescue of afflicted people.

The Police Teams of Rescue Experts are striving to upgrade their rescue capabilities by conducting training using derelict buildings as well as joint training with relevant organizations.

Since the generalship of commanding officers is important to carry out rescue operations safely and expeditiously, police have been making efforts to improve the generalship of commanding officers, including operationally-oriented training in accordance with the team command guideline and case studies on a variety of disaster scenes.

## Note 1: Police Team of Rescue Experts

2: Hokkaido, Miyagi, Saitama, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Aichi, Osaka, Hyogo, Hiroshima, Kagawa and Fukuoka

## (3) Countermeasures against Armed Attacks and Similar Situations

1) National Protection Measures regarding the Situation of Armed Attack

Regarding armed attack situations $ ^{1} $ , anticipated armed attack situations $ ^{2} $ (hereinafter referred to as “armed attack situations”), and emergency situations $ ^{3} $ , the police prescribes to carry out the Measures for Protection of Citizens Prescribed in the Civil Protection Plan of the National Public Safety Commission and the NPA (hereinafter referred to as “Citizen Protection Measures”), based on the Act concerning Measures for Protection of Citizens in Armed Attack Situations (hereinafter referred to as “Citizen Protection Act”).

Since it is important to be regularly prepared to respond to such situations, the Prefectural Police are proactively participating in the formulation/revision of prefectural and municipal Civil Protection Plans and evacuation operation patterns of municipal areas, which are based on the Citizen Protection Act.

Note 1: Situations in which an armed attack has occurred or where the imminence of apparent danger of an armed attack has been recognized.

2: Situations in which an armed attack has not occurred but the situation is tense and possible armed attacks are anticipated.

3: Situations in which an act of killing/wounding many people has occurred through means equivalent to armed attacks or where the imminence of apparent danger has been recognized, and an urgent response on a national level is necessary.