directly controlled rivers in Japan before the flood season of 2014, and tried it. In addition, in the Metropolitan area and Chubu area, this group is promoting the leading project in order to create integrated timelines for all parties concerned, and will create the timelines before the flood season of 2015.

## (4) Responding to the Nankai Trough Mega Earthquake and Tokyo Inland Earthquake

If the Nankai Trough Mega Earthquake occurs, it is predicted that a wide Pacific-side area from the Kanto region to Kyushu will experience strong shaking with a seismic intensity of 6-7 and a huge tsunami will attack the wide Pacific-side coastal area within a short period of time. Deaths will reach a maximum of about 320,000 people, a critical situation including the interruption of transport infrastructure and paralysis of urban functions along the coast will be created, and the lives and economic activities of Japanese citizens are expected to suffer extremely serious effects all over Japan.

If the Tokyo Inland Earthquake occurs, it is expected to cause strong shaking with a seismic intensity of 6-7 along the entirety of the Tokyo Metropolitan area. In the Tokyo Metropolitan area, population, buildings, economic activities and others are concentrated extremely compared with other areas, and so it is expected that human, property, and economic damages become tremendous. In addition, in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, political, administrative, and economic functions of the capital are concentrated, and so it is expected that the Tokyo Inland Earthquake exerts impacts upon national economic activities and others as well as overseas countries.

In order to cope with such a national crisis, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism – which is in charge of development and management of a lot of infrastructures and protection of human lives and properties on the sea and has many field agencies all over Japan – established the “Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Nankai Trough Mega Earthquake and Tokyo Inland Earthquake Response Headquarters” and “Response Plan Making Working Group” in 2013, and formulated the “Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Nankai Trough Mega Earthquake Response Plan” and “Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Tokyo Inland Earthquake Response Plan” on April 1, 2014, to determine the reality-based responses to be taken with might and main. Also, regarding the Nankai Trough Mega Earthquake, more specific and practical “Regional Response Plans” were developed for each regional block along with the abovementioned plans. In July, 2014, the MLIT determined the priority responses to be taken after 2015 after following up the implementation states of the abovementioned plans.

Specifically, in order to accelerate emergency operations in a disaster, the MLIT is promoting the introduction of a method for collecting and analyzing the disaster information using big data, including: probe information from the electronic disaster information system; increase of other organization's offshore tsunami observation data utilized to provide tsunami observation information approximately 10 minutes at the most before arrival of tsunami to the land area

when the Nankai Trough Mega Earthquake occurs; strengthening of emergency transportation roads used to support emergency life-saving operations and restoration of support operations after occurrence of the Tokyo Inland Earthquake; and buildup of the system for swift elimination of road obstacles. The Kanto Regional Development Bureau established the “Tokyo Inland Earthquake Road Obstacle Elimination Plan Study Committee” in July 2014, create a plan to eliminate road obstacles swiftly and appropriately while carrying out rescue operations. They also formulated and revealed, on February 20, 2015, the “Tokyo Inland Earthquake Road Obstacle Elimination Plan (First Edition)” intended to eliminate obstacles on highways, national roads, and other selected roads by executing the “8-direction Operation”, an operation for moving forward toward the city center from eight directions at the time of a disaster. (See Figure II-7-2-1)

Source) MLIT