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 the development and management of a lot of infrastructures and the protection of human lives and properties at sea and which 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 a 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, in order to determine the reality-based responses to be taken by collective effort. 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 of the same year and in August 2015, the Nankai Trough Mega Earthquake and Tokyo Inland Earthquake Response Headquarters determined the priority measures to be carried out after taking into account the status of the implementation of both response plans to date.

As a specific example of a priority measure for FY 2016, it was determined that, in order to implement the Tokyo Inland Earthquake Road Obstacle Elimination Plan formulated last fiscal year—in other words, in order to reinforce multidirectional strategies and secure transportation modes immediately after a disaster strikes, (i) an emergency river-utilization plan whereby rivers would be harnessed to facilitate the multiplexing of transport routes shall be formulated, (ii) a plan for the immediate and reliable transportation of relief goods after a disaster strikes shall be formulated, (iii) and a system for comprehensively supporting emergency flight diversions and transportation to enable any airplane to land at an alternate airport selected immediately in the event that the intended destination airport is shut down because of an earthquake shall be fully activated.