世論 What Japan Thinks

Over the first five days at the start of February, MyVoice asked their online monitor group about earthquakes.

Demographics

13,145 people successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

I’ve not (yet..) experienced a destructive earthquake, although living in the Kansai area I’ve heard lots of stories of the hardships resulting from the Great Hanshin-Akashi Earthquake of 1995. I’ve also visited the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution (earthquake museum) in Kobe which has an extremely powerful recreation of the scenes during and after the earthquake. There is also a reference library there, which includes maps of all the active faults in Japan – the chances are probably rather high that your home too may be sitting rather close to a fault line. They also have survivors of the earthquake presenting various earthquake-related issues, from describing ground liquification to discussing emergency evacuation kit preparation, with translators on-hand to help out if need be.

Since I get a bit of traffic searching for it, I think I should explain the Japanese 震度, Shindo earthquake scale. Rather than report the magnitude as the key measure of the strengh of the tremor as in the Richter scale, the Shindo scale is used to present a more subjective, and more useful to the people affected by it, evaluation of the effects of the quake. The Shindo measures how one might actually experience the shake. 1 or 2 are barely perceptable wobbles, 3 is dishes rattling, 4 wakes you up and some things might dance off tabletops (this is about as high as I’ve experienced), 5弱, jaku, lower is books popping out of shelves, most things falling over, and perhaps a few cracks in cheaply built houses, 5強, kyou, upper is televisions and wardrobes (and perhaps you too) toppling, deformed doors and structural damage, 6弱, jaku, lower is dancing bookcases, 6強, kyou, upper is nearly everything breaking and falling over, and finally 7 is OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Research results

Q1: How worried are you about a big earthquake hitting the area you currently live in? (Sample size=13,145)

	Last year	This year
Extremely worried	30.8%	23.7%
Quite worried	52.7%	55.4%
Not really worried	14.8%	19.2%
Not worried at all	1.6%	1.8%

Q2: If a big earthquake disabled transport links, do you know the route from work, school, etc back to your home? (Sample size=13,145)

Know in detail	23.0%
Know roughly	42.1%
Don’t know very well	25.0%
Don’t know at all	9.7%
No answer	0.2%

Q3: If a big earthquake hit the area where you live, what sort of things would you feel worried about? (Sample size=13,145, multiple answer)

Water, electricity, gas and other basic services being cut	79.1%
Building collapse	76.6%
Lack of food or water	73.5%
Life after evacuation	66.7%
Being unable to contact family and friends, etc	52.8%
Follow-up disasters like fires or tsunami	51.1%
Evacuation area’s safety	47.6%
Lack of clothes or other daily needs	43.8%
Lack of information on injuries or well-being of people	37.3%
Transport links being cut off	34.9%
Other	6.2%
No particular worries	1.4%
No answer	0.1%

Q4: If a big earthquake hit the area where you live, what sort of thing would you feel most worried about? (Sample size=13,145)

Building collapse	33.8%
Water, electricity, gas and other basic services being cut	17.6%
Lack of food or water	12.6%
Life after evacuation	12.6%
Being unable to contact family and friends, etc	9.8%
Follow-up disasters like fires or tsunami	6.6%
Evacuation area’s safety	2.0%
Lack of information on injuries or well-being of people	1.2%
Transport links being cut off	0.8%
Lack of clothes or other daily needs	0.5%
Other	0.9%
No particular worries	1.4%
No answer	0.3%

Q5: What sort of things do you have around your house that could be used in case of earthquake? (Sample size=13,145, multiple answer)

Torch available	26.7%
Emergency food or water readied	25.9%
Emergency items prepared	24.8%
Furniture secured	22.6%
Earthquake insurance policy taken out	13.9%
Location and route to evacuation area confirmed	11.4%
Bedroom safety secured	11.0%
Cofirmed method of contacting friends and family	9.7%
Fire extinguiser available	8.6%
Purchased earthquake counter-measure items	6.2%
Learnt about first-aid	5.1%
Prepared safe evacuation exit from home	5.0%
Strengthened home against earthquake	4.0%
Other	1.2%
None in particular	36.1%
No answer	0.5%

Q6: What sort of things have you bought in case of a large-scale earthquake occurring? (Sample size=13,145, multiple answer)

Torch	45.4%
Drinking water	31.1%
Emergency rations	29.4%
Devices to secure furniture	21.4%
Radio	21.3%
Batteries	16.8%
Gloves	13.4%
Medicine, first aid kit	10.9%
Bettery charger	9.2%
Emergency evacuation kit	5.6%
Anti-shatter film for glass	4.7%
Clothes	4.1%
Sleeping bag	3.4%
Blanket	3.4%
Helmet, smoke hood	3.3%
Map of route home	2.1%
Safe	1.9%
Portable water filter	1.3%
Other	1.7%
Nothing in particular	33.6%
No answer	0.7%