It's 6 a.m. on Saturday, and Teruyuki Kato is woken at home by the beeping of his government-issued pager. The University of Tokyo professor of geophysics knows he must act fast. He calls the local police, who arrive within minutes and transport him, sirens howling, red lights whirling, to the Meteorological Agency in Otemachi.
There, he and the five other members of the national Earthquake Assessment Committee meet and, after examining seismograph data, inform the prime minister of a major temblor about to strike the city.
The brakes must be slammed on shinkansen; expressways and factories have to be shut; gas and electricity supplies must be made safe . . . and the public has to be warned.