About half of Japan's schools and hospitals fear their buildings would not stand up to a major earthquake, a Cabinet Office survey shows.
The Cabinet Office said a poll conducted in late March shows 54.3 percent of schools and 43.3 percent of hospitals are concerned about whether their structures would survive a powerful quake.
The poll covered 149,648 buildings belonging to educational institutions, ranging from public and private kindergartens to universities, as well as 19,327 buildings used by medical institutions, excluding dental clinics.
Thirty-three percent of social welfare facilities, including elderly care institutions, and 47.2 percent of community halls and public gyms are concerned about the effects of an earthquake, the poll shows.
The survey shows that 50.7 percent of densely populated areas have no public evacuation locations of more than 10 hectares within a radius of 2 km and 29.7 percent of the areas across Japan have no evacuation roads.
Officials said the government will draw up a program to improve earthquake measures within this year for key public structures.