About one out of every three hospitals in Japan does not fully satisfy government safety requirements for the worst earthquakes, the health ministry said Tuesday.
The ministry surveyed the buildings at 8,611 hospital complexes across the nation for quake safety between last January and August.
All of the buildings at 4,837 hospitals satisfied requirements against an earthquake with an intensity of upper 6 on the Japanese scale of 7.
In a similar survey a year earlier, all of the buildings at 4,132 hospitals were up to code.
The 2009 survey found that some of the structures at 2,595 hospitals meet the requirements.
There are 98 hospitals in which none of the buildings satisfy the quake-proof requirements.
Health minister Akira Nagatsuma said the central government will cooperate with prefectural governments to raise hospitals' earthquake safety as quickly as possible.