Early on the morning of April 15 last year, the president of a Kumamoto hospital with Japan's first baby hatch was relieved to hear the facility could continue after a major earthquake had just struck.
It was a day after the prefecture was hit by a quake measuring a maximum 7 on the Japanese seismic scale and Taiji Hasuda was told by a senior official at Jikei Hospital that its electrical equipment was working, meaning women could give birth and undergo treatment.
In addition, the baby hatch, or Konotori no Yurikago (Storks' Cradle), was functional.