With basic necessities interrupted, homes evacuated and infrastructure badly in need of repair, surviving a disaster is challenging enough, but for non-Japanese speakers there is the added worry of getting important information in a language they can understand.
Following the torrential downpour that hit western Japan two weeks ago, some local governments have posted multilingual information on their websites to help disaster victims, but in some cases the translations are patchy at best.
As a result, at least one company stepped in to fill the gap, helping staff without Japanese-language skills get the assistance they need. One foreign resident, whose home was fortunately unscathed by landslides but still had to go for about a week without running water, received such support from his employer.