Japan now has a record 1.55 million registered foreign residents, representing 1.23 percent of the population. These entirely legal residents are still being given short shrift in government planning, such as disaster-prevention and relief measures. It is two weeks since the nation as a whole -- nearly 6 million residents of 33 prefectures -- marked Disaster Preparedness Day on Sept. 1 by taking part in government-sponsored earthquake and other safety drills. Few steps were taken on that day, the 77th anniversary of the Great Tokyo Earthquake of 1923, to see that foreign residents were fully informed.
Two days later, Tokyo witnessed a massive disaster-relief drill organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government under Gov. Shintaro Ishihara that is still a hot topic of comment. To a large extent this is because, at Mr. Ishihara's urging, the Self-Defense Forces participated on an unprecedented scale: some 7,100 members in uniform, along with more than 1,000 motor vehicles, 80 aircraft and five maritime vessels at 10 sites throughout the capital region. It is inevitable that SDF members should play a major disaster-relief role if a tremor on the scale of the 1923 quake were to strike again. What their assigned duties may be to assist non-Japanese-speaking foreign residents in such an event is not so clear.
On the same day that the nationwide drills were held, the Central Disaster Prevention Council chaired by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori announced its decision to implement a full-scale revision of the nation's basic disaster-response plan. That plan is a set of guidelines derived from the Disaster Response Law. Local governments base their own plans on the one outlined by the national government. It is not unreasonable to expect that the revision should include specific provisions for guiding Japan's growing foreign population.