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August 23, 2025
 

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MLIT

A slope (left) is built at the intersection of a sunken road in Yashio City, Saitama Prefecture on Saturday.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2025
Slope built to reach man trapped in sinkhole in Saitama
Firefighters will now launch a full-scale effort to find the 74-year-old driver as soon as preparations are made.
A sinkhole at an intersection on a road in the city of Yashio, Saitama Prefecture, on Thursday morning
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 31, 2025
Heavy machinery to be deployed in bid to save man trapped in Saitama sinkhole
To stabilize the site and facilitate rescue efforts, crews are excavating a 4-meter-wide, 30-meter-long ramp to deploy heavy equipment and clear debris.
Efforts continued Thursday to rescue a 74-year-old truck driver trapped in a massive sinkhole in Yashio, Saitama Prefecture.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2025
74-year-old truck driver trapped in Saitama sinkhole for third day
Witnesses reported that the ground collapsed moments before the truck drove over the area, sending the vehicle plummeting into the chasm.
A Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism official explains a new system for detecting vacant houses, on Dec. 23.
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2025
Government developing AI-based system to detect vacant houses
The aim of the system is to spot such properties at an early stage and make them available for sale or rent, or demolish them before they collapse.
A transport ministry panel experiments with a dummy to determine how quickly a person lying on the road during the night would be spotted when drivers use low and high beam lights.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 27, 2024
Japan drivers warned to steer clear of drunk pedestrians sleeping on road
Collisions involving pedestrians asleep on the road typically spike in December, when more people get imbibed at New Year's gatherings.
A strawberry sales area at the Motegi roadside rest station in the town of Motegi, Tochigi Prefecture. As part of measures to address the shortage of successors, the roadside rest station is collaborating with farmers and others to sell locally grown agricultural products.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2024
Support planned for roadside rest stations as regional development hubs
The facilities, which started out mainly as rest places for drivers, have taken on wide-ranging roles, from tourism and agriculture to disaster prevention.
Workers repair a damaged road on Jan. 7 in the aftermath of an earthquake in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture.
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2024
New minister promises ample budget for disaster resilience
"Improving the country's resilience is an extremely important task," Hiromasa Nakano said in an interview.
Delivery trucks in Chiba in 2023
BUSINESS
Nov 13, 2024
Japan to promote the joint transportation of local goods
The measure is aimed at addressing the truck driver shortage in Japan.
A condo complex in Tokyo
JAPAN
Oct 19, 2024
Japan's land ministry eyes bill to prevent overpriced condo repairs
The ministry plans to impose supervisory penalties on companies that are found to be in violation of the rules.
A Class 4 railway crossing without alarms and circuit breakers in Kani City, Gifu Prefecture, in June 2018.
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2024
Government looks to improve safety at Japan's dangerous railway crossings
The ministry will support the installation of manually operated gates and fences at crossings that do not have alarms or barriers.
Japan Coast Guard officials search for missing people after the fatal sinking of the Kazu I tour boat off the Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido.
JAPAN
Oct 4, 2024
Japan to require passenger ships sailing in cold waters to carry life rafts
The move follows the deadly sinking of the Kazu I tour boat off Hokkaido in April 2022.
A ride-hailing service vehicle in Sendai. In times of disasters, such services will be available more widely.
JAPAN
Sep 17, 2024
Japan to allow use of ride-hailing services in disasters
Demand for transportation tends to increase during disasters such as earthquakes and typhoons, as well as in the recovery and reconstruction process.
Demolition works were still being carried out on July 1 in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, six months after the New Year's Day earthquake in the Noto Peninsula.
JAPAN
Aug 27, 2024
Land ministry highlights disaster reduction measures in budget request
The budget request is up 18.1% from the previous year at ¥7.03 trillion.
A huge seawall has been constructed along a coast in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2024
Infrastructure ministry to boost aid for port flood prevention
The ministry also plans to provide tax breaks to companies working on raising seawalls systematically.
High-rise buildings under construction in Tokyo in November last year
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2024
Japan looks to expand preferential measures for Flat 35 home loans
The measures to lower interest rates for those who acquire energy-efficient or earthquake-resistant houses are currently applied only to newly made loan contracts.
The land ministry is planning to create a system in which the central and local governments would evenly shoulder part of the demolition costs that condominium management associations should pay.
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2024
Japanese government to subsidize demolition of old condo buildings
The land ministry is planning to subsidize such demolitions from the fiscal year beginning April 2025.
Transport ministry officials enter the Kobe plant of Kawasaki Heavy Industries for an on-site inspection on Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2024
Transport ministry raids Kawasaki Heavy over ship engine test tampering
The firm has admitted inappropriately tweaked testing equipment to keep emissions data within ranges of customer specifications and reduce the variance of data.
Above part of the photo shows an empty land lot in the city of Kobe and the bottom part shows it was turned into an temporary evacuation area.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 15, 2024
Land ministry to support empty land utilization
The ministry plans to seek the necessary funds under the government's fiscal 2025 budget.
A Hokuriku Shinkansen train runs through the city of Fukui. Three options have been presented for an extended route from the Tsuruga to Shin-Osaka stations.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2024
Hokuriku Shinkansen extension to come with ballooning costs
Three options were shown for the bullet train line extension, but all were forecast to cost more than initial estimates.
Toyota Motor has been issued a correction order for the first time.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 31, 2024
Toyota Motor receives correction order from transport ministry
The ministry found indications of additional misconduct, such as falsifying test results.
Japan to revise romanization rules for first time in 70 years
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is recommending replacing the government’s long-standing Kunrei system with more widely used Hepburn-style spellings.
JR East cancels luxury train run over crew's boozing
East Japan Railway said Thursday that it will cancel one trip of a luxury overnight sleeper service, which was originally scheduled to depart from Ueno Station in Tokyo on Aug. 30, after crew members were found to have been drinking alcohol on duty.
Women-only communities flourish in China
Chen Yani (right), nicknamed "Keke," eats lunch with friends and guests in a female co-living space she founded called "Keke's Imaginative Space" in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, on July 14.
Demystifying the manufacturing success of China
China’s massive scale, strong education system and competitive local governance have enabled it to reach the technological frontier and dominate high-tech manufacturing despite its low per capita gross domestic product.
Infectious diseases to watch for in Japan this summer amid surge of cases
An illustration of a colony of the Bordetella pertussis bacterium that causes pertussis, or whooping cough. As of Aug. 10, there were 64,467 cases reported this year, according to the latest data from the Japan Institute for Health Security.
Is the LDP’s catch-all approach to politics still effective?
Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug. 15. Political commentator Toru Hashimoto has suggested that Takaichi ought to lead a group of like-minded hawkish politicians out of the Liberal Democratic Party and form their own party.
Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’
A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.
As farm minister, Koizumi is held ‘hostage’ by Ishiba
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi (center) attends a Lower House session on Aug. 1. Locking Koizumi into the Cabinet is Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s way of turning a potential rival into a team player, according to one expert.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan
Tokyo crowned No.1 'workation' spot
Workations were a burgeoning trend in the corporate world for years before the COVID-19 pandemic turbocharged it.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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