Disaster Prevention Terms Update（防災言葉の変更）

The Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan has recently updated disaster prevention terms regarding evacuation to make them simpler and easier to understand in an emergency.

The terms that have been updated relate to evacuation alert levels. Updated terms can be found below:

Additional notes regarding new terms

1. A municipality may not issue level 5 alerts for various reasons, such as an inability to completely ascertain the scope of a disaster.
2. This new order will be issued around the same timing as the old “evacuation recommendation” alert.
3. Alert level 3 calls for the elderly and other who may need to make early evacuation efforts to assess the situation, prepare to evacuate, and to evacuate voluntarily if they feel they are in danger.

More information

More information about these new terms can be found in posters below created by the disaster prevention unit of The Cabinet Office and the Fire and Disaster Management Agency and on the Cabinet Office disaster prevention homepage (in Japanese).

At the time of this post, this information is only available in Japanese and English.