The government plans to beef up its disaster prevention plan by the end of March to remedy its inability to effectively react to landslides, high tides, underground flooding and accidents involving nuclear-powered vessels.
According to government sources, revisions to the plan are expected to be decided Thursday, at a meeting of the Central Disaster Prevention Council. The council oversees the Disaster Measures Basic Law. The move was prompted by the fact that the basic plan for disaster prevention contains few countermeasures for the disasters, despite the multitude of responses laid out for earthquakes and other nuclear accidents.
According to the sources, the council is to revise the basic plan by calling for the expansion of a weather information gathering system and the establishment of an standard for ordering the public to evacuate in case of torrential rainfall.