Drone operators from the private sector who volunteered to fly unmanned vehicles to the disaster-hit Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture following January’s magnitude 7.6 earthquake returned to the region last week after record-breaking rainfall caused severe floods and cut off access to remote communities.
The Japan UAS Industrial Development Association (JUIDA), an industry body of drone companies, was commissioned by the Self-Defense Forces to carry out multiple missions to transport bread, vegetable juice, milk, and cooked and dry-packed rice to people in areas that had been cut off.
Other operators that took part in the effort included KDDI SmartDrone, which was directly commissioned by the prefecture to fly drones over wrecked roads to snap images that would help assess the damage caused by landslides.
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