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The Prime Minister in Action
Council for Central Disaster Management
June 29, 2018
[Provisional Translation]
On June 29, 2018, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 38th Council for Central Disaster Management at the Prime Minister's Office.
During the meeting, the revision of the Basic Disaster Management Plan was approved, and there were reports on the partial revisions to the Disaster Relief Act and other related matters.
In response to the approval and reports at the meeting, the Prime Minister said,
“Firstly, I would like to, once again, express my heartfelt condolences to those who lost their lives, and my sympathies to everyone affected by the earthquake centered in northern Osaka Prefecture, which occurred on the morning of June 18. I also express my respect to all the hard work that the members of this Council have done from your respective positions in response to the earthquake. I would like the relevant ministers to continue to exert every effort for recovery and reconstruction so that those affected by the earthquake can return to their daily lives as they were before at the earliest possible date. At the same time, I want you to swiftly implement responses to the issues that have become clear this time, such as measures to protect the safety of children.
In this revision of the Basic Disaster Management Plan, we included various measures incorporating lessons learned from our recent efforts such as measures to ensure the evacuation of people requiring special attention and prevent people from being left behind as well as flood-control measures to prevent damage from landslides, and driftwood to small and medium sized rivers, and smooth provision of personnel support for disaster-affected areas, especially the arrangement to dispatch disaster-response management personnel, including medical staff, and collaborations among municipalities affected by the disaster. I would like each minister to continue to steadily promote the further enhancement and improvement of disaster management and mitigation measures based on the outcomes approved today.
A moment ago, we have just received information about a record-breaking deluge in a short period in Fukuoka. There are concerns over potential disasters caused by heavy rain around the end of the rainy season. Please work diligently on these situations with a sense of urgency.
The Government continues to implement comprehensive disaster management measures in both hard and soft dimensions, holistically, through joint efforts of the public and private sectors. I would like to ask the members of this Council for your further understanding and cooperation on this matter.”