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On September 6, 2018, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting of the Ministerial Council on the 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
The Prime Minister said in his opening address,
 
“The 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake, which had a maximum seismic intensity of 7, has claimed the lives of nine people to date, with the safety of many people still unaccounted for in and around Atsuma Town. Many buildings have also collapsed and landslides have been confirmed. I pray for the repose of the souls of those who lost their lives and I extend my sincere condolences to everyone who has been affected by the disaster.
 
The Government is making every endeavor to implement rescue and relief operations, with units from the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), police departments, fire departments, and the Japan Coast Guard, including personnel from outside Hokkaido, providing support. 21,000 personnel, 51 helicopters and 12 ships have been mobilized. We will continue to further strengthen and enhance the scale of rescue units. With a view to preventing secondary disasters, the Government has dispatched the landslide expert team, TEC-FORCE, to Hokkaido. We will continue to work closely with the affected municipalities, exerting full efforts on emergency disaster response measures.
 
With regard to the power outage across the whole of Hokkaido, as a result of hydroelectric and thermal power stations being restarted, power transmission has been resumed to 300,000 homes in part of Sapporo City. We are aiming to restore the power supply to 1 million households, or approximately one-third of all homes in Hokkaido by tomorrow morning, by working through the night today. In order to ensure that power can be supplied to as many people as possible, I would like to ask those who are in areas where the power supply has been restored to make efforts to conserve electricity.
 
However, given that the full restoration of the power supply is anticipated to take some time, we have made arrangements for more than 300 tank trucks to provide fuel supplies for emergency power supply to important facilities, including hospitals, water and sewerage works and communications base stations. In addition, we have secured 150 power-supply vehicles from power companies around the country. It is expected that 35 of these vehicles will arrive in Hokkaido tonight and exert every effort to provide power supply to these important facilities.
 
I would like all ministers to continue your efforts to grasp the state of damage and exert every effort to engage in rescue and relief activities, based on a policy of putting people’s lives first. I also ask for all measures to be taken to secure food and other daily essentials and restore lifeline services.
 
In the areas which have experienced heavy tremors, there is still a danger of further building collapses and landslides, so I ask the people in affected areas to remain aware of further seismic activity and weather conditions, and take actions to protect their lives accordingly.”