Friday, January 26, 2001

Addressing a meeting of the Central Disaster Prevention Council, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori pointed out that the best way to reduce damage in the event of a disaster is to promptly collect, assemble, and share the damage information coming in from central and local government offices, related organizations, and other sources immediately after a disaster occurs, to convey the gist of the information to decision makers, and to make decisions on that basis. He instructed the council to reexamine and reinforce Japan's disaster prevention system in the light of the new setup of ministries and agencies, with special attention to the central government's disaster information system.