Japan: a developed, disaster-prone nation
Geography · Key Stage 3 · The School
Why Japan sits in the danger zone
Japan sits where four tectonic plates meet. It lies on the Pacific "Ring of Fire". Most of the world's earthquakes and active volcanoes happen along this ring. This is why Japan gets frequent earthquakes. It also gets tsunamis and strong typhoons. This is not because Japan lacks development. It is simply where Japan sits.
How Japan reduces the damage
Japan spends heavily on earthquake-resistant buildings. Its building codes are strict and enforced. It has an early-warning system. This system can warn people of a coming earthquake or tsunami before the shaking or the wave arrives. Disaster drills are regular and compulsory. Because of this, most people know exactly what to do in the first seconds of a real event.
A wealthy country, still hit hard
Even with all this preparation, disasters still happen. The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and the tsunami it caused killed close to twenty thousand people. It also caused a serious accident at the Fukushima power plant. Japan's preparation cut the death toll far below what a less-ready country would suffer. But it could not stop the disaster completely.
No country can prevent an earthquake, a tsunami or a typhoon from happening. The hazard exists no matter how rich, advanced or well-planned a country is. What genuinely differs between countries is preparation. Do buildings survive the shaking? Do people get enough warning to reach higher ground? Can emergency services respond within minutes, not days? Japan's wealth changed how it responds to a hazard it can never remove. This one idea — reducing a hazard's damage is not the same as reducing the hazard itself — is the most useful idea for comparing how different countries face the very same kind of event.