The guidelines say the Japanese central government will pay for the design and construction of emergency evacuation facilities on the Sakishima Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, Nikkei Asia reported on March 30. The islands are Japan’s southernmost and not far from Taiwan.
Construction is expected to take place in communities that are only accessible by plane or boat. They will have to draft and publicize evacuation plans to all residents and conduct joint drills with the central and provincial governments.
The central government has identified five communities in Sakishima that meet the requirements for building shelters and will soon begin negotiations.
Yonaguni Island in the Sakishima Islands
NIKKEI ASIA SCREENSHOT
The Cabinet Office will assist with the design while Japan's Defense Ministry will provide funding for construction in the cities of Ishigaki and Miyakojima as well as the town of Yonaguni, all of which are home to bases for the Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF).
The Japan Fire and Disaster Management Agency will fund the construction of shelters in Taketomi town and Tarama village, which do not have any SDF bases.
The facilities will be built beneath new public buildings and are designed to house evacuees for about two weeks, according to guidelines released on March 29.
These places will have electricity and communication equipment, as well as providing 3 liters of water/day and other supplies for each person. Each evacuee will have about 2 square meters of space in these places. The outer walls will be made of reinforced concrete more than 30 cm thick.
If a crisis breaks out, the Japanese government plans to evacuate all residents of islands in a wide area before facing any military attack, but that would take a long time on remote islands.
The shelters will therefore be used by government personnel overseeing the evacuation as well as evacuees waiting to leave the island. In peacetime, they will serve as meeting places and parking lots.
The shelters are designed to protect people from coordinated attacks. Some members of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party have called for the construction of structures that can withstand nuclear and electromagnetic pulse attacks.
Okinawa has no subway system and few underground structures. As of April 1, 2023, the prefecture had only eight locations designated as underground emergency shelters. The Sakishima Islands government has requested the central government to provide shelters.
"It is necessary to clearly convey to the public that there is a high possibility that the lives of Sakishima island residents will be threatened by a contingency in Taiwan or by a missile launch by [the Democratic People's Republic of Korea]," Nikkei Asia quoted Mitsuru Fukuda, a professor at Nihon University in Tokyo.
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