A Kyodo News survey released on Sunday revealed that many foreign residents in Kumamoto Prefecture may struggle to gather information in the wake of last month's magnitude 7.1 earthquake, citing a lack of dedicated services for non-Japanese residents in most local governments within the severely affected areas.
The survey was conducted after the earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture in southwestern Japan. It found that while many municipalities in the affected region have significant foreign populations living and working there, emergency information channels, evacuation instructions, and safety warnings are predominantly issued in Japanese, creating barriers for those who are not proficient in the language.
Experts argue that the shortage of multilingual services during emergencies could delay foreign residents' responses, thereby jeopardizing their safety. Some local governments have made efforts to provide bilingual information or utilize translation apps, but such initiatives remain limited.
The situation underscores an urgent need to improve disaster communication systems for foreign communities, which are increasingly present in disaster-prone areas across Japan.
