On October 28, 11 individuals from the Institute for Planetary Materials (IPM), including foreign faculty members, international students, and their families, participated in an emergency preparedness workshop for foreign residents, which was held in Misasa, Tottori Prefecture.

The workshop was co-organized by the Tottori Prefectural International Exchange Foundation (TPIEF) and the Tottori Local Meteorological Office using simple Japanese. The purpose of the workshop was to provide foreign residents who have little experience with natural disasters to learn about disaster prevention in order to protect themselves when disasters such as heavy rain, typhoons, and earthquakes occur in Japan, where people often suffer from natural disasters.

During the workshop, members from the Tottori Local Meteorological Office explained natural disasters using video, photos, and display panels of actual disasters that occurred in Japan and introduced the liquefaction phenomenon and “Safety tips”, an application that provides information on disasters for foreign residents. TPIEF also played a true or false quiz on the knowledge of disaster prevention and showed emergency items.

In response to some questions such as the evacuation with pets, Tottori Local Meteorological Office staff answered very kindly and participants enjoyed the workshop in a friendly atmosphere.

Participants commented, “This was my first time to participate in the workshop for disaster prevention. The lecture was very interesting and useful. I appreciate all to organize this event.”, “Practical information was presented in an easy-to-understand manner, and I was able to learn while having fun.”, etc.

The Misasa Town Office, which held the workshop expressed their aspirations to make use of this training and continue to work on planning projects that will please residents and the local community.

IPM will continuously work on partnership and collaboration with the community.