Tag: earthquake

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A business entity, not city, manages Noto earthquake volunteers’ personal information

TOKYO, Jan. 19, 2024—The reporter was about to push the Registration button on the website page for registration as a Noto Peninsular earthquake volunteer when he noticed ‘HUGKUMI, LLC’ at the bottom of the page, and stopped and clicked on the company.

The HUGKUMI, LLC website described its business in English, ‘We support welfare, disaster prevention, and disaster relief through the use of IT.’ The site’s Japanese description said the company’s business credo is ‘fielding across Japan the business based on the welfare and information technology concept’ based on Kurobe City, Toyama.

The company offers consulting services, ‘DX: Digital Transformation that focuses on ‘X’ rather than D. We Will Suggest the most effective way to do so,’ it said. The company also holds seminars, it said. ‘Experienced staff in the field of education and welfare will plan the training, give lecturers (sic), and follow up after the training.’

The website’s another page is for registering for volunteers as individuals and organizations, the page that seems to be managed by the company. It said the company’s ‘public relations and communications team is drafting a special site’ for volunteers, and that the Ishikawa municipal office began accepting pre-registration on Jan. 6.

A spokeswoman for HUGKUMI, LLC told the reporter Jan. 19, 2024 that the company has written the volunteer application form for the prefecture government and managing applications from volunteers on behalf of the prefecture government. Asked how volunteers’ privacy is protected, she said, ‘Our contract with the prefecture guarantees volunteer privacy protection’ but acknowledged that the volunteer form does not have privacy protection provisions. A prefecture volunteer section official confirmed to the reporter that the volunteer form does not bear privacy protection terms. Pressed on, the official said that his supervisor is out of office for earthquake rescues and cannot be reached.

On Jan. 18, 2024, the prefecture announced that the number of volunteers pre-registered had totaled 10,900, of which those from outside the prefecture accounted for 7,800.

The Prospect speculates that personal information of the volunteers might be compromised, if not immediately but later from various passageways.

HUGKUMI,LLC was founded in January 2021 by Kazuhiro Nagai serving as ‘executive officer.’ After resigning from a public social and welfare association of Matsuzaka City, Miel Prefecture, he founded a nonprofit in Kurobe in 2013, and started the ‘Green Down Project’ to recycle used clothing downs in 2015, according to the website. The spokeswoman, whose last name is Nagai so presumably his relative, said the company has four executives, including Mr. Nagai, and no employees.

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Noto earthquake slow rescue underscores Japan’s total ineptitude

TOKYO, Jan. 18, 2024—No matter how cumbersome it is, the cold truth is Japan is slow and incompetent. And that holds true in its defense.

On Jan. 1, 2024, a massive earthquake measuring 7.6 hit Noto Peninsular on the Japan Sea coast. As of this writing, more than 230 deaths and more than 20 missing had been confirmed by local municipalities. The number of houses and buildings that collapsed was over 22,100. Water mains, electric power, gas and Internet signals have yet to be restored sufficiently. Save a few main arteries, roads and train tracks remain disrupted. The number of people in temporary shelters and other evacuation locations was more than 17,600 as of Jan. 16, fewer than over 23,000 at the peak period during the first week of the quake. More than 400 are living in isolated areas inaccessible from outside as of Jan. 17. The Noto Airport will remain closed until Jan. 24.

More casualties are likely as rescue and restoration operations progress given that the trembler hit the peninsular when people who had moved out of the area returned to join their folks for New Year might be found. Rescue and restoration work is progressing only slowly as the area is known for steep cliffs and hilly terrains with little flat space.

Even so, in ‘one of the most advanced economies’ of the world, rescue efforts should have begun in large-scale and faster, in particular, by the 250,00-strong Air, Maritime, and Ground Self-Defense forces.

Yet the reality has been that the government of the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, had been able to dispatch only by the trickle for reasons of logistics, the area’s geographical, and weather conditions. Certainly, the SDF crew on the scene did their best at digging out survivors from collapsed houses, Japanese television footages showed. Firefighters who were sent from remote areas of Japan worked by turn at rescue operations too. But the scale of rescue operations was overwhelmed by the earthquake’s impact. So, even nearly three weeks after the quake, many residents are still collecting meals and from municipal and volunteer canteens, television footages showed.

Why this slowness? In a word, lack of leadership. Kishida visited the area Jan. 14 but stayed there less than two hours. Hiroshi Hase, governor of Ishikawa, where Noto is located, also visited the disaster area on Jan. 14 for the first time. ‘In other countries, head of state and other top officials visit disaster areas as quickly as possible,’ Mari Oshima, a New York City resident, said. ‘Even though he’s old, Biden did that to victims of a hurricane a few days after the storm hit the state.’

Xi Jinping must have seen this Japanese clumsiness as a huge Japanese defense blindspot he can exploit if he decides to take over Senkaku Island in the East China Sea as a foothold for his pan-Asia hegemony aspiration.

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