This is a follow up to my last post about evacuation information. One of the key points that I want to make to the prefecture is that the first step in making information more accessible to foreigners is making it easier for Japanese people to understand. A good case in point is the flooding that occurred in Joso City in Ibaragi Prefecture last year. To read an article about that in English (focusing particularly on the difficulties that foreigners had getting information) see the following:
It was not just foreigners who didn’t get the information they needed. The third image shows a rescue being conducted in the Misaka area of Joso City. This area did not receive an evacuation notice until it was too late. The first two images are from a television program called 真相報道 バンキシャ! (Shinso Hodo Bankisha) that was aired on the 13th of September last year. The first image shows how information is issued via text. This is currently exactly the same as the situation in Kumamoto and probably the rest of Japan – notices are issued via text but not in map form. The second image shows how the TV station used a map to determine what areas had received evacuation notices and what areas had not. When the TV reporters plotted the locations on the map, it becomes clear that the spot marked with an X should have received an evacuation notice. When I saw this, I had two thoughts:
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If the information had been issued on a map, residents might have understood that, even though their area had not received an official notice, they were in danger;
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Putting the information in map form might have helped with officials realized that they had forgotten to issue a notice for the Misaka area.
I hope I can use this information to convince the prefecture to take steps to improve the way they put out information on the internet. Doing so should help foreigners and non-foreigners alike.