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Earthquake Safety in Japan: Foreigner's Emergency Guide | MyKyoten

Japan averages hundreds of felt earthquakes per year. Most are minor. Some are not. The difference between a chaotic experience and a manageable one is…

Last verified: 2026. This guide is based on Immigration Bureau regulations, Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare guidelines, and standard Japanese administrative practice. It is informational only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed immigration attorney or official government sources for case-specific guidance.

If you have not set up emergency alerts on your phone and registered with your local municipality before an earthquake hits, you may not receive evacuation instructions in your language and your family abroad will have no way to confirm you are safe.

Japan averages hundreds of felt earthquakes per year. Most are minor. Some are not. The difference between a chaotic, terrifying experience and a manageable one is almost entirely about what you did before the ground started moving.

What Do You Need to Set Up Before an Earthquake Even Happens?

Three steps. Do them this week, not later.

Step 1: Enable J-Alert on your smartphone. J-Alert is Japan's national emergency broadcasting system. On iPhone, go to Settings > Notifications > Government Alerts and toggle on Emergency Alerts. On Android, go to Settings > Safety and Emergency > Wireless Emergency Alerts. The alert fires seconds before shaking reaches your location. That gap, sometimes 10 to 30 seconds, is enough to drop and take cover. Without this enabled, you will hear nothing.

Step 2: Register with your local ward or city office emergency contact list. Most municipalities maintain a separate multilingual alert list for foreign residents. This is not automatic just because you are registered on the juminhyo (resident register). You must request it. Visit the International Affairs or Foreigner Support counter at your ward office and ask to be added to their 外国人向け緊急連絡リスト (emergency contact list for foreigners). Many wards, including Shinjuku, Minato, and Naka-ku Yokohama, send SMS or LINE alerts in English. If you moved recently, your old ward's list does not carry over. Check the address change reporting guide to make sure your residence registration is current before you do this.

Step 3: Download the Safety Tips app. Free on iOS and Android. It pushes NHK World alerts in English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. It also displays J-Alert warnings with maps. This runs parallel to J-Alert, which means if one fails, the other may still reach you.

Warning Box If your phone is on a data-only SIM or a SIM card not registered under your name at a Japanese carrier, J-Alert SMS may not reach you. Based on common experience reported by foreign residents, some MVNO SIM cards do not relay earthquake early warning SMS. Supplement with Safety Tips app notifications and consider switching to a major carrier SIM. For ID verification requirements when getting a SIM, see the SIM card ID verification guide.

→ Use the Document Decoder to translate and understand your Japanese administrative documents.

What Do You Actually Do the Moment Shaking Starts?

Drop, cover, hold on. Get under a sturdy table or desk. Cover your head and neck with your arms. Hold the table legs if possible. Do not run outside. Glass, tiles, and roof debris cause the most injuries during strong shaking, and they fall near exits and doorways. The old advice about standing in doorframes is outdated and wrong.

Do not open your front door immediately. After shaking stops, open it calmly to prevent the frame from warping and trapping you inside. This is especially relevant in older apartment buildings built before the 1981 revised seismic code (新耐震基準). If your building is pre-1981, the door frame warping risk is real.

Shut off your gas. The shutoff valve is almost always the meter unit on the exterior of your apartment or at the base of a standalone house. Turn the knob perpendicular to the pipe. Japanese gas meters automatically shut off at a seismic intensity of about 5 lower (震度5弱). Still check manually. Do not reopen the valve until you smell no gas.

Siren patterns matter. A sustained rising and falling wail from municipal speakers is a general disaster alert. A repeated short triple burst followed by a voice announcement is typically a tsunami warning. If you are within 1 kilometer of the coast or a river estuary and hear the triple-burst pattern, move to high ground immediately without waiting for further instruction.

How Do You Find Your Evacuation Site and What Do You Bring?

Every address in Japan is pre-assigned to a designated evacuation site (避難場所). Open Google Maps, type 避難場所 plus your neighborhood name in Japanese, or search "指定緊急避難場所." The blue shield icons are your designated sites. Navigate using roads that avoid riverbeds, elevated expressways, and steep hillside paths. Liquefaction and slope failure are common near river edges after strong quakes.

Your 72-hour emergency bag should include:

Here is the part nobody tells you: evacuation centers in Japan are legally required to accept foreign residents, but on-the-ground reality based on reports from foreign residents is that staff at smaller neighborhood centers sometimes struggle to communicate. Having a bilingual name card or a translation app like Google Translate in offline mode loaded ahead of time removes that friction immediately.

Step-by-Step Checklist: Evacuating as a Foreign Resident

  • Confirm shaking has stopped before moving
  • Open front door to prevent frame warp lock
  • Shut off gas meter
  • Grab emergency bag including residence card
  • Check Safety Tips app for updated alerts
  • Navigate to designated shelter avoiding riverside roads
  • Tell shelter staff your name, nationality, and any medical needs
  • Ask for the multilingual support volunteer (多言語支援者) if available

Why must you carry your residence card during evacuation? Under the Immigration Control Act, foreign nationals in Japan are required to carry their residence card at all times. This obligation does not pause during a disaster. If you are checked at a shelter or roadblock, not having it creates an administrative problem on top of an already difficult situation. Carry the original, not just a copy.

How Do Family Members Overseas Confirm You Are Safe?

NHK Safety Confirmation (安否確認). After a major disaster, NHK activates its safety confirmation portal. The URL is: www3.nhk.or.jp/toppage/anpi/ (this is the standard portal path activated during declared disaster periods). You enter your name, location, and a status message. Family overseas can search your name and see your entry. It works on low bandwidth.

Google Person Finder. Google activates google.org/personfinder during significant Japan disasters. The direct link is: google.org/personfinder. You can post yourself as safe or search for others. It pulls from multiple databases including NHK. Based on past disaster activations, both systems typically go live within 2 to 6 hours of a major event.

Take a Brazilian teacher on a Humanities/International Services visa living in Sendai as a concrete example. During a strong quake, her family in São Paulo had no idea what happened for 18 hours because she had not registered in either system and her LINE calls were failing due to network congestion. The fix is simple: post your safety record as text, not a call. Text data transmits even when voice bandwidth is saturated.

One specific workaround: if you have almost no connectivity, compose your safety status as an SMS to a Japanese number you trust and ask them to post it to Person Finder or NHK on your behalf.

Reality Check Disaster relief in Japan is not equivalent to systems like FEMA in the United States. Japan's disaster welfare grants (被災者生活再建支援金) are administered at the prefecture level and are primarily structured for Japanese household heads. Foreign residents with valid residence status are legally entitled to apply, but the documentation requirements, including proof of residency and household composition, are the same documents you already have: your juminhyo and residence card. The maximum payout under the 被災者生活再建支援法 can reach 3,000,000 yen for a total loss household, disbursed over two phases. Processing typically takes 30 to 90 days after application.

What Happens After the Disaster, Especially for Foreign Residents?

Multilingual support kicks in, but only if you know where to find it.

Multilingual counseling hotlines are activated by CLAIR (Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) after major disasters. The main line is operated through local international centers (国際交流協会) and varies by prefecture. Search "[your prefecture] 外国人相談 disaster" for the active number. Some prefectures also maintain a 24-hour foreigners consultation line year-round at 0570-013-904 (dial from Japan, available in 14 languages).

Honestly, the disaster relief application process is one of the areas where being registered correctly in advance makes the biggest difference. If your juminhyo address is wrong, your application stalls. If you moved and forgot to update your address registration within the required 14 days, that creates a documentation gap. The missing 14-day address rule guide explains what that gap can cause across multiple administrative processes, including relief eligibility.

If your residence card was lost or destroyed during the disaster, report it immediately to the nearest Immigration Services Agency (入国在留管理局) branch or a regional immigration bureau. You have 14 days from discovering the loss to report it. The replacement fee is 1,600 yen if applying by mail with a revenue stamp, or handled in person at no replacement fee in declared disaster zones depending on the prefecture's disaster relief designation at the time. Bring any available ID, including a passport, juminhyo, or even a health insurance card to establish your identity. The immigration bureau will issue a temporary certificate while the replacement is processed.

If your passport was lost or damaged, contact your country's embassy or consulate immediately. Most embassies have emergency after-hours contact lines precisely for disaster situations. Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes all embassy contact information at mofa.go.jp. An emergency travel document can typically be issued within 2 to 5 business days depending on the issuing country.

This is where people mess up: they delay contacting immigration and their embassy because they are focused on immediate survival logistics. Both contacts need to happen within the first 72 hours if possible. Delays can complicate visa renewals and re-entry documentation, especially if your visa was close to expiration.

Your next step: Open your phone right now, confirm J-Alert is enabled in your notification settings, download Safety Tips from the App Store or Google Play, and write your ward office's international affairs counter address in your notes app so you can visit this week to request emergency alert registration in your language.

Can I evacuate to a shelter if I am on a tourist visa or overstaying? Evacuation shelters are humanitarian facilities and do not function as immigration checkpoints. Based on standard Japanese disaster management policy, all persons physically present in Japan, regardless of visa status, are to be protected during a disaster. That said, carrying any valid ID you have reduces friction with shelter staff significantly.

What if the Safety Tips app is not working because I have no internet? J-Alert functions via cellular broadcast, which does not require a data connection. It transmits on the same channel as SMS. If you have no connectivity at all, use battery-powered radios tuned to NHK Radio 1 (AM 594 kHz in Tokyo) for updates.

Does losing my residence card during a disaster affect my PR application timeline? A documented disaster-related loss, reported properly to immigration with a disaster certificate (罹災証明書) from your municipality, is treated differently from a negligent loss. Based on standard immigration administrative practice, a properly documented loss does not automatically penalize your PR point score or compliance record. Get the 罹災証明書 from your ward office as soon as it is available.

Staying legally compliant in Japan, even through a disaster, means your documentation records need to be current and accurate. If you are unsure whether your current address, workplace changes, or visa activity have created any immigration compliance gaps that could affect you during or after an emergency, run a quick check with the Immigration Risk Checker. It takes a few minutes and flags the most common issues foreign residents miss before they become real problems.