In the first 48 hours of 2024, Japan made headlines with two shocking events: On New Year's Day, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake devastated the center of the country, killing at least 100 people. The next day, a Japan Airlines plane and another Coast Guard plane collided at Haneda Airport in Tokyo and caught fire. Although five of the six crew members of the Coast Guard aircraft died, all 379 people aboard the Airbus A350 survived thanks to the flight crew's quick response and the attention with which the passengers followed their instructions.
The Coast Guard plane involved in the crash was carrying relief supplies to help the area hit by the earthquake the previous day on the Noto Peninsula (Ishikawa Prefecture), which forced authorities to issue a “major tsunami alert” along the coast for hours west coast of the country. It was the biggest warning of its kind since the triple disaster of 2011, in which a magnitude 9.1 earthquake, a gigantic tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear accident claimed a total of 20,000 lives.
Although the official figures from the New Year's quake are heartbreaking (100 dead and 211 missing, according to this Saturday's count), the consequences could have been even more devastating if Japan had not prepared for a disaster of this kind. September 1 marked the 100th anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake that would change the course of the country's history. More than 105,000 people lost their lives, 70,000 of them in Tokyo, and around 370,000 houses were destroyed. A century later, Japanese seismology institutes are world leaders, with world-leading networks of seismometers and early warning systems.
For Miguel Martínez Pañeda, senior civil engineer at the Arup company, the main difference in the ratio of deaths and damages between the Noto earthquake and other recent large earthquakes, such as those in Morocco or Turkey, is that “Japan is very seismic aware “exposed to risk” and that “most buildings are built with the certainty that they will have to withstand an earthquake.” In a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS, he explains that “in other places there may be a generational difference between one earthquake and the next, so risk perception can be lost.”
The country is prone to earthquakes due to its location within the well-known Pacific Ring of Fire, where 90% of the planet's seismic activity is concentrated. The Asian country records hundreds of earthquakes every year, although most of them are of low intensity, and has therefore been reviewing and updating its building laws and the national earthquake standard for decades, taking into account the lessons learned. “Unlike most European and American building codes, the Japanese focus not only on preventing collapses during large earthquakes, but also on ensuring that buildings can continue to be used after small earthquakes,” emphasizes Martínez Pañeda.
Toshitaka Katada, a professor at the University of Tokyo who specializes in disaster management, said by email that the government's rapid response – a quick warning of an impending emergency was sent to cellphones and rescue teams were deployed – as well as society's awareness of what was happening in these situations has also helped save many lives. From an early age, the Japanese learn how to behave in the event of an earthquake, and children and adults conduct evacuation drills every year. After the 1995 Kobe earthquake (magnitude 6.9, which killed 6,000 people), more and more community associations emerged to help prepare for potential disasters. “Japan is probably the country best prepared for an event of this kind,” says Katada.
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Modern evacuation protocols
This care, often associated with Japanese society, was also important in preventing the collision at Haneda Airport from resulting in tragedy. For many, it is a miracle that the 367 passengers (including eight children) and twelve crew members of Japan Airlines escaped virtually unscathed. There were only 17 injured, all of them out of danger. While investigations continue to clarify how the Coast Guard plane (from which only the captain was rescued) landed on the same runway as the Japanese company's plane, experts say the success of the evacuation is due to modern protocols and professionalism which they were carried out applied.
Firefighters work at Haneda International Airport after the Japan Airlines A350 plane crashed in Tokyo, Japan, January 2.ISSEI KATO (Portal)
“[Los tripulantes] We are highly trained to evacuate an aircraft in 90 seconds. “We have internalized the procedures very much,” says Emirates stewardess Bárbara Pérez Sánchez on the phone, but emphasizes the “exemplary performance” of her Japanese colleagues. According to the Japanese airline, it took 18 minutes from the time the plane stopped until the last person descended from the emergency ramp. For Pérez Sánchez, the “amazing behavior of the passengers” also played a key role: “They did not panic, they remained seated without getting up to collect their suitcases, listened carefully to the crew's instructions and followed their orders.”
Many industry professionals have highlighted online that the video Japan Airlines uses to explain to its travelers what to do in an emergency is a clear guide that will prepare them for a picture-perfect evacuation. “It’s super precise and super raw. “It underlines the seriousness of Japanese society and the value it places on safety,” adds the Spanish stewardess, taking the opportunity to address the existing debate about the effectiveness of these audiovisual products. His colleagues criticize that the trend in recent years has been that this is more of a short tourist advertising film than a guide.
Pérez Sánchez expects that the incident will be “intensely analyzed” and will likely lead to a “change in general aviation regulations.” This happened back in 1985, when a Japan Airlines plane crashed into a mountain en route from Tokyo to Osaka. It is the deadliest plane crash in aviation history: only four of the 524 people on board survived. This tragedy, which occurred after a faulty tail repair by Boeing technicians and not the airline, is still very present in the mentality of the Japanese company. It is currently implementing one of the strictest protocols in the world, as Tuesday's evacuation demonstrated, and regularly appears as one of the world's 25 safest airlines on Airlineratings.com's annual list. This week he repeated that list.
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