Police Open Large Disaster Training Center in Tokyo

May 10, 2018

Tokyo- The National Police Agency said Thursday it has launched operations at a newly built disaster training center in Tokyo, mainly for use by police officers in eastern Japan to share lessons from disasters, including the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The disaster training center is the second of its kind in the country following a similar one within the police academy in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, western Japan. The facility in Sakai started operations in 2016.

The NPA invested a total of some 650 million yen to build the new center on a 7,100-square-meter former site of the agency's Tama patrol training center in the city of Tachikawa. Operations started on April 16.

The antidisaster section of the Metropolitan Police Department manages the new center and guides training there.

The new center has 10 disaster training facilities, including those on earthquakes and landslides, as well as volcanic and flood disasters.

It allows users to carry out drills specializing in urban disasters at training areas for building collapses and floods.

Over 100 drills took place last year at the disaster training center in Sakai, involving more than 10,000 people. Jiji Press