2 Years to Go: Tokyo Police Tightening Waterfront Security ahead of 2020 Games

August 1, 2018

Tokyo- Tokyo police are set to beef up security in waterfront areas of the Japanese capital to prevent terrorist attacks from the sea during the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Events for the Tokyo Games are scheduled to take place at 43 venues in nine prefectures, including Tokyo, and 14 of them, as well as the athletes village and the media center, will be located around the Port of Tokyo.

Tokyo International Airport at Haneda, which will be used by Olympic and Paralympic athletes, officials for the games and foreign dignitaries during the period of the sporting events, also faces the sea, requiring a great deal of caution against the possibility of terrorists approaching the facility in small boats.

When Japan hosted the 2016 Group of Seven summit on the island of Kashikojima in the city of Shima in the central prefecture of Mie, navigation of ships around and flights over the island were banned in principle. In addition, sonars and acoustic cameras were installed under the water to detect suspicious objects.

Following this example, the Metropolitan Police Department of Tokyo will restrict ship navigation in waters near the competition venues and other facilities in the waterfront areas during the 2020 Games, while considering introducing state-of-the-art security equipment.

The MPD will also tighten its crackdowns on pleasure boats and other watercrafts that are recklessly driven, based on a Tokyo metropolitan government ordinance enforced last month for ensuring transport safety on waterways.

Next year, the MPD will set up a jet boat unit comprising dozens of officers from its riot police unit's anti-firearms squad, to counter terrorists who may approach the competition venues or Haneda airport.

The Japan Coast Guard is also enhancing its security activities using patrol ships and aircraft.

In July last year, the MPD and the JCG jointly conducted a drill against a terror attack in waters near Sea Forest Waterway in Tokyo's Koto Ward, which will host canoeing and rowing events in the games. In the exercise, they chased a suspicious ship and captured those who played the roles of terrorists carrying explosives.

On July 24 this year, exactly two years before the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, the Tokyo police and the coast guard again carried out a joint drill off Koto Ward, assuming that a water bus boarded by about 40 officials on an inspection tour of competition venue construction sites was assaulted by two gun-wielding men in a pleasure boat. The two men were seized after their boat was chased by patrol ships of the MPD and the JCG.

Also as part of the day's drill, another two men took a female police officer on patrol hostage on a train of the Yurikamome automated guideway transit system in the Tokyo waterfront areas. After the vehicle was guided to a train yard, officers of the MPD's anti-firearms squad arrested the two mock attackers.

The MPD will increase the number of officers of its anti-terrorist unit at Haneda airport.

Specifically, it will build by 2020 a new facility adjacent to the airport, where anti-terrorist officers and explosive sniffer dogs will be deployed around the clock to prepare for a possible attack on the airport and hijacking.

At the Port of Tokyo, a new terminal capable of accommodating huge cruise ships will be constructed.

Many large cruise ships are expected to visit the port during the Olympics and the Paralympics, and some of them are likely to be used as "hotel ships."

The police will have to guard a wide range of facilities, including such floating hotels, during the games.

"No Olympics or Paralympics has had so many competition venues and other facilities very near the sea. Because there's no precedent, we're fumbling our way," said a senior official of the MPD's headquarters for security for the games.

When Tokyo previously hosted the Olympic Games, in 1964, the first Olympics held in Japan and in Asia, most competition venues were located away from the sea. Jiji Press