The Japanese cabinet on Friday approved a revised basic 10-year preparation plan for a possible powerful earthquake directly beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area, tightening numerical targets and deadlines for the Tokyo region and nine surrounding prefectures.
The updated plan raises the government’s stated ambition: to cut deaths and the number of buildings destroyed or burned down to half or less of the latest official estimates. Those estimates, released in December 2025, put possible deaths at up to 18,000 and buildings destroyed or burned at around 400,000. The revision expands the number of specific policy goals from 47 to 189 and sets a near-universal rollout of seismic circuit breakers in almost all households in Tokyo and the nine prefectures by fiscal 2035, up from 20% coverage in fiscal 2024.
Beyond circuit breakers, the plan lays out a string of measurable targets. It calls for 100% of major firms to complete business continuity plans and 80% of midsize companies to do the same; requires annual disaster drills in all condominium buildings; aims for a 100% rate of securing furniture; and seeks to raise the share of homes stockpiling at least three days of food from 60% in fiscal 2025 to 100%. The government also reinforced measures to secure temporary accommodation facilities and to provide information for residents who try to return home on foot after a disaster.
Fire prevention is a central emphasis. The government says about 70% of earthquake-related damage is caused by subsequent fires, and the revised plan prioritizes policies meant to limit conflagrations after a quake. Jiro Akama, who has urged practical steps on fire control, said: "We cannot prevent the earthquake itself, but we can prevent the fires that historically claim the most lives." Akama added that "the widespread installation of seismic circuit breakers is no longer just a recommendation; it is an absolute necessity to save our neighbourhoods."
This is the first update to the basic plan since 2015. The document covers Tokyo and nine prefectures in and around the Kanto region, a zone that seismologists say faces a substantial chance of a major event; some experts cited in public reporting have put the likelihood at about 70% for a Tokyo-area megaquake that could cross magnitude 8. Tokyo itself sits at the meeting point of four major tectonic plates, a technical fact the plan cites as the rationale for accelerated preparedness.
The friction in the new strategy is plain. The plan’s headline goal—to reduce deaths and destroyed or burned buildings to half or less—directly confronts the December 2025 estimates of up to 18,000 fatalities and roughly 400,000 ruined structures. Achieving that reduction would require large-scale retrofits, mandated equipment installation, behavioral change across millions of households, and corporate compliance on continuity planning. The government says it will track progress on the numerical targets annually and carry out follow-up measures, but the published plan does not lay out the detailed enforcement, funding or regulatory steps that would ensure the jump from 20% to near-universal circuit breaker coverage and full compliance with furniture securing and stockpiling targets.
Practically, the cabinet decision converts targets into official policy, but it leaves the hardest work for the months and years ahead: how national and local authorities will compel or incentivize households, condominium associations and businesses to meet deadlines stretching to fiscal 2035. The most consequential unanswered question is operational: what mix of subsidies, mandates, inspections and penalties will be used to turn 189 policy goals into action so that the plan’s promise—to halve the human and structural toll of a Tokyo-area quake—becomes more than a numeric aspiration?
