Okinawa Exercise on Diagram Assuming Armed Attack, Evacuation Procedures from Sakishima Islands Examined

While efforts to protect citizens to evacuate residents in the event of an emergency are underway, a drill was conducted for the first time in the event of an armed attack in Okinawa Prefecture, and procedures for evacuating from the Sakishima Islands near Taiwan were examined.

The drill held at the Okinawa Prefectural Government Office on the 17th was attended by local governments in the Sakishima Islands, including Ishigaki City and Miyakojima City, as well as fire departments, police, and the Cabinet Secretariat.

The drill began on the assumption that the situation around Japan would worsen and that the government might designate municipalities in the Sakishima Islands as areas requiring "evacuation outside the prefecture" in the future.

Officials from the prefecture and municipalities discussed the immediate response, confirmed that each municipality would start considering evacuation guidance methods and routes, and that the prefecture would move to coordinate with transportation operators to secure transportation capacity.

After that, it was decided that the main island of Okinawa would be evacuated indoors, and about 12,2 people from the Sakishima Islands would be evacuated to Kyushu, and the prefecture estimated that if the number of flights and capacity were maximized, the transportation capacity could be increased by 36.<> times from the usual level.

After this, each municipality reported evacuation routes outside the island.

The drill was a chronological confirmation of the process by which the prefecture began evacuating residents, and Hidenori Ikehara, manager of the Prefectural Disaster Prevention and Crisis Management Division, said, "There are many issues to be addressed, and not everything was completed even in this drill.

Expert familiar with the Civil Protection Law: "It is necessary to be aware of difficulties and prepare"

Associate Professor Hiroshi Nakabayashi of Kokushikan University, who commented on the training in detail about the Civil Protection Law, commented on the efforts to protect the Civil Government, saying, "It cannot be said that the national government and the region have not made any preparations to ensure the safety of residents in the event of an emergency.

He then pointed out that "conducting training is neither contradictory nor contradictory to making maximum efforts to prevent Japan from being dragged into war and not becoming a party to war."

Japan southernmost island where about 500 people live on Hateruma Island

Hateruma Island in Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost inhabited island in Japan, is one of the islands of Taketomi Town and is home to about 500 people.

In August last year, when China conducted large-scale military exercises around Taiwan, missiles fell in the EEZ = exclusive economic zone Japan about 8 kilometers southwest of the island.

According to the draft evacuation plan presented in this drill, the island's residents will travel to Ishigaki Island using a high-speed boat with a capacity of 110 people and a capacity of 1 people over an hour, and then fly to Kyushu from New Ishigaki Airport on the same day.

However, since it is sailing on the open sea, it is not uncommon for flights to be canceled, and in a busy month, about half of the flights are canceled.

Mr. Yoshiaki Nakasoko, director of the Hateruma Community Center, said, "We may be able to do the training on the drawings, but in reality it is difficult, and I don't think the island will be the target of an attack, and Ishigaki Island, where the Self-Defense Forces base is located, is more scary."

In addition, Hateruma Island has a painful history surrounding the evacuation of residents during the Battle of Okinawa at the end of the Pacific War.

During the war, about 180,97 islanders of Hateruma Island were forcibly evacuated to Iriomote Island, where malaria is rampant, under the orders of the former Japan Army, and about 1500 people, or one-third, died from malaria.

This history is still handed down on the island, and the walls of elementary and junior high schools are painted with lyrics and pictures of songs made on the theme of children who evacuated to Iriomote Island and died of malaria.

Mr. Nakasoko said, "We evacuated them based on military orders to 'protect the residents,' but as a result, more people died of malaria than from bullets.