Disaster Preparedness

Went on a bona fide school trip on Friday, to the Fire Service-operated Disaster Preparedness Training Centre. The building and staff outfits seemed to be something out of a crazy 1960s view of the future... Which was confirmed when they got us to watch an exciting 3D film (complete with those glasses) of what might happen when the big one strikes (or rather, what might happen if you behaved like an idiot). Then we got to experience an earthquake simulator, a moving room set up like a little kitchen. I managed to carpet burn my elbow (although I'm sure if I were in an earthquake as powerful as Kobe that would be the least of my worries, and my flat doesn't have carpet anyway...). Tokyo is apparently the most earthquake-prone city in the world: three minor quakes a day, one you can feel every couple of months (I can confirm that!) and the big one is now ten years 'overdue'. Not to worry you of course.

Oh, and we all got to practice using fire extinguishers and escaping from a smoke-filled room (the smoke used was apparently 'completely safe', which is more than can be said for the Tokyo air). If anyone who's reading this has been to 'Hazard Alley' in Milton Keynes, they'll know what kind of place this was... Except of course the Japanese attitude to health and safety is based rather more on common sense and rather less on a paranoid fear of lawsuits.