Event: Japan

The Japanese Red Cross Society has expressed concern over possible health issues of evacuees nearly a month after a powerful earthquake hit Kumamoto Prefecture.In a news conference held at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on Tuesday, JRCS officials said that future issues include evacuees’ health deterioration due to prolonged life at shelters and support for afflicted people who continue to stay in their cars for evacuation.Following the July 28 earthquake, which measured up to 7, the highest level, on Japan’s seismic intensity scale, the JRCS has sent rescue and medical teams to Kumamoto from its facilities around the country.The teams are engaging in activities such as setting up cardboard beds, providing medical care at evacuation centers and supporting affected local medical institutions.After the quake struck, water, food and other relief supplies were delivered to affected areas under the “push-type” support system, in which goods are sent before donors receive requests for help from disaster-stricken areas.“Goods have been delivered much faster” compared with the January 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake in Ishikawa Prefecture, which also registered up to 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, JRCS doctor Shinsaku Ueda said at the press conference, noting that goods transport operations ran into difficulties in the aftermath of the 2024 temblor.In addition, local medical institutions were able to offer necessary support early, according to the JRCS.During the April 2016 earthquake disaster in Kumamoto, it took about a month for Japanese Red Cross Kumamoto Hospital, located in the city of Kumamoto, the prefecture’s capital, to start sending medical teams to affected areas because the hospital itself was damaged by the disaster.This time, the hospital was able to begin dispatching medical teams only about a week after the earthquake as damage was limited.Meanwhile, prolonged life at evacuation centers may cause elderly people to see…

The government adopted an ordinance Tuesday to raise fees for foreign nationals who renew or change the status of their residency in Japan, to up to ¥75,000 from a uniform ¥6,000 at present, effective from October.The revised fees for people who take necessary procedures at an administrative office counter will apply to residency extensions of up to three months, at ¥10,000; of one year, at ¥33,000; of three to under five years, at ¥64,000; and of five years or more, at ¥75,000.Applying for permanent residency status will cost ¥200,000, up sharply from ¥10,000.The fee hikes were included in the revised immigration control and refugee recognition law enacted in May.Meanwhile, the scope of people eligible for reduced fees was expanded based on public comments.The Immigration Services Agency’s related guidelines initially stipulated that the fee can be reduced to ¥10,000 for temporary stays and ¥20,000 for permanent residency for people who meet two conditions — having financial hardship equivalent to the levels of welfare recipients under the public assistance law and needing humanitarian consideration.Based on public comments, the agency expanded the scope of people whose fees can be reduced in light of humanitarian condition to include foreign nationals who single-handedly safeguard and raise the biological children of Japanese nationals or special permanent foreign residents, as well as those for whom the denial of residency is considered inhumane. Special permanent foreign residents refer to those who have lived in Japan since before World War II and lost their Japanese citizenship after the war, as well as their descendants.The revised law caps the fees at ¥100,000 for temporary residency and ¥300,000 for permanent residency. Specific fee levels are decided under a relevant ordinance.

Two outlandish claims that gained large audiences online in Japan recently have “shocked” misinformation experts, who say conspiracy-style narratives are feeding on disaster anxiety, fading wartime memory and an online information ecosystem that rewards outrage and suspicion.In the aftermath of the July 28 earthquake in Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan, a social media user claimed that seismic data from the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience showed the tremor was “not an earthquake but an artificial explosion waveform”.The post, published about 30 minutes after the magnitude 7.1 quake, was later listed by Yahoo Japan’s real-time search as a popular post, with more than 2,100 reposts and 6,300 likes. Other posts pushed a related claim that the quake had been triggered by HAARP, a research facility in Alaska that has long been a target of disaster-related conspiracy theories.Days later, as Japan marked the August anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and the end of World War II, NHK reported that false claims denying the atomic attacks were gaining traction online, with some posts on X and TikTok drawing more than 1 million views and one YouTube video claiming the bombing was a lie attracting more than 300,000 views.Doves are released over the Peace Statue during a ceremony to mark the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing at the Peace Park in Nagasaki, southern Japan, on August 9. Photo: Kyodo/AP“Both the theory that the earthquake was artificially triggered and the denial of the atomic bombings lack scientific basis, but the contexts in which these conspiracy theories take root differ,” said Yuzuru Kido, a former J-CAST News deputy editor and internet media researcher who tracks Japanese social media discourse.