Earthquake Survival Event（2021/11/6）

 The Center for International Students and Scholars (CISS) held the Earthquake Survival Event in cooperation with the Nara Prefecture International Citizens Support Center and the Nara Disaster Prevention Association (Nara Bousaishi Society) on November 6^th for the NAIST international community (students, faculty and staff), the Nara Prefecture Disaster Volunteer Interpreters/Translators Program, and the surrounding community. Many members of our international community have not been educated about earthquakes or experienced drills, etc., so NAIST thought this opportunity to raise awareness towards earthquakes and experience different aspects of life during and after earthquakes was extremely important.
The event began with greetings from Yuka Nakagawa of the Nara Prefecture International Citizens Support Center and Robert King of CISS. Shinkichi Uemura of the Nara Bousaishi Society then gave a talk covering basic information about Earthquakes and discussed the Nankai Trough Earthquake, which is predicted to happen within the next 30 years and could result in more than 323,000 deaths in the worst case. After this talk, which included a "shake-out", or practice of what to do when an earthquake hits, participants broke into 8 groups to learn about and experience things such as carrying water when lifelines are stopped, what to do when toilets don't work, how walls outside may fall during a strong earthquake and viewing pictures of actual earthquake damage to improve understanding of the overall effects of earthquakes.

 A total of more than 80 participants worked together, with Japanese speakers translating the Japanese presentations for the international participants. Mr. Uemura closed the event explaining that in the event of any natural disaster, cooperation such as this is essential for survival. On-campus participants found the event to be very educational and responded that they felt they gained valuable information for living in Japan and off-campus participants enjoyed the activities while making efforts to ensure that non-Japanese speakers understood the information being presented.

 We hope to offer this kind of event again in the future to improve preparedness for natural disasters and to foster interaction with the local community.