"You are welcome to participate in the "Disaster Drill'"

We responded to this flier and signed up for the Kyoto City Comprehensive Disaster Drill.  The flier was in English, Japanese, and Chinese, and the event was translated into the English and Chinese.

When we arrived at the spot this morning, there were lots of people, and someone holding a sign.  It took a minute to realize that this was our event.  They checked off our names, gave us name tags, and reimbursed us for our bus fare.  Everyone got a vest with the name of the event, and we were moved from spot to spot for a bit (much as we would be in a real disaster).

When we came up out of the station as a group, we could see that this was a very large event with lots of other groups of people, tents, emergency vehicles, stations.  After some more waiting, we were given the chance to practice using AED devices on the same type of dummies that you train CPR on in the US.  This was particularly useful for me because I was wondering how I would use an AED that spoke Japanese.  There are lots of AED devices visible here, and response time for an ambulance is 7 minutes, so it makes sense to have everyone ready, foreigners included.

Call 119, not 911 in Japan.

Next station was water course.  We put on boots, and walked through murky moving water with uncertain footing (we were given canes) to practice.  And we had a chance to try to open a door that had 40 cm of water pressing against it (impossible).

Next station was an earthquake simulator. Four people stood at a kitchen table, then the truck shook like a 7 level earthquake.  Each person needed to get the chair out of the way and crawl under the table in the midst of lots of movement.  Will held on, but did not get under the table.  Ooops.

Next stop was a seating section where we were given emergency rations to taste.  Turns out it was more or less instant fried rice, and was quite good.

Then we watched an emergency scenario -- smoking bus, "person" squished under an heavy block and a smoking "building".  When those were fixed, many "wounded" were taken off by firefighters, police, Red Cross, and "Self defense force" people.

Then there was smoke on top of a building with about 8 stories  -- a helicopter delivered a person to the rooftop, and another person repelled down the outside.  Then, a group of volunteer firefighters sprayed a lot of water.  Finally the mayor gave a 5-minute speech.

For the firefighters, police, Red Cross, and "Self defense force" people, this was real training.