Overconfidence

After growing up in one quake-prone city and migrating to another, I no longer believe in the idea of disaster preparedness. While it's possible to spread useful knowledge — evacuation routes, what to keep in an emergency kit, what an area's policy is about the use of public spaces for evacuees — the actual act of preparation often ends up tossed aside in the rush to find safety and avoid bodily harm.

When things start shaking, the first thing that came to mind for most people was probably not, "Oh crap, where is my earthquake kit?" It was probably something more along the lines of wondering how to avoid getting hit by falling objects or what that evacuation plan map pinned to the wall instructed people to do in case of a fire or natural disaster. This may change: News anchors were definitely reporting that most major stores sold out of earthquake kits, but to me, it remains a hollow insurance, a hollow insurance that actually harms more than it helps.

By placing our confidence in a box of emergency supplies, I think that we often neglect the more important things, such as planning escape routes or how to regroup if we get separated. Why escape if we have spare food and flashlights to go around in the event of a blackout?

The same can be said for the technology that we rely on to inform us of impending danger. Even though scientists have reinforced time and time again that it is impossible to predict when an earthquake will happen little more than a few minutes before — enough to stop trains or to get out from under a glass window — people still seem to think that it is possible, because modern society is so technologically advanced. Slightly tangential, but relevant: I went home to visit family in San Francisco a week or so after the earthquake, and there were definitely radio talkshows discussing the fact that San Francisco was long overdue for a quake, especially because Japan had just had one (the scientific truth being that Oregon is more likely to be affected, in the event that the plates somehow triggered another plate to move, but that's another story). I then witnessed what you could call a mini exodus out of the city: People who hadn't been living in the city for very long or were just terrified of quakes became convinced that there would be a quake the following week thanks to some fear-mongering media, and quickly left, despite reassurances that there was no way to tell whether an earthquake would actually occur.

I think that Japanese society is the complete opposite.

Many of the buildings are retrofitted, so people didn't freak out as much when the actual earthquake came — news reports made sure to point out that the people screaming in their videos were foreigners. This wasn't a problem in Tokyo, where little damage occurred, but much of the camera footage from the more impacted areas showed people who were sitting still and continuing to work — they were confident that their buildings were properly retrofitted, maybe to a fault. Even in Tokyo, many people had no idea what to do in the event of an earthquake and were forced to walk home — and a lot of them didn't even know where to go because the trains weren't running.

I know I'm not alone in pointing this out — many people have criticised the Japanese reliance on technology, on phones, on punctual trains, on electricity. While I'm not saying that this wouldn't have happened elsewhere, I think there is something to be said about this reliance: Nowhere else (even in the quake-prone zones) do phones automatically alert their users of upcoming earthquakes or brag about their earthquake retrofitting. It's true that Japan does have some of the best alert systems in the world and some of the best stabilising structures, but it seems that much of the country still hasn't learned the most important lesson: Technology may improve our lives and our ability to keep ourselves safe, but there will always be something stronger, something more powerful.