The prime minister announces live on TV that large areas near Tokyo have been devastated by an earthquake, and declares an emergency. Fighter jets are dispatched, and more than a million people mobilize to deal with the disaster -- this time just a drill held each year to remind this nation of its vulnerability to seismic calamity.
Some 1.33 million people took part yesterday in the practice rescue operations in Tokyo and several neighboring prefectures, with workers clad in orange emergency gear and hard hats scaling damaged buildings to evacuate occupants or dig out "survivors" from collapsed houses.
Though an annual event, this year's exercises, held on the anniversary of a quake that 80 years ago killed more than 100,000 people in and around Tokyo, had an added sense of reality to them.
Just over a month ago, two powerful temblors -- a magnitude 5.5 quake followed by one of magnitude 6.2 -- left more than 550 people injured and at least 1,000 homes damaged in northern Japan.
"Nowadays there are so many earthquakes, so I'm concerned, " said Eri Watanabe, a 32-year-old Tokyo housewife who was out with her two baby boys. "But I haven't done anything to prepare. I told my husband maybe we should get camping equipment, and maybe earthquake insurance."
Leading the drills Monday was Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who, dressed in blue overalls, issued a mock earthquake warning aired live nationwide by public TV broadcaster NHK.
"It is believed that a large number of people are dead or missing," said the prime minister, who urged for people to stay calm.
A helicopter was on stand-by following his address to whisk him away to a nearby emergency center, where he would assess the damage caused by the supposed magnitude 7.1 temblor striking directly below the heavily populated region.
In the largest single drill, 730,000 people participated in an emergency response exercise based on what officials forecast might happen if a massive earthquake were to hit about 150 km west of Tokyo.
Gas, water and electricity lines were cut off in the mock drill, as civilians in hard hats and boots joined relief efforts amid the sound of wailing sirens.
The Defense Agency said military transport planes, jets and a helicopter had dispersed medical and relief supplies to five bases across the nation. The Japanese Red Cross, meanwhile, readied relief parties to be sent by helicopter to areas of damage.
Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, sitting atop four tectonic plates.
The annual exercises are held on the anniversary of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake -- a magnitude-8.3 temblor in Tokyo that killed 142,000. In 1995, a magnitude-7.2 quake in the western port city of Kobe killed 6,400 people.
Similar quakes have damaged the capital, and experts warn another "big one" is overdue.
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