Earthquake Alerts and Emergency Announcements in Japanese

Follow official instructions, not this article

This is a language guide. Its purpose is to make the Japanese in an emergency intelligible so that you can act on real instructions instead of guessing at them. It is not a safety manual, and nothing here replaces what the announcement itself tells you, what the staff around you tell you, or what your city or ward office publishes for your neighbourhood. Procedures differ between buildings, between transport operators and between local authorities, and they are revised over time.

The safety information that does appear below is written as reported speech: this is what announcements commonly say, and this is what authorities commonly advise. Read it that way. If an announcement contradicts anything you remember from here, the announcement wins, and if you are unsure what an instruction means, ask the nearest member of staff and say it plainly rather than working it out silently.

• Find your designated evacuation site now, through your city or ward office, before you need it.
• Ask your building manager or landlord what their announcement system tells residents to do.
• Register for whatever alert service your local authority offers and learn how it phrases things.
• Treat every number and instruction in a live announcement as authoritative over anything memorised.

The phone alert and the sound it makes

The earthquake early warning reaches phones as a cell broadcast, and it announces itself with a two-tone alarm that is deliberately unpleasant and that plays even when the phone is silenced. The text is short and formulaic. It names where the earthquake occurred and tells you to prepare for strong shaking, and it is credited to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the Kishō-chō. The warning is issued from the first detected waves, so it can arrive before you feel anything, at the same time as the shaking, or not at all if you are close to the source.

Learn the alert text as a shape rather than word by word. 緊急地震速報 is the name of the alert itself, 地震発生 says an earthquake has occurred, and 強い揺れに備えてください tells you to prepare for strong shaking. Once those three blocks are familiar, you can read the whole thing in the second you have.

The same alarm system carries other emergency messages, so an alert is not automatically about an earthquake. Read the first line before reacting. If you live with people who do not read Japanese, agreeing in advance on what the alarm sound means is more useful than any translation app, because nobody reads a screen carefully in the first three seconds.

Shindo and magnitude are two different numbers

Broadcasts give both numbers and learners often merge them. Magnitude, written in katakana as マグニチュード, is a measure of the earthquake itself, so each quake has one magnitude value. Shindo, 震度, is Japan's own seismic intensity scale and describes how strongly the ground actually shook at a given observation point, which means one earthquake produces a whole map of different shindo values. This is why a report can pair a large magnitude with a low local intensity, or the reverse.

The shindo scale runs from 0 to 7. Levels 5 and 6 are each divided into a weaker and a stronger step, written with 弱 for the weaker and 強 for the stronger. Broadcasts read out the intensity by area, usually strongest first, so listening for your prefecture or city name is more useful than trying to catch every value.

Two readings catch people out. 弱 is read jaku and 強 is read kyō in these compounds, not yowai and tsuyoi. And 震度7 is read shindo nana, with nana rather than shichi, which is the normal broadcasting habit for clarity.

The words inside an announcement

An earthquake report is assembled from a fixed set of parts: when it happened, where the epicentre was, how deep, the magnitude, the intensity by area, and whether there is any tsunami concern. Learning these labels means you can follow a broadcast even at full speed, because you know what slot each phrase is filling. The same words appear on news tickers along the top of the screen and in the text alerts your local authority sends.

The pair keihō and chūihō runs through the whole Japanese warning system, not just earthquakes, and it is worth fixing permanently. 警報 is a warning and asks for action; 注意報 is an advisory and asks for attention. You will meet both again in heavy rain, snow and wind announcements.

What television and radio say

Broadcasters use a stable script, which is a gift to a learner. The presenter names the alert, tells viewers to be on guard against strong shaking, then works through the details in order. The verb 警戒してください, keikai shite kudasai, means be on your guard and is the standard call to attention; 備えてください, sonaete kudasai, means prepare. Later in the broadcast the register shifts to advice about aftershocks and about staying away from damaged structures.

Tsunami warnings and advisories

Tsunami information uses its own three-step vocabulary, and the words are the entire message. 津波注意報 is an advisory, 津波警報 is a warning, and 大津波警報 is a major tsunami warning, the heaviest of the three. Announcements pair them with instructions to leave the coast and rivers and to move to high ground or to a designated tsunami evacuation building. Coastal municipalities publish their own routes and sites, which is what you should be working from.

Two grammar points make these sentences readable. 発表されました is a passive form meaning has been issued, which is why no person is named as the issuer. And ないでください attached to a verb, as in chikazukanaide kudasai, is the standard please do not do this pattern that carries most public prohibitions in Japan.

Announcements on trains and in stations

Rail operators stop trains when shaking is detected and then inspect the line before restarting, so the announcements come in a predictable sequence: an apology, a statement that an earthquake occurred, a stop for safety checks, and later either a resumption or an admission that there is no estimate. The register is heavily formal, with itashimasu and orimasu in place of shimasu and imasu, so recognising those humble forms is most of the work.

Unten miawase is the phrase to catch. It means services are suspended and it appears on every departure board and app during a disruption. If you hear it and need to know more, ask a member of staff directly: fukkyū wa itsu goro ni narisō desu ka, meaning roughly when do you expect it to be restored.

Building announcements: stay or leave

Shops, offices, hotels and stations broadcast to everyone inside, and the message is usually one of two things: stay where you are while we check, or move now under staff guidance. Being told to stay is common and is not an oversight, since the announcement is typically made while the building is being inspected and while the area outside may still be receiving falling glass and tiles. Lifts are normally taken out of use, and announcements say so explicitly.

Evacuation maps and shelter signs

Neighbourhood signs and the hazard maps published by local authorities use a compact written vocabulary. The distinction that matters most is between a 避難場所, an open site you go to immediately to be out of danger, and a 避難所, somewhere such as a school hall where people can stay. Signs are often bilingual with pictograms, but the Japanese carries the detail, including how far away the site is and how high above sea level you currently are.

Which sites are designated, and for which hazard, is decided by your municipality and can change, so read the current map from your own city or ward office rather than relying on a sign you half remember. Many authorities publish the same map in several languages, and asking for it at the counter is a reasonable request.

Telling people you are safe

After a large quake, phone networks are often congested while text and data messages still get through, and Japan runs a disaster message service reached by dialling 171 as well as message boards run by the mobile carriers. Check the current instructions for these services with your carrier or local authority, since the details are revised. What matters linguistically is that your message should be short, unambiguous, and should say where you are.

The key word is 無事, buji, meaning safe and unharmed. Buji desu is a complete message. Adding your location and whether you need anything makes it a useful one, and keeping it to one line is a kindness when networks are strained.

Buji desu is stronger and clearer than daijōbu desu in this context. Daijōbu covers everything from unhurt to no thank you, whereas buji means specifically unharmed and safe, and it is the word used in anpi kakunin, the safety checks that employers and schools run after an event.

Asking whether it is safe, and reporting an injury

The questions worth having ready are simple ones: is it safe to go outside, where is the nearest shelter, and can someone help with an injured person. Ask them of staff, of a police box, or of a neighbour. Adding sumimasen at the front and speaking slowly is enough; nobody expects polished grammar in this situation, and a short, clear sentence gets a faster answer than an apologetic one.

For emergencies, 119 reaches fire and ambulance services and 110 reaches the police. Say what happened, then where you are, then your name, and expect the operator to ask short questions in order. If you cannot manage the call in Japanese, say nihongo ga amari hanasemasen and ask a person nearby to speak for you.