Quake with Epicenter Directly Under Tokyo Could Cause ¥83 Tril. Damage; Businesses Promote Prepare for Disasters

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:18 JST, December 20, 2025

A working panel of the government’s Central Disaster Management Council has reviewed an estimate of damages resulting from a powerful earthquake striking directly beneath Tokyo, as businesses make efforts to minimize the impacts of disasters.

The estimate was revised down to about ¥83 trillion from about ¥95 trillion.

Once a major earthquake strikes, it will take time to restore electricity, telecommunications and other infrastructure. As a company’s employees and their family members are expected to be affected by the disaster, businesses need to ensure that their headquarters can remain up and running.

In November 2023, NTT, Inc. decided to use part of a group firm’s branch in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, as an alternative base to conduct the functions of its headquarters in the event of a Tokyo inland earthquake or other disaster.

As an experiment, the firm distributed those functions to possible alternate bases to verify that the plan could be effective. The firm chose Takasaki because of its convenience, including its distance from the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Collabo Style Inc., which develops and sells a payment system, relocated its headquarters to Nagoya from Tokyo in 2020. It has also moved its servers, which manage data, out of the Tokyo metropolitan area.

“This will allow us to continue operations in the event of a Tokyo inland earthquake or other disaster,” said Seiji Shimatani, head of the firm’s corporate department.

At the end of March, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. deployed PCs for business use and storage batteries to the homes of 600 employees assigned to disaster response and company executives. The firm also decided to set up a backup headquarters at its base in Osaka City.

The distribution industry is expected to handle the delivery of emergency supplies during a disaster. Sagawa Express Co. has increased its fleet of electric, fuel cell and natural gas vehicles in addition to its conventional delivery trucks of gasoline and diesel vehicles so that it will be able to respond even if supplies of a specific fuel dry up.

According to a survey released by Teikoku Databank in June, 38.7% of large-scale firms have already drawn up plans to continue their businesses in preparation for a disaster. Among small and mid-sized companies, the figure was 17.1%.

The working panel said it is important that manufacturers, the core of the supply chain, urge their business partners to ensure sufficient disaster preparedness.