62006    There is a concern about earthquake prediction and disaster prevention.

62007    It is the scattered administration.

62008    That is, the Japan Meteorological Agency is responsible for the day-to-day earthquake observation and prediction of the Tokai Earthquake; the Geographical Survey Institute for the Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction; the Science and Technology Agency for the Association for the Development of Earthquake Prediction; the Ministry of Education for the earthquake prediction plan; and, the National Land Agency for disaster prevention.

62009    Under such arrangements, strong leadership cannot be demonstrated.

62010    We hope that an organization such as an "Earthquake Agency" will cohesively handle earthquake prediction and disaster prevention measures.

62011    As there is concern that a Tokai earthquake and a Tokyo Metropolitan Area near-field earthquake may occur, in addition to the emerging views that the entire country has entered an active seismic period, we believe the time has come for us to have in place a system to confront a major earthquake immediately.

62012    Japan achieved high growth during the quiet period of the earthquakes after the end of World War II.

62013    During that period, modern cities loaded with scientific technologies sprang up and the Tokyo metropolitan area became over-concentrated.

62014    We are now paying for it.

62015    Earthquake countermeasures should be strongly promoted once the urban development policy has been firmly established.

62016    We heard the policy speech delivered by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, which was his third speech at the Diet.

62017    It was a speech at the milestone of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war.

62018    It was naturally expected a great deal of attention would be focuses on such a special speech, we have to wonder how much effort the prime minister had put into it.

62019    The speech consisted of 15,000 characters partly because mention of the earthquake measures was inserted at the beginning.

62020    It was a huge piece of work with the length being twice as much as that of the two previous speeches, and it took 45 minutes just to deliver.