Last updated: September 2025
Natural disasters happen all year round right across Japan. Although some areas do have it lucky to not experience tsunami due to it’s inland location, other disasters such as earthquakes and flooding will occur no matter where you are. A notable weather event in Japan is the rainy season (梅雨), which starts around June in Hyogo. With it comes (spoiler) heavy rain – sometimes typhoons which can lead to flooding and landslides. Here are some important applications or websites to have on you in case of natural disaster emergencies!
- The Hyogo Disaster Prevention Application
The Hyogo Disaster Prevention Organisation (ひょうご防災ネット) has released an app that will inform you about weather warnings happening in your city/town. You can choose up to 3 cities you want alerts in. The application is most importantly available in English (as well as other languages) It is also free . This app will especially be useful to you during the upcoming rainy/typhoon season. The application is available to download for both Android and Apple devices. - Yahoo River Level Information
This website is great when you want to see the river levels near you. During typhoon season, rivers are at risk of flooding and if the water reaches a certain level you may receive an evacuation notice. During Typhoon Jebi in 2018, some rivers nearby reached emergency warnings at 2am! - Yahoo Disaster Application (Android & iPhone)
If you have the Yahoo Disaster application you will get notifications about when water levels are very high/ when you are in a landslide risky area and if you need to evacuate . The application will also inform you the closest evacuation centers you can go to. - NERV Disaster Prevention
Another handy application with English support is NERV (somehow shares the same name and logo with a fictional organization in a very popular 90’s anime) which provides real-time updates for earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, landslides, floods and more. It uses information from the Japan Meteorological Agency and presented in a way that is easy to read and navigate, especially during critical times (i.e. sends a notification about an expected tremor reaching your location within Xseconds/minutes) - Hyogo Disaster Prevention (Weather) Information
Managed by Hyogo Prefecture, it is a simple dashboard giving information about any warning/advisory as well as evacuations for each city/town in the prefecture. - NHK app
Though mainly as a news app, it provides alerts and breaking news on earthquake, tsunami and weather emergencies across Japan. - Hazard Maps
A nationwide interactive map (although in Japanese) where you can sort by prefecture/city to see information about flood, landslide and tsunami prone zones. - JR Trains Status
Heavy rain leads to train suspensions, particularly on JR lines. You can use this site to check the status. If you cannot get to work due to train suspensions check your contract for “transport failure leave” so you don’t have to use annual leave.
