Japan is a country which is prone to natural disasters, so in order to realize the goal of becoming a Tourism-Oriented Country, it is important to create an environment in which foreign tourists can travel around with peace of mind. The likelihood of such events as extremely heavy rain and large-scale volcanic eruptions has been getting pointed out in recent years. It is therefore necessary to work on initiatives for disaster prevention and damage limitation, with a sense of crisis and treating such unusual meteorological situations etc. as representing a "new stage".
With regard to "Safety tips"（http://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/news03_000111.html）, the push-enabled information alerts* app for foreign tourists which was launched last October, information on flood damage, volcanic eruptions and so on have now been added to the information on earthquakes and tsunamis which the app already provided, in order to give foreign travelers more accurate information in the event of a natural disaster.
* Push-enabled information alert is a method of automatically sending data and contents to the user's device.
Upgrades made to "Safety tips"
[1] Weather information
・In addition to information on earthquakes and tsunamis, weather information (warning level or higher) relating to heavy rain, heavy snow, storms, blizzards, high waves, tidal waves and floods have now been added. (Information is sent for earthquakes of intensity 3 or higher on the Japanese scale of seismic intensity.)
・In line with this update, weather emergency warnings (heavy rain, heavy snowfall, storm, blizzard, high wave and tidal wave) has been newly added in addition to the existing earthquake early warning and tsunami warning for push-enabled information. (Earthquake Early Warnings are issued for earthquakes of intensity 4 or higher on the Japanese scale of seismic intensity.)
【Reference】Since its launch in October 2014, the app has sent out push-enabled Earthquake Early Warnings information on four occasions.
[2] Information on volcanic eruptions
・Ongoing domestic volcanic eruption warnings have been added.
・Besides details such as a map showing the volcano's location, the level of the alert issued and so on, the information also explains things like what action to take in response to each alert level.
[3] 【Supported Languages】
・In addition to the existing English version, Chinese (traditional / simplified) and Korean have been added.
・Information in Japanese has been also added, in order to promote a smooth response to foreign travelers at receptive facilities such as accommodations and tourist facilities.
* Information on Earthquake Early Warnings is translated based on the "Multilingual Dictionary for Earthquake Early Warnings" (March 2015), in order to achieve consistency and make the expressions used easier for foreign travelers to understand.
2) Available OSs
Android 4.0 or later
iOS 7.0 or later
3) Download links
Android：
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.rcsc.safetyTips.android
iPhone：
https://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/safety-tips/id858357174?mt=8
