Earthquake in Japan as a Tourist: What to Do, Who to Call, and an Offline Checklist

If an earthquake hits while you're in Japan, protect your head and stay where you are until the shaking stops. Don't run outside. If you're near the coast, head for high ground straight away, without waiting to see the sea. For help, call 110 (police) or 119 (fire and ambulance). JNTO's Japan Visitor Hotline, 050-3816-2787, answers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in English, Chinese and Korean. Do two things before you need them: install the Japan Tourism Agency's Safety tips app (featured by JNTO) for alerts, and open an offline emergency page once so it still works with no signal. Numbers and official guidance checked against JNTO, NTT and the Japan Coast Guard on 30 September 2026.

Disclosure: the screenshots below are of Matsuri's emergency mode, a free page run by Jon&Coo, the same company that publishes MICHI. We use it because it puts everything on this page on one phone screen. Nothing here depends on it: the numbers, the tsunami-warning timing and the official definitions are sourced to JNTO, NTT, the Japan Coast Guard and the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (listed at the end). The general steps (shoes, lifts, block walls, not evacuating by car) are standard Japanese safety guidance, which Matsuri's cards also repeat.

The numbers to know

How 171 works: dial 171, press 1 to record a message or 2 to play one back, then enter the Japanese phone number of the person in the disaster area (your own, if you're the one recording). It only runs once NTT activates it after a major disaster, and it works from NTT landlines, payphones and docomo mobiles; from other carriers, including overseas SIMs, it may not. The online version, web171, has an English screen.

During the shaking

• Protect yourself first. Cover your head and get under a sturdy desk or table. JNTO notes that most buildings in Japan are built to resist earthquakes, so don't go outside until it's safe.
• If an Earthquake Early Warning sounds on TV, radio or your phone (a distinctive alarm), take cover at once, even if you can't feel anything yet.
• Outside: move away from block walls, vending machines and glass. Watch for falling objects.

Right after it stops

• Check for fire, and turn off anything you were using to cook.
• Open a door or window to keep an exit clear.
• Put on shoes. Broken glass and debris make foot injuries common after a quake.
• Don't use lifts (elevators).

If you're near the coast: tsunami

JNTO says the Japan Meteorological Agency issues a tsunami warning about three minutes after an earthquake if it expects damage. Don't wait for it. If the shaking was strong, or weak but long, start moving to high ground or a tsunami evacuation building. Don't go to look at the sea. Don't evacuate by car, because traffic jams trap people. Stay up until the warning is lifted, because tsunamis come in several waves over a long period.

Where to go: evacuation sites vs shelters

Japan uses two different kinds of place, and it's worth knowing the difference:

• Designated emergency evacuation sites are where you flee to save your life right now, such as a park or high ground. Each one is designated for specific hazards, so a site safe in an earthquake may not be safe in a tsunami.
• Designated evacuation shelters are where people stay afterwards, usually schools and community centres. JNTO notes that some hotels and inns take evacuees too, so ask your accommodation.

The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan puts it plainly: when a disaster strikes, go to an emergency evacuation site, not a shelter.

Matsuri's page finds the nearest designated sites from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan's data (115,417 sites nationwide, updated 12 June 2026). It shows which hazards each site covers, which is exactly the check you need. With the location set to Shinjuku Station, the nearest was the Shinjuku Chuo Park and skyscraper district area, 990 m to the west in a straight line (not a walking route), marked for earthquake and large-scale fire. The page itself warns that locations are for reference: follow signs on the spot and local officials. (Matsuri labels this section "Nearby shelters", but the results are emergency evacuation sites in the sense above.) The page says that if you save your prefecture while you have signal, the site search works offline; we didn't test that part.

If you can't speak Japanese

Show the screen instead of speaking. The phrases that matter most:

• 避難所はどこですか？ (Hinanjo wa doko desu ka?): Where is the evacuation shelter?
• けがをしています。 (Kega o shite imasu.): I am injured.
• 救急車を呼んでください。 (Kyūkyūsha o yonde kudasai.): Please call an ambulance.
• 英語が話せる人はいますか？ (Eigo ga hanaseru hito wa imasu ka?): Is there anyone who speaks English?

Two things to set up before your trip

They do different jobs, so set up both: Safety tips to warn you, an offline page to tell you where to go when the network is down. To keep Matsuri's page on an iPhone, open the emergency page in Safari, tap Share, choose Add to Home Screen, then open it once from the new icon while you still have signal.

Sources

• JNTO / Japan Tourism Agency: Safety tips for travelers (building safety, earthquake early warnings, tsunami warnings, designated evacuation shelters) · The Safety tips app · Japan Visitor Hotline
• NTT: Disaster message dial 171 (in Japanese)
• Japan Coast Guard: 118 for incidents at sea (in Japanese)
• Geospatial Information Authority of Japan: Designated emergency evacuation sites and designated evacuation shelters (in Japanese)
• RC Solution (Safety tips developer): Safety tips (offline flowchart and phrase cards; links to an external shelter app; in Japanese)
• Matsuri: Emergency mode (evacuation-site data credited on the page to the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, CC BY 4.0)

All checked on 30 September 2026. Screenshots captured by MICHI on the same day at phone size in Chrome, with the phone's location set to Shinjuku Station for the shelter search.

--- Update log: 2026-09-30 — first published as part of MICHI's Matsuri feature.