Making Society Safer

摘要

WHEN WE LOOK at the vast expanse of the sky, airplanes are just small dots. It is hard to imagine that with so much space, two airplanes would nearly collide. And yet this is exactly what happened recently, and people were injured as a result. And then, out in the open ocean an American submarine collided with a Japanese ship and nine people are still missing. These tragedies are brought about by chance-indeed, they would be hard to bring about even if we tried.We face many dangers, and, of course, some of them are natural. Last year in Japan there were several natural disasters, including the volcanic eruption on the island of Miyakejima, the floods in the Chukyo region, and an earthquake in the Sanin region. At the same time, memories of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995 are still fresh in our minds. Overseas, there were disastrous earthquakes in India and EI Salvador.