MAEBASHI, Japan Jan 26(Kyodo/APP): In a shuttered school north of Tokyo, office workers assemble cardboard houses in minutes, part of a travel agency’s effort to help people better prepare for life in evacuation shelters.
A Tokyo-based travel agency is promoting a program that allows participants to experience simulated evacuation living, saying the hands-on training can help people cope with temporary shelters in the event of natural disasters.
In mid-October last year, KNT-CT Holdings Co. held an experimental session at a rental facility on the grounds of an abandoned school in Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture.
Thirty-six employees of an affiliated company were divided into groups of about 10 and assembled “Instant Houses” made of corrugated cardboard in about 20 minutes.
Each structure, about 3 meters tall and 2 meters wide, is lightweight, highly insulating and designed for rapid deployment in emergencies. The shelters were used after a major earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture on Jan. 1, 2024.
Keisuke Kitagawa, a professor of architecture at the Nagoya Institute of Technology, who was involved in designing the Instant Houses, observed the session.
“Even if only a little, I want to make evacuation life as enjoyable as possible. I hope to change the image that a harsh life awaits,” he said.
Participants said they were surprised by the warmth inside the houses. One of them, Saki Ushigome, said assembling the structure was enjoyable.
“Building a house, while communicating with each other, was fun,” she said. Participants also learned how to prepare an emergency curry and rice meal.
The program is built around daily activities, with options including assembling a portable toilet and discussing necessary emergency stockpiles. While it is currently offered in Kiryu, KNT-CT is considering whether it can be held in other locations.
KNT-CT launched the program in the fall of last year after employees’ experiences as tour guides, including encountering disasters and taking part in reconstruction support, prompted the company to study disaster preparedness in normal times.
“We want many local governments to experience our program so they can facilitate understanding of self-help and mutual assistance,” said Ayaka Iwamoto, who is in charge of the program at KNT-CT.
In a related effort, the city of Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture, which was badly hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan, uses two former temporary housing units as lodging facilities for people who want to experience how evacuees lived after the disaster.
Under a program commissioned by the city office, the organization that runs the facilities has recreated seven rooms representing different family configurations and has been accepting visitors since 2021. About 500 people had stayed there as of the end of March 2025.
The program has drawn strong interest because it allows visitors to realistically picture life during an evacuation, including everyday activities such as hanging laundry.
“We hope people will learn about thin walls and the difficulty of controlling temperature, enabling them to plan countermeasures or mentally prepare,” an official from the organization said.
Experiences that simulate life in shelters are effective in encouraging people to think about disaster preparedness, said Masanobu Kanai, a professor of civil engineering at Gunma University and a disaster prevention expert.
However, as evacuees often face anxiety in unfamiliar environments, “it would be good to have programs that help people think about how to use their time,” he said.