Via The Japan Times: Big Tokyo quake will damage 20% of medical institutions: ministry study.
About 20 percent of medical institutions will be crippled if a huge earthquake occurs beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area, with nearly 50,000 beds becoming unusable, a health ministry study team has found.
Also according to the study results learned by Jiji Press on Sunday, 19 of 141 designated disaster relief hospitals in Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama will not be able to admit patients.
The ministry team calls for establishing systems in which surviving medical institutions can cooperate with each other to accept and treat patients.
The team conducted the study based on the Cabinet Office’s estimates that in the envisaged Tokyo inland quake up to 23,000 people will be killed in building collapses and fires and some 72,000 people should be treated at medical facilities.
The team then found that 638 of all 3,086 medical institutions in the greater Tokyo area as of August 2014 will be damaged by the temblor and resulting fires, turning some 49,000 beds unusable and forcing inpatients to move to other institutions.
As for the designated institutions, eight are expected to be disabled and lose about 3,700 beds. Taking into account the likelihood of severe damage to roads, the team also concluded that the number of such designated hospitals will drop to 122 and that of beds in intensive-care units to some 1,200.
