THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
January 10, 2022 at 16:10 JST
A police officer hands out a flier urging the public to properly use the emergency call system on Jan. 5 at JR Urawa Station in Saitama. (Shuichi Nimura)
Around 20 percent of emergency calls to police nationwide last year were for non-emergencies, including a request for an officer to rouse a boy out of bed, the National Police Agency said.
The NPA said 7,846,738 calls using the emergency 110 number were made from January to November 2021, an increase of 191,944, or 2.5 percent, from the same period of the previous year.
The NPA released the data to coincide with Jan. 10 (1/10), the day of the emergency call number.
Most of the calls, or 2,518,293, were related to traffic, including accidents and road law violations.
For 1,516,082 calls, an emergency response was not needed. These calls included inquiries about traffic control related to the Olympic torch relay and a complaint from a man who could not visit his hospitalized wife because of COVID-19 restrictions.
The NPA urges the public to dial 9110 for nonemergency cases.
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