Foreign residents in quake-prone Japan are taking on leadership roles to support their communities and spread accurate information in their native languages during times of disaster.

Many of them have disaster experience and understand the feeling of helplessness of people who cannot understand, for example, tsunami warnings or evacuation orders issued in Japanese.

These roles have also helped foreign residents integrate into their local communities.

The concept of “multicultural coexistence” in Japanese society is believed to have strengthened after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake devastated the Kobe area.

Emergency meal services were provided at the premises of Korean schools and an evacuation camp for Vietnamese residents was set up in the disaster zone.

Since then, the number of foreign residents in Japan has increased nearly three-fold to about 3.77 million as of the end of December 2024, the Immigration Service Agency said.

In 2020, the internal affairs ministry revised its policy on promoting multicultural coexistence efforts by local governments by adding a provision that encourages the foreign-resident participation in disaster relief initiatives.

The ministry also conducted a survey on multicultural coexistence efforts at Japan’s 47 prefectures and 1,741 municipalities.

It found that 264 local governments, or 15.2 percent of respondents, are encouraging foreign residents to participate in disaster drills and join voluntary disaster-prevention organizations.

In addition, 102 local governments, or 5.9 percent of the total, are training foreign residents and other personnel to support foreign victims of disasters.

Duwadi Bhawani, who lives in Sendai and is originally from Nepal, was awakened at 11:15 p.m. on Dec. 8 when an earthquake struck off the coast of northern Japan.

The temblor registered a seismic intensity of upper 6 on the Japanese scale of 7 in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and prompted tsunami warnings and advisories.

The central government also issued its first earthquake advisory under a new disaster system, urging people in the affected area to remain vigilant against aftershocks for about a week and to prepare for possible evacuations.

The Sendai Tourism, Convention and International Association (SenTIA) asked Bhawani on the day after the quake to translate the advisory for other Nepalese in the region.

Her translation was posted on the association’s website, and she also spread the text through her social media account.

Bhawani has been living in Japan since 2007 to seek treatment for her daughter’s illness.

Bhawani was shopping in Sendai when the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake struck off the Tohoku region.

After she went to pick up her daughter at her elementary school, they ended up spending two nights there for evacuation.

“I didn’t know what to do during the earthquake,” she said.

That experience motivated her to apply for a “Sendai foreign disaster management leader” position at SenTIA to share her knowledge with other Nepalis.

SenTIA started the initiative in 2020 to train foreign residents on disseminating disaster information in foreign languages and operating evacuation centers.

So far, 57 people have completed the program and been certified.

Through these activities, Bhawani has had more opportunities to interact with local residents and now greets them on a daily basis. She has also participated in cleanup activities, attended community gatherings, and even served as an officer of a local association.

“The disaster management leader position made me feel more positive about joining the community,” Bhawani said.

The Kobe city government this fiscal year started a program to train “multicultural disaster leaders.”

About 30 foreign residents have been certified after completing the three-day program, which includes preparing emergency meals and setting up evacuation centers.

One leader is Dang Ngoc Phuong Thao, 21, who came to Japan from Vietnam last spring to study marketing. She now attends a university in Kobe.

“I thought that participating (in the program) might help build a bridge between Japanese and Vietnamese people,” she said.

At a drill held by a voluntary disaster-prevention organization in the city in November, she demonstrated how to use an automated external defibrillator.

“I want to share disaster-prevention knowledge with other Vietnamese people around me,” Thao said.

The Kobe government in March and April surveyed 192 voluntary disaster welfare communities in the city on whether they had secured successors for current officers after they retire.

The response rate was 96.9 percent, and about half of them said they had yet to secure successors.

“We’re now in a situation where we can’t even find people to take on officer roles,” Takeaki Asaeda, 79, chairman of the welfare communities that organized the drill, said. “I hope foreign residents can use their training experience to help sustain our community.”