Tachikawa and Tokyo’s Next Big Earthquake: Disaster Base Guide

The velodrome becomes a shelter: the 2026 revision of Tachikawa’s local disaster management plan

The city of Tachikawa reviews its local disaster management plan every two years. In the April 2026 revision, what stands out most is that Tachikawa Keirin, the city’s velodrome, has been designated a “special evacuation shelter”. (Keirin is Japanese track cycling, a sport people bet on.)

It started with the voices of people living nearby. According to the city’s summary, Takamatsucho 2-chome, next to the velodrome, is an area with a high “overall risk” rating for earthquakes, and neighbouring residents asked for the velodrome to be usable as an evacuation site in a disaster.

The velodrome, however, has other roles in a disaster. It is a facility for temporarily taking in people who can’t get home, and a base for receiving staff who come to help from all over Japan. All of these are vital to the city’s recovery. To make residents’ safety and the city’s disaster response work together, the city made the velodrome a “special evacuation shelter” that performs several functions at once.

The division of space has been set out concretely. Evacuating neighbours go to the “assembly building”, people unable to get home to the “spectator stands”, and support staff from around the country to the “riders’ lodging building”. Even if the stands fill with people who can’t go home, no race starts that night. In the rooms where the riders sleep, it is not riders who rest but staff who have rushed in from far away. On the day of a disaster, the velodrome will run with an entirely different cast.

The city states clearly that running the shelters is, as a rule, up to the community itself. The velodrome’s staff will be redeployed to other disaster work, so reception, distributing supplies and cleaning are all done by the evacuees themselves. If a large fire approaches, the principle is to move to wide-area evacuation sites such as the area around No. 2 Junior High School or Showa Kinen Park.

The revision also takes in lessons from the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake. How to support people who spend the evacuation outside shelters, at home, in their cars, in tents. How to increase the number of wheelchair-accessible toilets. How to fix the imbalance whereby emergency first-aid stations are concentrated around Tachikawa Station, leaving the north of the city along the Itsukaichi Kaido road and the south along the Tama River thinly covered. The documents also note that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has deployed “Starlink” as a regional satellite communications network.

It isn’t only earthquakes. The revision also strengthened preparations for urban flooding. With linear rainbands (senjo kousuitai, long chains of storm clouds that dump heavy rain on one place) becoming more frequent on top of typhoons, there is not only river flooding but also “inland flooding”, where rainwater overflows from manholes and floods roads and houses. The city encourages each person to make a “My Timeline”, deciding in advance how they will evacuate while watching the weather information, and says it will draw up a “Tachikawa City Comprehensive Stormwater Management Plan” to tackle flooding systematically. Another “next” for a town with the Tama River running along its southern edge.

For fairness, I should also record another side of the review. The city had previously listed several public facilities as candidate sites for receiving the Self-Defense Forces (Japan’s military), but this time it removed that function. According to the documents, some facilities were being asked to serve several roles, and reception bases limited to the city did not fit the Self-Defense Forces’ plans, which move according to the scale of the disaster. From now on, it says, cooperation will be deepened through exchanges of views and drills. Not a plan that just keeps adding things, but one that removes what doesn’t fit and rebuilds. The quiet integrity of the work of revision shows there.

11,000 people in front of the station: stranded commuters and “Kitakon DX”

Tachikawa is a town whose population grows during the day. In the metropolitan tally based on the 2020 census, the city’s daytime population is 207,832, more than 24,000 above its night-time population of 183,581. Its daytime-to-nighttime population ratio of 113.2 is the highest among the 26 cities of Tokyo. JR Tachikawa Station alone sees about 150,000 people board a day.

According to the summary of the city’s local disaster management plan, the metropolitan damage estimates expect, in both an earthquake directly beneath eastern Tama and an earthquake on the Tachikawa fault zone, about 36,000 people unable to get home, and about 11,000 people stranded outdoors around Tachikawa Station. Eleven thousand people on the deck in front of the station. Picture the crowds on Sun Sun Road on a holiday and you can feel the weight of that number.

Preparations are moving from paper to digital. From the end of fiscal 2024, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government began operating its “Stranded Commuter Operation System (Kitakon DX)” to get information to people who can’t get home. The city of Tachikawa says it will work with Tokyo to build a system for giving information to stranded people and guiding them to temporary shelter facilities. The city has drawn up a “Response Plan for Stranded Commuters and People Remaining in Front of the Station in a Disaster” and a “Stranded Commuter Countermeasures Manual”, and decided to set up a “stranded commuter team” in its disaster headquarters.

The drills continue every year. At 10 a.m. on 20 October 2025, the scenario: an earthquake directly beneath Tama shakes the city at seismic intensity “upper 6” (on the Japanese intensity scale, whose top level is 7), the railways stop, and large numbers of people are stranded around Tachikawa Station. On that premise the city held its “Tachikawa Station Stranded Commuter Drill”. It set up a local headquarters at the city’s service centre right by the station, opened temporary information points at the North and South Exits, and guided people playing stranded commuters to temporary shelter facilities. One of the cooperating bodies was the council for measures for people remaining in front of Tachikawa Station.

On the night of a disaster, the shopping centres, hotels and offices around the station become places that take in strangers. Buildings that usually welcome shoppers will, that night, welcome people who can’t go home. The bustle in front of Tachikawa Station is itself a disaster-prevention resource.

Disaster prevention made by citizens: 140 groups and 10 firefighting teams

The national government, Tokyo and the city all write plans. But right after an earthquake, the first to move are usually the people next door. The city’s page writes that, of the roughly 35,000 people rescued from collapsed houses and the like in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (the Kobe earthquake), about 80%, 27,000 people, are said to have been rescued by family or neighbours.

Tachikawa’s citizens’ disaster-prevention organisations, also called voluntary disaster-prevention organisations, numbered 140 as of April 2026. The city gives each 20,000 yen in the year it is formed, and from the following year 15,000 yen plus 50 yen per household (up to 70,000 yen) for running costs, and at formation it hands over armbands, a megaphone and a first-aid kit. A group of 200 households or more gets 30 armbands and 2 megaphones. Community disaster prevention starts with a single megaphone.

There are 10 citizens’ firefighting teams, equipped with portable pumps to tackle fires in their early stages. They train regularly in spraying water and pump drill, and they are recruiting members. The city subsidises the cost of qualifying as a bosaishi (a private disaster-prevention certification) for up to three people per year, first come, first served, and, saying that disaster prevention benefits from women’s perspectives, welcomes applications from women. Even the disaster-prevention qualification is first come, first served.

Tachikawa has rules for how to evacuate, too. In an earthquake the basic method is “two-stage evacuation”: first gather at the “temporary assembly point” decided by your community, then move on from there to a shelter. A shelter, the city explains, is a place where people who can’t live in their homes stay, and at the same time a place where people sheltering at home come to collect supplies and information.

Discussion of how to run shelters is going on neighbourhood by neighbourhood as well. The city has held “shelter operation liaison meetings” with residents’ associations and schools, revising the rules and manuals. Fujimicho, Shibasakicho and Hagoromocho in fiscal 2023; Sakaecho, Saiwaicho and Kashiwacho in fiscal 2024; Nishikicho, Akebonocho and Wakabacho in fiscal 2025; and in fiscal 2026 Takamatsucho, Sunagawa and Nishisuna. They are working their way around the city.

On 16 November 2025 the city’s general disaster drill was held, with No. 6 Junior High School as the main venue. The scenario: at 8:15 a.m. a magnitude-7-class earthquake centred in the Tama area, shaking the city at seismic intensity upper 6. A bus company with an agreement with the city carried people who find evacuation difficult to the shelter, a delivery company brought relief supplies, and residents’ association members received them. At the soup kitchen, 300 servings of tonjiru (pork and vegetable miso soup) and 300 servings of instant dried rice were handed out. The pork soup on drill day teaches the body the procedure for the real day.

There is even a drill you can join from home. Since July 2023, the city’s official LINE account (LINE is Japan’s most widely used messaging app) has offered “Evacuation Drills Connected by LINE”, in which you check the steps for earthquakes and storm and flood damage by following the messages sent to you. With a single smartphone you can practise evacuating while lying down. You only need to get up for the real thing.

Visitors from abroad, and earthquakes

If you are caught by a big tremor in the middle of a trip and don’t understand Japanese, what should you do? The city of Tachikawa publishes a disaster-preparedness handbook for foreigners in English, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. The English version is called the “Tachikawa City Life Safety Handbook for Foreign Residents”. The city’s page notes that there are 30 shelters in the city, such as primary and junior high schools, introduces the evacuee registration card and a pointing board for communicating, and links to the English, Chinese and Korean versions of Tokyo’s disaster-preparedness book Tokyo Bousai. The list of primary evacuation shelters can also be read in English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Tagalog and Thai.

The Tachikawa Life Safety Learning Center (Tachikawa Bosaikan) has changed with visitors from abroad in mind, too. According to the Tokyo Fire Department, its earthquake-experience corner was renewed on 20 March 2026 with the aim of being “easy to understand for foreign residents as well”. Admission is free. Arrive at Tachikawa Station by express bus from Haneda Airport, experience the shaking at the learning centre the next morning, then set off for the mountains. For a traveller who doesn’t know Japanese earthquakes, it should be a detour with real substance.

The mystery solved: from “spare” to what?

Back to the question at the start. How will Tachikawa’s role in supporting the capital change from here?

The documents show three movements. The state is keeping Tachikawa as one of the last lines of defence while beginning to think about another layer of preparation outside the Tokyo area. Tokyo has decided to build in Tachikawa a base twice the size of the same function at its own headquarters. The city is reworking its arrangements to protect the people who live here, the people who work here and the people passing through, using everything down to the velodrome and the buildings by the station.

In my view, Tachikawa is changing from a “spare” into a “catcher”. Not only stepping in when central Tokyo can’t be used, but the place that, in the first few days, catches all at once the state’s decisions, Tokyo’s supplies, help from all over the country, and the people left in front of the station. The doubled size of the new disaster base and the velodrome’s three roles both speak of how large that job is.

But beneath the ground sleeps the Tachikawa fault zone. In the national assessment, the probability of an earthquake within 30 years is 0.5 to 2 per cent. In Tokyo’s survey of regional risk, the city of Tachikawa as a whole tends to be lower risk than eastern Tokyo, but the city itself writes, “We cannot let our guard down.” A zero per cent collapse rate a hundred years ago is no promise about the next earthquake.

Tachikawa is sometimes called a plain town. But for the day this country’s greatest disaster strikes, both the state and Tokyo have written plans that rely on this town. One train on the Chuo Line from Shinjuku, one train on the Nambu Line from Kawasaki. Some weekend, feel the shaking at the Tachikawa Life Safety Learning Center, spread out a picnic in Showa Kinen Park next door, and on the way home think about what is in your own emergency bag. Breathe the air of the town that holds up the capital, and preparedness becomes, a little, your own business.

Quiz answer

The answer is B, a height restriction under the Civil Aeronautics Act. In the metropolitan basic plan’s table of site conditions, the height restriction row lists, alongside the “Class 2 height district”, “height restriction under the Civil Aeronautics Act (restricted surfaces from Tachikawa Airfield)”. On land next to a runway still in use, even a disaster-prevention building has to defer to the sky.

Before you go

• Tachikawa Life Safety Learning Center (Tachikawa Bosaikan; Tokyo Fire Department Tachikawa Disaster Prevention Education Center): 1156-1 Izumicho, Tachikawa, Tokyo. From stop 1 at the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, take a bus to “Tachikawa Shobosho” (Tachikawa Fire Station); it is right by the stop. 15 minutes’ walk from Takamatsu Station on the Tama Monorail (according to the Tokyo Fire Department). Admission free. Check opening days and how to book the experiences on the official site: https://www.tfd.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/taiken/tachikawa/index.html
• The facilities of the Tachikawa Regional Disaster Prevention Base (the backup facility, Tokyo’s disaster prevention centre and warehouse, and so on) are not places you can normally visit freely. Walk on the understanding that you are looking from outside.
• Tokyo’s “Basic Plan for Developing a New Disaster Prevention Base for the Tama Area” (January 2026, in Japanese): https://www.bousai.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/_res/projects/default_project/page/001/030/184/20260123-3.pdf
• Tachikawa City Local Disaster Management Plan (2026 revision) and summary (in Japanese): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/shisei/sesaku/1024458/1024467/1006602.html
• Tachikawa’s disaster-preparedness handbook for foreign residents (English and other languages): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/gaikoku/bosai/1021469.html
• The national plan and damage estimates for the Tokyo Inland Earthquake (Cabinet Office): https://www.bousai.go.jp/jishin/syuto/index.html
• From Haneda Airport: the “Haneda Airport Line” express bus stops at the North and South Exits of Tachikawa Station (according to Tachikawa Bus). Check times and fares on the official site: https://www.tachikawabus.co.jp/highway/haneda/
• Getting there: from Shinjuku, take the JR Chuo Line to Tachikawa Station without changing trains. From Kanagawa, the JR Nambu Line links Kawasaki Station and Tachikawa Station with no change.
• Combine with: next to the learning centre is the Tachikawa Regional Disaster Prevention Base, and south of it spreads Showa Kinen Park. Learn about the shaking at the centre, then walk the park’s expanse with the eyes of someone looking at a “wide-area evacuation site”, and the same lawns look a little different.
• General tips: carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO for trains, buses and the monorail, and check opening days on the official sites before you go.

After learning about the shaking, at Tachikawa Station’s North Exit

When you experience the shaking at the learning centre, it’s only once you’re outside that you notice how tense your body had been. Shoulders up, breathing shallow. After a day of hearing about preparedness, you want some time to loosen up as well.

A one-minute walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店). It is a hot yoga studio with heated lava-stone floors, and it also offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30, so whether you visit the learning centre in the morning or walk the park until evening, there is time to drop in.

For first-timers there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and mat rental included. You can come empty-handed.

Pregnant guests cannot join lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself. She holds Eiken Grade 1 and a perfect TOEIC score, once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and lived in Alaska for three years. If you don’t speak Japanese, just mention it when you book.

• On the Shore: https://ontheshore.jp/
• Book a trial lesson: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

On the third floor of a building by the station, in a town chosen a hundred years ago as a plateau that stands firm in an earthquake, steady the tremors in your own body. Disaster preparedness in Tachikawa lives not only inside big buildings, but also in each person’s breathing.

Cover photo: The North Exit station building of Tachikawa Station and its pedestrian deck spanned by red arches (2021) (Photo: DiKnK8713 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

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