Stock up Toilet Rolls! Japan Amid Natural Calamities

Japan is being threatened in the middle of a chain of climatic changes that are fast redrawing its disaster map. Just a few days ago, record torrents flooded rivers in Eastern Japan to wash away thousands of houses in the vicinity, a volcano erupted in Kumamoto, the Aso, threatening the inhabitants living at its foot, and similar climatic irregularities are reported in various parts of the country.

A giant nest of earthquakes, Japan now has rains to worry about. Heavier rains cause landslides to threaten houses built close to the hills which surveyors thought safe enough to build houses around. Only a while ago a  major landslide hit Hiroshima burying houses with their inhabitants alive.

Now, people are talking about an approaching major earthquake in the Tokai region, of which Shizuoka is the central area, and they are warned to stock up toilet rolls. Toilet rolls?

Not only people are talking toilet rolls but also is the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in its homepage. It says the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake taught that the most hideous of all was shortage of toilet, that the Great East Japan Earthquake led to a nationwide shortage of toilet rolls, and that Shizuoka manufactures 40% of toilet rolls.

It's a cycle of reasoning: should Shizuoka be hit by the approaching major earthquake, the entire nation would suffer from the shortage of toilet rolls - so stock them up.

Japan imports large portions of daily goods, but when it comes to toilet rolls, Japan produces most at home, importing only 4% from abroad. So if Shizuoka is hit, so will be toilet rolls.

The Japanese government revised in the winter of 2011 the Basic Plan for Emergency Preparedness and added toilet rolls in the list of recommended stockpiles. A new type of toilet rolls is designed for emergency stockpiling, 150 meters per roll (2.5 times longer than the regular type) packed compact for ease of storing.