推計
While you’re on your way to the Ginza….
US research firm Risk Management Solutions (RMS) has compiled a report that predicts Japan could suffer large-scale damage, including the deaths of possibly around 290,000 people, in the event of a major terrorist attack using a compact bomb in downtown Tokyo.
The terrorist bombing in the projected scenario uses a small military nuclear device obtained on the black market from the former Soviet Union by a terrorist organization and is detonated around noon in the city center. The destructive power of the bomb is assumed to be about one third that unleashed by the A-bombing of Hiroshima. It is projected there would be 290,000 immediate deaths and up to 1,690,000 further casualties.
The probability that large-scale terrorism employing a weapon of mass destruction will occur in Japan within the next year is low, at 0.4%; however, the report cautions, “The risk cannot be ignored altogether.”
In the event of a major epidemic of a particularly virulent new strain of influenza, the report also predicts that 24,000,000 people could be infected and 500,000 could die even if the government responded rapidly. It indicated that total insurance premiums would reach US $58,000,000,000 (around ¥6,700,000,000,000), and the economic losses and damage in human terms would be even greater than those from a downtown terrorist attack.
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Whenever I hear Japanese talking about terrorist attacks by Islamicists on their soil, I can’t help but think there’s a little bit of “Me too!”-ism involved. As in, they want to pretend they might be targeted because all the other cool countries whose company they want to be in are targeted, too.
The fact is, Japan is way, way down the list of countries these guys would want to attack, and even if they did the difficulty of getting to and then operating with Japan would probably persuade them to go someplace easier to set off such a bomb, like Paris. Or The Hague.