[AmericanInTokyo]

When it comes to major-sized disasters and such, while Japanese official emergency and bureaucracy can be horrendous and slow and even inept, on the other hand, the people hit by disasters themselves are as cool as a cucumber...you couldn't ask for a better crowd to be stuck in, a grassroots crowd of say 20,000 other poor souls, shuffling together to safety. You'd have literally little to no worry about crime, looting, rapes. PS I don't live in Japan, but I know the country and its responsible citizens and mindset as well. A lot more following instructions by authorities fo their own good, and a lot less entitlement and pissing and moaning. It might be out of a sense of 'fatalism' and resilience in the face of disasters (shoganai) more than anything else.

[NonValueAdded]

That is a good point ... I think one of the reasons you don't see the helicopter drop of a load of water to the people on a bridge as is being screamed for in many places is that more people would die than be saved. If you think it through, first the rotor wash would likely blow a few off the bridge; you can't drop water from a great height so the chopper must get low. Next, the crowd would go absolutely berserk rushing to the water. A platoon of soldiers would be no match. Those that didn't get trampled in the stampede might get to the water but once they got it , how would they get out of the way of the crowd pressing in? People would start taking water from those that had it. I think you all can play out this scenario in your mind. Only if there was some societal discipline could a relief drop like that work.