Japan launches new national agency to boost disaster response

Japan on Monday launched a new national agency focused on disaster management with the goal of making the country better prepared should there be a megaquake along the Pacific coast or in Tokyo, or an eruption of Mount Fuji.

More than 350 workers at the National Disaster Management Agency will oversee preparedness, emergency response and reconstruction efforts.

The agency is not being created in anticipation of any specific calamity, but rather is meant to fill a gap amid worries about whether the nation is prepared for a crisis along the lines of the 2011 quake and tsunami in northern Japan, which killed nearly 20,000 people, and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster.