General information and basic earthquake countermeasures are issued regularly to the public via the media.

Individuals as well as communities are taught how to protect themselves in the immediate aftermath, then the emergency services move in quickly with life-saving and restoration activities.

The Tokyo disaster prevention centre has a monitoring system for early warnings on natural disasters, plus registered volunteers who provide emergency help.

It conducts research on how to reduce disaster impact, with one of its main challenges being to predict what would happen during another major earthquake and what measures would need to be implemented.

Its command centre is well equipped with state-of-the-art information technology and there are helicopters available to provide both surveillance and aerial views of disaster situations.

The centre has good connections with the police, emergency services and nearby municipalities, as well as an efficient radio communication system for rapid decision making.

In a severe disaster, the central government would send out the national self-defence force (the Japanese "army").

If an inland earthquake struck as severely as the last one in 1995, the centre estimates at least 4,660 people would die, while 3.92 million people would not be able to reach their home. Up to 2.87 million people would become evacuees.

The centre predicts that something like 436,500 buildings would be destroyed, power failure would affect 16.9 per cent of the country, while water supplies would be suspended for as much as 34.8 per cent of the population.

Emergency water supplies are available in Tokyo, however, with no residence more than two kilometres from a water station providing at least three litres of water per person per day. This supply could last for at least four weeks.

Food stocks on the first day of an earthquake would be supplied by municipalities, on the second day by the Tokyo metropolitan authorities, and thereafter from other areas astraffic would be expected to recover after only two days.

The centre also surveys areas with a high concentration of wooden structures that could easily ignite and tries to convince residents to make their homes as fire- and earthquake- resistant as possible.

This is only part of what Japan does to prepare for the worst.

Thailand should follow this example while remembering the number one rule: "don't panic, respond quickly".