The Least Useful Guide to Fukuoka

Although its official name is Fukuoka Citizens’ Disaster Prevention Centre (I feel this name rather awkward. Can we prevent natural disasters, such as earthquakes or typhoons? ), I would like to call this building an “emergency museum” because of its wide-ranging exhibition, from a collection of fire alarms to emergency drill rooms.

A good thing about this museum is that it tries to introduce how to avoid unnecessary secondary damage, not just showing how terrible disasters can be, which can only be a bad-taste show.

Let me introduce a bit about this museum.

This is the fire-fighting exercise room. You can do a mock firefighting exercise using a home fire extinguisher against a virtual flame on the screen. When I saw the room, children were trying to put out the fire.

As well as the mock firefighting, you can experience how a severe earthquake would feel by getting on a shaking platform (a new type of scary ride? ), and how it would feel to be blown by a strong wind in a specially designed room. I saw a mother sending her child to this room saying to the child “come back alive”, almost in tears (why she sent the child to the room, in the first place? ).

Also there are a collection of fire-fighters’ uniforms from the sister cities around the world, and artefacts of fire-fighting equipments, (I guess these exhibitions make the museum look a museum, not a fun fair).

Like other museums, there is a museum shop selling disaster kits. I think the products are reasonably priced compared to similar things sold at commercial outlets (This kind of things can be very expensive, because some of the sellers take advantage of our ignorance about how much the reasonable price should be.).

In this earthquake-prone country, this kind of public service may be more constructive way to pour tax money on than building underground lines that keep producing deficits . At least someone’s life could be saved with some knowledge and preparation against disasters. I am not always grumbling about Fukuoka city, you see.

I was about to forget to tell you that this museum is entrance-free. This is why I like this museum!