# City-Planning Against Natural Disasters: Lessons from Japan

## TL;DR

The paper suggests Bangkok should adopt Japan's earthquake-resistant building codes and create a multilingual app to improve disaster preparedness for residents and tourists.

## Contribution

The paper proposes a mobile application for multilingual disaster communication and advocates for adopting Japan's building standards in rapidly urbanizing cities.

## Key findings

- Earthquake-resistant building codes are essential for high-density urban areas with skyscrapers.
- A government-managed mobile app can address language barriers in crisis communication for tourists.
- Strengthening infrastructure and communication systems improves disaster resilience in cities.

## Abstract

On March 28, 2025, a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar, causing severe damage in Bangkok, including the collapse of a high-rise building. This incident revealed the structural vulnerabilities of rapidly urbanizing cities such as Bangkok. First, adopting earthquake-resistant building codes, similar to Japan’s “Building Standard Act,” is essential in areas with high population density and skyscrapers. Second, Bangkok, as the world’s top tourist city, faces challenges in crisis communication due to language barriers. A government-managed mobile application providing multilingual alerts, shelter information, and embassy contacts is proposed to assist foreign visitors. Strengthening both infrastructure and communication systems is critical to improving resilience and protecting residents and tourists during future disasters.