FAQ / Disaster Emergency Message Dial (171)

Operation

QWhat precautions are required when using Disaster Emergency Message Dial (171)?

(1)Disaster Emergency Message Dial (171) is a service for recording and playing back messages originating from fixed telephone, mobile phone, PHS, and IP telephone numbers in homes and other locations in a disaster-stricken area. It is important for family, relatives and friends to decide in advance which telephone numbers to use for the service.
(2)Disaster Emergency Message Dial (171) is a service that was developed and introduced with the objective of enabling family, relatives and friends to check between themselves information about the safety of people in a disaster-stricken area. However, in our experience thus far of operating the service after disasters, most of the registered messages have been inquiries about the safety of people that came from outside the disaster-stricken area, and the amount of safety information sent by people from inside the disaster-stricken area has been extremely low. The original objective is not being achieved.
The number of storable messages could be restricted in the case of a large-scale disaster, such as an earthquake directly below Tokyo. As such, the surest way for people who live in the disaster-stricken area to communicate information about their safety is by sending the information themselves.