Nippon Express Group joining forces to support Kumamoto

At 21:56 on April 14, 2016, an earthquake measuring magnitude 7 hit the Kumamoto City region of Kumamoto Prefecture. Twenty-eight hours later, at 01:25 on April 16, the main earthquake of magnitude 7.3 struck the same region. Nippon Express plays an important role as a designated public institution prescribed in the Basic Act on Disaster Control Measures. In the predawn hours of April 16, when the main earthquake occurred, we received a request from the government to deliver relief supplies, and we began round-the-clock relief supply delivery through the concerted efforts of the Business Division, the CSR Division, the Truck Transport Planning Division, the Railway Forwarding Division, and our Kyushu regional offices. We took on the responsibilities of arranging for primary deliveries of relief supplies from municipalities and manufacturers all around Japan, of providing a storage center that would serve as the initial destination for supplies, and of sorting the supplies and distributing them to 36 local storage locations in the affected areas. The primary deliveries to Tosu Distribution Center (the storage center) were completed using 91 trucks from 14 branches around the country and six JR containers, while the secondary deliveries from Tosu to local destinations in Kumamoto were performed by a total of 133 trucks. On April 28, when the first government-collected supplies had been sent to all evacuation locations and as the initial turmoil had almost subsided, the Kumamoto Branch began to operate its Kumamoto Terminal as a sorting and distribution center. Since then, the Kumamoto and Tosu centers have been used as collection and distribution centers, with the latter acting as a support base. We will continue to offer our cooperation to help hasten recovery in the affected areas.