On Tuesday, September 8, trainees of the one-year training course by the International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering of the Building Research Institute visited the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) and made a courtesy call on the Minister. This year, 16 trainees participated in the course from 12 countries: Bangladesh (1), Bhutan (1), Chile (1), Costa Rica (2), El Salvador (1), Indonesia (2), Mexico (1), Myanmar (1), Mongolia (2), Nepal (1), Timor-Leste (1) and Philippines (2). However, to prevent infection spread of new coronavirus, only three trainees from Costa Rica, Nepal, and Indonesia directly visited the MLIT, and the others attended via the Internet.

Minister Akaba expressed his thoughts on earthquake disaster mitigation measures and introduced past examples in Japan, talking about his own experiences in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. The Minister also said to the trainees, "I hope you will take a leading place in disaster mitigation in your home country and become an intermediary between your home country and Japan, utilizing what you have learned in Japan." Participants answered that they had obtained lots of knowledge for disaster mitigation in the training program and would continue to work hard to improve their home countries' disaster mitigation capacity with a great passion.