Safety and emergencies in Tokyo

The numbers

Dial 110 for police and 119 for fire or ambulance; both are free from any phone, including a locked mobile. Say “English please” and wait; Tokyo’s call centers have interpreters on the line. Ambulances are free, though the hospital is not. For non-urgent help in English at any hour, the Japan Visitor Hotline run by JNTO at 050-3816-2787 covers accidents, illness, lost passports and disasters. Tokyo’s medical information service “Himawari” at 03-5285-8181 finds you a clinic that speaks your language.

Your embassy handles lost or stolen passports. Report the loss at a koban first and keep the police report number; the embassy will ask for it. A photo of your passport in your phone and a paper copy in your bag speed everything up.

Koban and lost property

The small police boxes on street corners, called koban, are the most useful institution in Tokyo. Officers give directions, lend umbrellas, hold lost property and deal with anything from a lost child to a drunk friend. If you lose something, go there or to the station office of the line you were on. The return rate is remarkable: wallets, phones and cameras come back with the cash intact, usually within a day or two. JR East and Tokyo Metro have online lost-and-found forms in English; taxis are harder, so get a receipt or note the company name. Items unclaimed after a few days move to the Metropolitan Police Lost and Found Center near Iidabashi.

Earthquakes and weather

Tokyo shakes often, usually briefly. Your phone will receive the Earthquake Early Warning as a loud alarm a few seconds before a strong tremor, in Japanese and English. What to do: stay inside, get under a table or away from windows, and wait. Do not run into the street. Modern buildings are engineered for this; the danger is falling objects, not collapse. Afterward, trains stop for inspection and restart within an hour or two for most quakes. Download the free Safety tips app from JNTO or the NERV Disaster Prevention app for alerts, tsunami warnings and evacuation maps in English. Central Tokyo is not at tsunami risk; the bayside wards post evacuation routes.

Typhoons between August and October bring a day of heavy rain and wind, and trains may be suspended in advance, announced the evening before. Summer heat is the more common hazard: 35°C with humidity sends many visitors to the clinic. Drink, find shade, take air-conditioned breaks.

Pharmacies and hospitals

Drugstores (Matsumoto Kiyoshi, Welcia, Sundrug, Tomod’s) are everywhere and sell cold medicine, painkillers, stomach remedies and allergy tablets over the counter, with a pharmacist behind the desk for the stronger items. Pabron is the standard cold remedy; EVE and Bufferin are ibuprofen and aspirin. Bring your own prescription medicine in its original packaging with a copy of the prescription. Anything containing more than small amounts of pseudoephedrine, or stimulants such as Adderall, is prohibited; codeine is restricted. More than a month’s supply of a prescription drug needs an import certificate (Yunyu Kakunin-sho) arranged in advance.

For a doctor, hotels direct you to a nearby clinic. Larger hospitals with English service include St. Luke’s International in Tsukiji and the Tokyo Medical and Surgical Clinic in Shiba-koen. Walk-in clinics see you quickly; big hospitals require patience and charge a referral fee if you arrive without one.

Travel insurance

Japan charges uninsured visitors the full cost of care: around ¥10,000 to ¥30,000 for a consultation, ¥100,000 or more per day in hospital, and several million yen for surgery or an evacuation. Hospitals increasingly ask for a deposit before treatment, and the government has been tightening rules on visitors with unpaid bills. Buy a policy that covers at least ¥10 million in medical costs, keep the policy number and emergency line in your phone, and call them before a big bill, not after.