Japan on Friday revised its basic plan for a possible powerful Japan earthquake directly beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area, setting a tougher goal to cut projected deaths and buildings destroyed or burned down to half or less of the latest estimates.

The move matters because the latest estimates, released in December 2025, put deaths at up to 18,000 and buildings destroyed or burned down at around 400,000. The revised plan also expands the number of specific policy goals from 47 to 189, turning what had been a broad preparedness outline into a far wider set of deadlines for households, condominium buildings and companies.

The plan covers Tokyo and nine prefectures in and around the Kanto region, and it keeps the focus on the danger that drives much of the expected loss. The government says about 70% of earthquake-related damage is caused by fires, so the new plan prioritizes installing seismic circuit breakers at almost all households by fiscal 2035. That share is meant to rise from 20% in fiscal 2024 to almost all households over the next decade.

Food stockpiles are part of the same push. The government wants the share of homes that keep at least three days' worth of food to climb from 60% in fiscal 2025 to 100%, alongside a 100% rate of securing furniture. It also wants disaster drills in all condominium buildings at least once a year, and it is aiming for business continuity plans to be complete at 100% of major firms and 80% of midsize companies.

But the plan also carries an awkward admission: the number of shelters in the Tokyo metropolitan area is expected to fall short, so officials are promoting sheltering at home, securing temporary accommodation for people who may have trouble returning home and providing information for those who try to go home on foot after a disaster. That gap is the clearest measure of how hard the task remains, even with new targets that are more ambitious than the old goal of roughly halving deaths and destruction.

Friday's revision is the first since 2015, and the government says it will track progress on the numerical targets every year and carry out follow-up measures. The question now is not whether the plan is more ambitious than before, but whether Japan can turn a paper target for nearly every household into something that actually gets installed before the next quake does the damage first.