Filling cars with gas directly from trucks to be allowed in disasters

THE JAPANESE government will ease regulations so that passenger cars can be filled with gasoline directly from tanker trucks during disasters. The move is to prevent severe fuel shortages like the one that occurred after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

With the move, the government will allow tanker trucks to be used as mobile gas stations to accelerate relief activities in disaster-hit areas.

A test to verify the safety of mobile gas stations is scheduled for this month in Hyogo Prefecture. Once the safety has been confirmed, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency will issue notices to fire departments nationwide within the current fiscal year.

Filling cars with gasoline at locations other than gas stations is, in principle, prohibited under the Fire Service Law due to the risk of serious explosions caused by static electricity.

Filling the gas tanks of passenger cars directly from tanker trucks is prohibited even during disasters and other emergencies. Cars must be filled with gasoline via drum canisters if gas stations are closed.

Items including a device to prevent static electricity and a metal fitting to prevent gasoline leaks have been developed in recent years.

The government has secured tens of millions of yen from the current fiscal year’s budget and has been supporting the development of relevant equipment and safety measures. It has concluded that tanker trucks can be safely used to directly fill the tanks of other vehicles once such equipment has been installed. Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures were heavily hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Many gas stations in those prefectures were damaged, with more than half temporarily rendered unable to operate. As a result, residents in the disaster-hit areas were unable to use the vehicles that were essential to their everyday lives, hindering relief work.

Many gas stations in Kumamoto Prefecture could not operate following the powerful earthquake that hit the region last year. Gas stations become fuel-supply hubs during disasters. However, the number of gas stations in the nation has halved in the past 20 years to about 30,000 in fiscal 2015. In underpopulated areas, a shortage of gas stations has become a problem.

Maintaining a fuel- supply system in the event of largescale disasters, such as a possible Nankai Trough earthquake, remains an issue. — WPBloomberg

—The Yomiuri Shimbun photo This picture taken on Mar 20, 2011, shows a gas station in Fukushima Prefecture with a sign saying “Next gasoline distribution time unknown” due to a shortage of the fuel following the Great East Japan Earthquake.