Emergency health response of Japanese local governments after the “3·11” great earthquake

The earthquake occurred in Japan on March 11， 2011 was accompanied by a tsunami， which also led to a leakage accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The disaster caused large-scale casualties and property damage. Soma City in Fukushima Prefecture established a disaster response headquarter and held its first meeting 9 minutes after the earthquake. Disaster response can be divided into three stages. In the first phase， life protection is the primary task. In the second phase， the primary tasks are health protection and basic life support. And in the third phase， life quality improvement is the primary task. This article reviewed the public health emergency response of local governments in Japan after the disaster in order to improve the response to public health emergencies in China.