Two minutes.
It is the time Japan took to start the emergency response after one of the most violent earthquakes in recent years.
On 28 July, at 16:27, an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 struck the prefecture of Kumamoto and reached level 7 of the scale of Japanese seismic intensity, the maximum foreseen by the system used in the country.
As the land continued to tremble, the emergency machine had already started in Tokyo.
At 16:29, just two minutes after the main shock, the government ordered the immediate collection of information on damages and gave a clear directive: the absolute priority was to save human lives.
Less than an hour later, three F-2 fighters were already flying to fly over the affected areas, while helicopters of the Forces of Defence took off from different bases of the island of Kyushu to assess the situation from above.
At 17:30 the official request for intervention by the governor of Kumamoto arrived.
But the help was already on the move.
During the night, some 3,600 members of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces were mobilized to participate in research, rescue and population assistance.
Behind this speed there is no improvisation.
There is a system called FAST-Force, an acronym for *First Action Support Force*, composed of trained units to intervene in the very first phases of earthquakes, tsunamis and other large-scale emergencies.
They are operating 24 hours a day and distributed throughout Japan. Their goal is clear: reaching the affected areas as quickly as possible, collecting information, coordinating interventions and starting rescues when every minute can make a difference.
The Kumamoto earthquake has shown how this model is now an integral part of the Japanese strategy against natural disasters.
In a country that has always lived with earthquakes, typhoons and tsunamis, the question is not if the next emergency arrives.
It's ready when it happens.
And it is precisely this preparation, built in decades of experience, which allows Japan to transform decisive minutes into thousands of lives saved.
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