Princess Aiko, the daughter of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, visited an area in the city of Tottori, western Japan, that was struck by a typhoon in August 2023 and sustained extensive damage.

While observing the restored area from a window, she received explanations about the situation at the time, including river flooding and road collapses.

The princess also spoke with residents who engaged in volunteer activities such as serving meals to survivors at the time.

She asked them questions on matters such as the difficulty they faced when the community became isolated and whether their past experiences were useful when carrying out relief activities.

This was the last day of her three-day trip to Tottori Prefecture, where she traveled to for the first time.

Aiko arrived in Tottori on October 17 when she was welcomed at Tottori Airport by a gigantic trick art involving characters from “Case Closed,” a popular manga series also known as “Detective Conan.”

Tottori Prefecture is the hometown of Aoyama Gosho, who created the manga.

That day, the princess attended a session themed around disaster prevention from women’s perspectives at the national convention on promoting disaster prevention held in the city of Kurayoshi.

She also visited a welfare facility that provides continuous employment support for people with disabilities.

Aiko watched a performance using bamboo tubes containing coins that are shaken to create sound in rhythm with a traditional folk song and tried the instrument herself.

On October 18, she took part in a disaster prevention workshop at the Tottori Prefectural Museum of Art.

There, she joined university students belonging to disaster-prevention clubs to play an evacuation shelter management game that involves arranging cards containing diverse evacuee information on a shelter layout while dealing with various events.

Later in the day, she visited Kurayoshi’s historic district and inspected storehouses with white plaster walls that were damaged in a powerful earthquake 10 years ago.

She then stopped by a workshop for traditional Hakota papier-mache dolls and tried painting a doll’s face with a brush.