The 13th Sub-Committee on Disaster Prevention was held on March 9-12 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. A total of 32 people from 19 member regions of nine countries were in attendance, including five regions from China, five regions from South Korea, and nine regions from Mongolia. The Sub-Committee on Disaster Prevention arranged to reinforce the capabilities of disaster prevention for NEAR members' staff has been held since 2002 to reduce disasters in Northeast Asia through conducting a training for participants and building a wide cooperative system for disaster prevention. This year marks the 20th anniversary of ‘the Great Hanshin earthquake’ which happened on January 17 in 1995. Hyogo Prefecture has prepared various measures for disaster prevention and maintained facilities based on the lessons acquired from the earthquake and accumulated experience. The event consisted of programs to enable participants to visit these facilities and experience the real earthquake. On the 10th, participants visited ‘the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution’ and had opportunity to learn methods and knowledge in order to prepare for disasters by watching videos and reading documentaries at the time of the earthquake on display in the center. On the 11th, they visited ‘Hyogo Anti-Disaster Center’, ‘Kobe Earthquake Memorial Museum, and ‘Kobe Disaster Management Center.’ Most attendees participating in the meeting had a good opinion of the meeting in terms of learning Hyogo’s advanced policies through the chance prepared by disaster prevention staff of each regional government. The number of Mongolian participants is increasing in the Sub-committee and more than half the participants were Mongolian. It was difficult for Mongolian participants to attend the meeting as handouts for Mongolian were not prepared last year. But, Mongolian participants were provided with Mongolian meeting handouts and interpretation service as NEAR Secretariat supported interpretation and translation.