Abstract
The Niigata Earthquake occurred on June 16th, 1964—the very year the previous Tokyo Olympic Games was held. The earthquake, which hit Niigata, a major city on the Japan Sea coast, is regarded as the natural disaster that “determined the forms and content of disaster reporting that is used even today.”
In the course of studying the history of disaster reporting in Japan, it was confirmed that the NHK Museum of Broadcasting archives the NHK Niigata Broadcasting Station’s broadcast scripts (for two weeks immediately after the earthquake) as well as scripts and notes for safety confirmation broadcasts. It is also found that the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute stores flexi discs containing the Niigata Station’s radio broadcasts of the day. It is extremely rare that both of broadcast scripts and sound sources from a local station at the time of disaster about 60 years ago are preserved. They are surely an invaluable data in the history of disaster reporting.
The research also revealed that television and radio played different roles in the 1964 Niigata Earthquake: television provided the information on the damages outside of the affected areas, and radio communicated detailed information for the residents of affected areas. It is also found the “roof-top camera” served as the predecessor of today’s remote-controlled cameras.
The Niigata Earthquake was a prototype for disaster broadcasting of today, including safety confirmation broadcasts, which were first used for the 1959 Isewan Typhoon and developed into a larger scale service at the Niigata Earthquake. The resources discovered though this study enabled the author to understand the actual conditions of these broadcasts more specifically.
This paper reviews the actual status of disaster reporting of Niigata Earthquake and discusses they are connected to the disaster reporting of today.
