This special issue of the Journal of Disaster Research focuses on disaster storytelling, an emerging concept in disaster risk reduction. Despite its popularity and importance, its individual practices and activities, as they tend to be spontaneous and local, have received only limited attention from academia and have not been given special attention by the disaster research community.

The papers included in this volume contain multi-dimensional discussions on disaster storytelling, including ones that focus on concepts and theory, the functions of disaster museums, tourism, local communities, UNESCO geoparks, disaster ruins and heritage, art and culture, and disaster education. The readers can understand the variety of disaster storytelling activities that exist around the world and their potential contribution to building resilience in society. We believe this issue is the first academic publication to focus specifically on disaster storytelling, and we hope that this volume contributes to creating scientific value, attracts additional attention, and develops further discussions about the role of disaster storytelling within the disaster research community. We also believe that such discussions will help various individuals and entities reidentify the importance and significance of their activities of disaster storytelling as well as contribute to continuing or strengthening such activities around the world.

All of the contributors to this issue participated in the International Forum on Telling Live Lessons from Disasters (TeLL-Net Forum), held January 24–26, 2020 in Kobe, Japan. The articles included in this issue include ones that were inspired by discussions during and after the forum. Readers interested in this forum can obtain the official report from the TeLL-Net website: https://tell-net.jp/forum2020/pdf/00_Tell_Net2020_Report_print.pdf.

We, the editorial board of this special issue, would like to express our deep appreciation to the Hyogo Earthquake Memorial 21st Century Research Institute for the research grant on disaster storytelling. We also would like to express our gratitude to the Kobe Machizukuri Rokko Island Fund Charitable Trust (Tokyo, Japan) and AIG Institute (Osaka, Japan) for financial contributions that supported the publication of the issue.

Disaster Storytelling has become a topic of interest in various fields that address disaster risk reduction. The purpose of this study is to establish this concept as a tool for building a disaster-resilient society. An extensive literature survey showed that Disaster Storytelling has two major functions: disaster education and promoting recovery from disasters. This study shows that these two functions can be attributed to reciprocity, which is inherent in storytelling. Our primary conclusion is that, along with recent trends in Disaster Storytelling, such as disaster tourism, the practice will be expanded, the network of Disaster Storytelling activities will be reinforced, and Disaster Storytelling will contribute to the development of a more resilient society.

This paper summarizes a discussion of the role of disaster-related museums in passing down memories and lessons-learned to future generations through storytelling. The 135-minute discussion was held as a breakout session entitled “The Role of Museums in Telling Live Lessons” during the 2020 International Forum on Telling Live Lessons from Disasters in Kobe, Japan. On 25 January 2020, representatives of five museums (one still under construction) engaged in disaster storytelling activities. They discussed various issues, including how to engage local communities and improve the relationship between storytelling and sustainable museum management. The participating museums were the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hawaii, U.S.A., the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution (DRI) in Kobe, Japan, the Museum of the Mount Bandai Eruption in Fukushima, Japan, the International Tsunami Museum in Khaolak, Thailand, and the Ban Namkhem Memorial and Museum in Thailand (under construction). Museums are important venues that develop and continue disaster storytelling. All the participating museums digitally archive images, which creates the permanent inheritance of collective memory. All the museums focus on children. On the other hand, human and economic resources are required for museums to carry out their activities. The need for a museum network engaged in disaster storytelling is also discussed.

People tend to forget the past. For example, nine years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011, and memories of the disaster have begun to fade even in the disaster-stricken areas. People who have experienced disasters directly have tried to spread the memories of those events in various ways because they do not want their children and grandchildren to endure what they did. One of the most impressive ways of sharing these memories is for witnesses of disasters to communicate how they directly experienced them. There is a challenge in handing down these stories because people directly affected by the disasters will die within the next ten years. This paper takes up two examples of volcanoes in Japan, and examines how stories of these disasters were passed on to people who have not experienced them directly. We proceed by investigating common points in these stories and comparing them, and also by exploring the activity of passing how these disaster stories have been passed down after more than 100 years since its occurrence when there are no more survivors who have any direct memory of it.

Japan has an established tradition of museums commemorating its long history of disasters, which memorialize lives lost and convey the scientific mechanisms of natural hazards, disaster history, and people’s experiences during and after disasters. The first part of this paper provides an overview of seven modern disaster museums in Japan established before 3.11, starting from the museum of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. These seven museums commemorate disasters of different types, time, and scales of damages. Considering their shared commonalities and individual characteristics, it describes the components and approaches of exhibits that these museums use to convey experiences and stories of disasters, passing on local knowledge toward future disaster risk reduction. The second part of the paper provides an overview of new museums and exhibit facilities established to commemorate the 3.11 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011. The scale of the devastation of 3.11, as well as an explosion of interest and support for activities of memorialization, documentation, and exhibition, has resulted in a variety and decentralization of new museums and exhibit spaces throughout the area affected by the 3.11 disaster. Spanning various combinations and types of exhibit facilities, this paper concludes by considering emergent trends compared to pre-3.11 disaster museums and potential future developments.

Tourism helps communities sustain the memories of disaster and pass on live lessons. On the other hand, the memories and experiences of disaster and reconstruction thereafter constitute an important part of local resources for tourism that contribute to the development of local economies. In Indonesia, such tourism is even associated with sustainable tourism. In a particular type of tourism characterized by locally organized programs that exploits the indigenous resources and contacts with local resident, telling live lessons plays a pivotal role in linking pre- and post-devastation, local resident and visitors, and areas with and without disaster experiences. Here, we examine the significance of tourism as a forum for learning from and connecting with areas hit by disasters from the viewpoint of three “Links.” That is, “linking between pre- and post-devastation,” “linking between local resident and visitors,” and “linking between areas with and without disaster experiences.”

This article investigates how historical disaster memories are formed and transferred over time, by focusing on disaster memory sites of two communities in Japan, which were heavily damaged due to the North Tajima Earthquake of May 23, 1925. This earthquake occurred ninety-five years ago, however, people have continued transferring the disaster experiences. By examining the process of formulating and transferring disaster memory, the study reveals that memories are transferred not only because of existence of disaster memory sites, but also there is a system to communicate memory to these sites. Furthermore, these memories have become a part of the living memory of these communities.

This report supports geotourism as an effective method of disaster storytelling, based on the lessons learned during and after the 2013 Izu-Oshima Island Debris Flow Disaster. Geotourism can provide a geological explanation to visitors as to why the disaster occurred in Izu-Oshima island, while also allowing a vital opportunity to help local people impacted by the disaster make sense of their catastrophic experiences. By doing so, individuals involved in geotourism can share a reverence and respect for the living Earth, which enables us to move forward even after experiencing a catastrophic disaster. This function is very similar to what Disaster Storytelling has.

Preserving disaster remains does not always mean inheriting memories of disasters. Without long-term preservation and sustainable utilization of disaster remains, we cannot hand down the stories of disasters to the future generations. Keeping this in mind, a breakout session “Disaster Remains and Passing-on of Memories” was held in the “2020 International Forum on Telling Live Lessons from Disasters,” to grasp the trends of disaster remains inside and outside Japan. The discussions in the breakout session have put a spotlight on the important role of the “mediator” in sustainable utilization of disaster remains. With reference to the reports presented by the speakers at the breakout session, the objective of this study is to discuss the role of the “mediator” in sustainable utilization of disaster remains. The role of the “mediator” has been found to include a role of encouraging the preservation of disaster remains and a role of digging up buried memories.

This paper focuses on the memories and narratives of victims of disasters recalled using objects – namely, disaster remains – and examine what they mean to victims who want them to be dismantled. In the town of Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, which was devastated by the tsunami that occurred during the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), the issue of whether to preserve the former town office building – the site where the mayor and many municipal workers fell victim to the tsunami – developed into a heated controversy. Among the many affected residents, who desired dismantlement, some asserted that it was a “place of shame.” Most of these people were men in their 60s at the time of the catastrophe and recalled the pre-disaster situation of the local society; they were emotionally triggered by the accident to the tsunami. There are two reasons for the mention of shame in this context. First, former leaders of community activities (before the calamity) strongly criticized the fact that the town officials, who had been in a position to protect the residents, had failed to evacuate and became casualties. Second, there were residents who had an objective view of the local society based on their experiences working outside Otsuchi; this group felt that their pre-disaster activities were partially to be blamed for the loss of many town officials and were thus ashamed of themselves. Among disaster-affected residents who desire dismantlement, disaster remains serve to evoke diverse, fragmentary memories related to their life stories. While these men were able to reconfirm their love for their hometown, they used the narrative of “shame” to resist the impact of disaster remains by which an unequivocal image of local society is broadly disseminated via accidents surrounding the disaster remains, which is why victims wish for dismantlement.

In Nepal, heritage conservation is inherently political, as can be observed from the several heritage activisms in the various forms of protests, demonstrations, and criticisms of post-disaster reconstruction efforts of heritage structures of Kathmandu, which were heavily damaged by the Gorkha Earthquake of 2015. The politicization of heritage reconstruction is conspicuous in the government’s approach to defining heritage objects and places for conservation, the methods by which it interprets the relics of the past, and the cultural history and the opposition it receives from local communities and civil society. This has led to the emergence of heritage activism to protect cultural heritage from the threat of loss. This paper aims at highlighting heritage activism and its role in the post-disaster context by discussing the politicization of the conservation agenda by the government (state actors) and activists (stakeholders). Specifically, it focuses the role of heritage activism using secondary sources of information to assess the heritage value, its significance, and the “event analysis method” to analyze the events of the protest against the government’s reconstruction plan of Ranipokhari (Queen’s Pond), located in the heart of the city of Kathmandu. The paper discusses the contributory factors for the emergence of heritage activism and its potential role in sensitizing state actors and stakeholders about the conservation agenda to safeguard conservation prerequisites. It concludes that heritage activism can serve as an important means of indirect public participation to influence the post-disaster conservation policies of heritage sites in developing countries like Nepal.

Taiwan is located along the boundary of the Eurasian and the Philippine Sea plates and experiences tens of thousands of earthquakes each year. Based on historical records, Taiwan has had several earthquakes of magnitude greater than 7.0. Notable and deadly quakes occurred in 1906 (Meishan Earthquake), 1935 (Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake), and 1999 (Chi-Chi Earthquake). Statistically, Taiwan has had a major earthquake every 30–60 years. Therefore, earthquake museums are needed for long-term earthquake education and geoheritage exhibitions. Earthquake museums highlight disaster risks and preparedness information. The purpose of preserving earthquake remains is to educate visitors about Taiwan’s natural disasters and provide a memorable experience that inspires earthquake preparedness. The Chushan trench across the Chelungpu fault is a good example of Chi-Chi Earthquake rupture. This trench has recorded the five most important earthquake events on the Chelungpu fault. Although the Chelungpu Fault Preservation Park (CFPP) has worked to preserve these earthquake remains, they have been threatened due to seepage over the years. The aim of this paper is to analyze trench seepage and explore the development of an anti-seepage model, to provide a reference for the preservation of earthquake remains and museum development worldwide.

The Aceh Province, located in the northern island of Sumatera, Indonesia, is highly vulnerable to disasters. The experience of being struck by the devastating earthquake and tsunami on December 26, 2004 has not been communicated to the young generation of Acehnese. Hence, they need to be informed of the real and serious threats of occurrence of certain disasters. By understanding this information, the impacts of future disasters could be reduced. Preserving the live narrative of the tsunami survivors in the form of a documentary film is one of the ways of ensuring disaster preparedness, which would also be easy for the millennial generation to comprehend. The objective of this paper is to describe how oral narration was combined with visual art to create a documentary film. By capturing the life stories of tsunami survivors, it may serve as an example of community-based risk preparation through the dissemination of tsunami warnings and evacuation messages.

Development of a “disaster storyteller (relater)” training program is necessary for sustainable and effective disaster management and tradition. In this paper, we observed a training program of atomic bombing storytellers (relater), who survived the bombing of Hiroshima, and legacy successors, who did not experience it. In addition, we conducted an interview survey of the Hiroshima City Hall administrative staff and eight tellers who completed the course program, as well as an analysis of training log data. The results showed that all interviewees who completed the program evaluated it positively, and many active storytellers completed the training every year. Finally, a standard training program for disaster storytellers was designed and proposed based on survey results.

After a certain span of time, newer generations cannot remember the live lessons learned by previous generations from disasters. This becomes increasingly difficult as new generations evolve, particularly when the generation holding the personal experience of the disaster has passed away. This letter examines the possible effects of international support activities for disaster victims and rebuilding from disaster (referred to as “international post-disaster cooperation toward recovery”) on keeping disaster memories alive across generations. It is difficult to define a direct relationship between international post-disaster cooperation toward recovery and disaster recollection, because the period of international post-disaster cooperation toward recovery being implemented does not coincide with the new generation remembering the disaster and learning from it. However, this letter identifies the potential benefits of international post-disaster cooperation toward recovery for keeping the memories of the disaster alive in newer generations.

Disasters are likely to regularly occur in Indonesia since it is geographically located in the area known as the Ring of Fire, and is surrounded by many volcanoes, which float above several constantly moving pieces of tectonic plates. Disaster cycles transcend over generations and can be very long. Thus, it is very important to convey knowledge on disasters across generations since this information will affect the possibility of human survival should a disaster occur. How can we convey this information across generations? Are myths more effective than scientific explanations, or is it the other way around? Should we use both? How does a myth look like in our modern times? This study describes a number of myths – originating in several Indonesian locations, such as Yogyakarta, Palu, Sigi, Donggala, Banten, and Simeulue – so that a common thread can be drawn to obtain an effective way of conveying myths to future generations. From survivors’ stories of disasters, it seems that these accounts depend on their prior knowledge. Thus, it is important for the local story to be understood, so that it stays in the memory of the community, and can be narrated as a part of their everyday life. Thus, in accordance with the local community’s culture, it is essential to provide appropriate educational media on the risks of disasters and efforts to save themselves, should a disaster actually occur.

When the southern provinces of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) were hit by Typhoon Ketsana in September 2009, it brought devastation and destruction to over 200,000 people. The impacts of the disaster only exacerbated the social and economic vulnerabilities Lao PDR was already facing as a Least Developed Country. Despite the challenges encountered by emergency response teams and aid workers, the Government of Lao PDR used the lessons learnt to improve humanitarian response planning and strengthen community-based disaster resilience. This review seeks to evaluate the progress made in disaster risk management in Lao PDR since Typhoon Ketsana, and analyze the impacts a gender analysis conducted by Oxfam Australia had on mainstreaming inclusive and gender-responsive approaches to disaster risk reduction. It will also provide key recommendations to support the continuous development of community-based disaster risk reduction.

Oral and other modes of transmission that convey the experience of past disasters possess a vividness that cannot be obtained by disaster prevention education practices such as viewing hazard maps. Oral transmission is believed to have the capacity to induce rapid evacuation of people during disasters by acting on their emotions such as fear or anxiety. Meanwhile, the judgment, decision-making, or disaster knowledge of past disasters, has limitations such as the inclusion of inappropriate views from the standpoint of modern disaster management, or underestimation of the damage in the event of major disasters of an unprecedented scale, which can lead to a delay in evacuation. Disaster prevention education should adopt a “hybrid approach,” which combines oral transmission or other means that act on “emotions,” by providing a virtual experience of disasters and modern disaster-prevention knowledge, including hazard maps and teaching material, based on “reason.”

Twenty-five years have passed since the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. While Hyogo Prefecture and the city of Kobe have made a strong recovery, they also have a social responsibility to pass on lessons learned from the past to future generations. To retell the past, disasters are also well known for their war stories and peace education programs. Various peace education initiatives have been implemented around the world. While many people can talk about the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake based on their experiences, an increasing number of people have not experienced the disaster. In addition, the number of schoolteachers who cannot describe the disaster to children are increasing because they were born after the disaster. This paper introduces the Promotion Program of Education for disaster risk reduction implemented by the Kobe City Board of Education and investigates how education for disaster risk reduction has developed in schools. The authors involved and surveyed two elementary schools, one junior high school, and one high school. This survey points out the importance of continuous education for disaster risk reduction, and highlights the importance of dialogue and interaction with people who have not experienced the disaster, so that the story of the disaster can be narrated in their own words.

This study analyzes the impact of experiencing a disaster on subsequent risk recognition and evacuation behavior using data collated from the interview of victims of the flood and landslides that followed the 2014 Hiroshima Heavy Rain Disaster. The high accuracy of the storm and flood damage prediction system has made it possible to limit human casualties by routinizing advance evacuation behavior. The study explores conditions for the routinization of evacuation behavior and its findings are as follows: (i) a series of experiences such as timing of incidental awareness, evacuation, housing damage, and human damage define the damage recognition of each victim. The difference between each damage recognition has different influences on their post-disaster risk recognition and behaviors; (ii) experiencing severe disasters generally enhances disaster risk recognition. However, whether it promotes advanced evacuation behavior is dependent on the magnitude of the damage and pre-disaster risk recognition. If risk recognition is ambiguous, the effect of the experience is minimal even if the damage is severe; (iii) for disaster victims to inculcate an evacuation behavior in preparation for the next disaster, they must first have clear pre-disaster risk recognition mechanisms. It is also necessary to have a reliable destination that is incorporated into the daily life of the residents, which can serve as an evacuation site.

The influence of the storytelling of disaster response experiences at a disaster-stricken local government on listeners (receivers) has not always been well evaluated and analyzed. In this paper, a project to listen to the storytelling of disaster response experiences at the Miyagi Prefectural Office, which suffered from the Great East Japan Earthquake, is taken as an example, and the empathy and change of knowledge caused by the storytelling and the attention obtained from it are clarified based on questionnaires of 48 listeners. As a result, the following effects are confirmed: many listeners actually feel that they acquired knowledge that would be useful for a disaster response in the future; the story in the interview is connected to reality and the listeners can imagine the situation at that time so that the story influences their feelings; moreover, the story offers the listeners the opportunity to understand an “unexpected actual situation” and “the background and the cause of why such situation developed,” which cannot be found in existing written reports.

Earthquakes damage physical assets, such as houses, public infrastructure, fields, factories, facilities, as well as inventory of timbers, crops, or products. A direct damage amount is the primary evidence for financial measures to restore and reconstruct the affected areas. Therefore, from a policy perspective, it is essential to estimate it quickly and accurately. Cui et al. have proposed a simple method for estimating direct damages [1, 2]. This study aimed to build a prototype of automatic estimation system and discuss its social implementation. As a result, we succeeded in estimating three earthquakes – the 2018 Osaka Prefecture Northern Earthquake, 2018 Hokkaido Iburi Earthquake, and 2019 Yamagata-oki Earthquake – damage amounts automatically and defining some technical requirements for development. On the other hand, it is necessary to replace the Minryoku index, which is used for Cui’s estimation method and no longer being updated, by new physical assets quantity index, which is continuously updatable. Moreover, the estimation accuracy must be evaluated and improved in finer units of space.

Various technologies for improving earthquake-disaster-mitigation capability in urban communities are being developed and proposed. However, these technologies are sometimes difficult to use in actual applications due to the lack of incentives for owners of buildings or infrastructures, because the owners cannot calculate their cost-effectiveness and thus consider the installation payment for these technologies as a cost to be reduced. To address this problem, we propose the construction of an “Urban cyber physical system (CPS).” This urban CPS evaluates the earthquake-resistant capability of buildings and/or social infrastructures to help owners easily understand the cost-effectiveness of adopting these technologies. The CPS also calculates the effects of newly-developed technologies, thereby allowing owners to accept new technologies based on their effectiveness. The study concept of the urban CPS is as follows: (1) Construction of an “Information platform” by using data aggregation and analysis of existing vibration data of structures, datasets of building (or construction) information modeling and various other available databases; (2) Development of a “Simulation platform” that has a prediction function to calculate the behaviors of urban communities during earthquakes by using data in the Information platform and an identification function to identify structural systems from input earthquake motions and responses of structures; and (3) Establishment of an “Eco-system” to operate the urban CPS in urban community design, based on the perspective of earthquake resilience.

In response to the inquiry to our article, the authors would like to specify the information sources for the following four citations in our article (Citations 12, 15, 18, and 23):

Citation #12:

(As for the conflict of domestic laws with international treaties,) We conducted the discharge of contaminated water because, after we had consulted the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Nuclear Safety Committee, it was judged to cause no problem in the light of domestic laws. We apologize as though it had been conducted without notice.

Information source added:

(Tokyo Electric Power Co. Inc., 6 April 2011, @tokudasu niconico Live, http://nico.ms/lv45652870#34:58#nicojishin #jishi [accessed August 16, 2012])

Citation #15:

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant is in a serious condition due to damage from the tsunami. As regards its prior planning for avoiding the effects of a disaster, Mr. Tsutsumi, then vice president of Tokyo Electric Power Company, said as follows:) Our expectation was too optimistic, as a result.

Information source added:

(Norio Tsutsumi, the Vice President of Tokyo Electric Power Co. Inc., NHK Online, March 22, 2011 [accessed August 16, 2012])

Citation #18:

If you eat them, it is not immediately the case that they injure your health.

Information source added:

(Chiba Prefectural Office, Asahi Shimbun, April 26, 2011)

Citation #23:

The probability of reemergence of nuclear criticality is not nil (zero de wa nai).

Information source added:

(Haruki Madarame, the chairman of the Nuclear Safety Committee, Yomiuri Shimbun On Line, May 26, 2011 [accessed August 16, 2012])