Thousands of aerial photograph of NIGATA Earthquake have been taken by National Research Centre For Disaster Prevention and others. From aerial photograph inclination of buildings suffered disaster has accurately measured and many phenomena of disaster have been interpreted.

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The Great Earthquake occured in Niigata and its vicinity facing to the Japan Sea, situated about 200 km to the north of Tokyo on the 16 th of June after the disaster. Here editor introduced the some examples of the broken constructions and explained the resources of such phenomena from the point of view of civil engineer and seismologist.

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By the Niigata Earthquake on June 16, 1964, many reinforced concrete buildings were damaged in and around the city of Niigata, while damage to wooden buildings was not so noticeable.
Among about 1500 reinforced concrete buildings located in Niigata City, approximately 310 suffered damage. Most of these damaged buildings settled or tilted en masse without appreciable damage to the superstructure, and two reinforced concrete buildings overturned completely.
Such peculiar features of damage are attributed to the specific behavior of sandy ground during the earthquake; that is, the sandy ground was liquefied by the earthquake vibration and the complete loss of bearing capacity resulted.
From the view-point of soil mechanics and foundation engineering, the mechanism of liquefaction and the conditions of sandy soil critical to the the occurrence of liquefaction are discussed in this paper.

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Although there were several earthquakes which caused serious damages in some portions of our country since Kwanto Earthquake, Niigata Earthquake was the first case in which aerial photographs have been used for earthquake damage investigations systematically and extensively.
Author here discussed capabilities and limtations of them in uses for damage investigations briefly. This note is provided based upon a lecture which was presented to the symposium on “Earthquake Damages and Aerial Photographs” at Institute of Industrial Science, Tokyo University, on 10th July, 1965.

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Distribution of old river beds are easily found on aerial photographs excepting city zone which many houses and buildings are crowded. In Niigata City zone, existence of old river beds are presumed only by old documents and maps.
In this paper, the writer shows boundaries old river beds of Old Shinano-gawa and Old Agano-gawa (recently named Tsûsen-gawa) and other sediments, considers the age and history of these old river beds based on boring data and results of photo-interpretation. Relations between photographic density and some related factors, relief of the ground, level of watertable, material of the beds, etc, are also considered.

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