The document summarizes information and communication challenges in Japan following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. It describes how the disaster caused over 18,000 deaths and left many areas with destroyed infrastructure and lingering problems. Surveys found that in the early days, radio was the most useful information source, while mobile phones did not work. Areas directly hit by the tsunami had little to no information sources. Over time, television and the internet became more relied on for updates, but the information around the Fukushima nuclear accident was confusing and unreliable for evacuations. The surveys provided insights into what information tools were available and useful to disaster-affected communities over time.

1. ICT (Information and Communication
Technologies) challenges for
post-disaster activities in Japan
July 2012
Izumi Aizu
Co-Director,
Information Support pro bono Platform (iSPP)
Senior Research Fellow and Professor,
Institute for InfoSocionomics, Tama University
<iza@anr.org>

2. The worst disaster in Japan since WW II
• The earthquake, 4 waves compound: M9.0
• Tsunami: 10 - 30 meters, 3 times higher than
experts anticipated
– Washed away everything: 30+ cities and towns
• Fukushima Nuclear Station
• Death: 15,867, Missing: 2,909
• Total: 18,776 – so far – July 2012

3. 3
After 16 months
• Things are not getting better, some parts worse
• Natural Disaster turning out to be Social Disaster
• Many people are still suffering - even those who
moved from shelters to “temporal houses”
– rooms too narrow, rain leaks, ants coming in, flies
from dead fish etc.
– no reconstruction plan yet announced from central
govn’t
• According to previous experiences of Kobe, many
more problems will surface
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=qOlL2kbKGFQ&feature=g-vrec

4. Kamaishi Port
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=Cys8581RSXE&feature=related

5. 5
I lost my voice -couldn’t say anything
April 4, 2011
City of Kesennuma

6. 6
You can still see this ship – from Google Earth

7. 7

8. 8
This was a 3-story building

9. 9

10. 10

11. 11
from where I stayed

12. 12
After three weeks,
no rescue team came here yet

13. What can ICT/Internet do for them?
• There were little Emergency Preparedness
among Internet/ICT community
• Informational gap was the source of wider
problem – ineffective logistics, relief and
support works
• Started “pro bono” platform for information
support based on individual capacity – another
trials & errors

14. Information Support Pro bono
Platform (iSPP) established
– Multi-stakeholder platform to address info-gaps
– Individuals from gov, industry, NGOs and academia
– Projects and coordination beginning

15. iSPP aimed at
• Lateral collaboration
• among relief information providers such as Yahoo,
Google, Amazon, Shinsai-info, Tasukeai Japan, Save
MLAK etc.)
• among relief ICT providers
• Vertical collaboration
• between devastated areas and relief providers
outside
• Project Management – platform and system being
proposed for longer term activities

16. Projects underway
1.Provide ICT solutions (packages) to recovery
works – sending machines and people
2.Common API for Informational Support
3.Information matching for relief works (goods
and people)
4.NPO ・ NGO Coordination
5.Visits to local governments who need more
support - coordinate with Prefectural & Central
Governments
6.Survey on people’s information behaviors

17. Survey on people’s informational
behaviors
• Field interview
– 186 people in the devastated areas
– Interview by people in the same region
• Easier to share stories
• Online questionnaire
– 2,815 samples in the devastated areas
– Mostly ICT literate
• Conducted in early July
• First of its kind in scale

18. Questions:
• Which tool and media were useful? Which are not?
• How devastated people relied on which info
resources?
• Any difference in chronological order and locale?
• Was Internet or twitter really useful?
• What kind of lessons can we draw from?

19. 19
Death and missing
among family and relatives
(%) N=186
Direct interview:
One third have casuv arities¥
Half for Iwate and Miyagi costal areas
Net Questionnaire
11.2 ％ have casuaritires
Iwate: 36.2 ％ , Miyagi: 24.7 ％
(%) N=2815
No one
Death
Missing
Injured
Other
NA

20. 20
Changes of the Job
(%) N=186
Direct interview:
Unemployed: 12.9 ％
Job Change: 2.7 ％
Net questionnaire:
Lost jobs: 4.7%
Job Change: 2.9%
(%) N=2815
No Change
Job Change
Lost job
Others
NA

21. 21
Free answer: useful info sources:
A few hours 1 week 1 month 3 months
Radio Radio TV TV
TV TV Radio Radio
Mobile NHK Mobile/Paper Newspaper
NHK Mobile ― Mobile
One-seg Newspaper NHK NHK
Email twitter Internet Internet
twitter Internet Email twitter
Internet One-seg twitter PC
mixi mixi PC ―
Top Key words: radio, mobile, one-seg TV in early days, TV, Newspaper,
Internet came later

22. 22
Useful info sources by area
Iwate inland ・ Twitter I could obtain various information including disaster situation
and infrastructure. Also found my friend’s situation （ Morioka, Student, 21 yrs, M)
Miyagi inland Only Radio – NHK, Tohoku Bs provided information (Kurihara, biz owner,
52, M) Fixed phone helped found my parents situation.
Iwate Coast No info sources at all (Otuchi, 70, M) Had no time to use any info, just trying to
find students safeness from morning to night (Otsuchi, Kirikiri, 37 M, Civil servent)
Miyagi Coast Radio told “Big Tsunami Warning – evacuate to higher hills” helped me to
escape from Tsunamii (Yuriage, Natori, 43, Female) One-seg TV showed Tsunami coming
to Kamaishi that helped me to escape from Tsunami (Higahi Shinjo, Kesennuma, 56, F)
Fukushima Coast Municipal speakers – not 100 5% worked, Mobile phone – to reach
acquaintances, battery gone soon, (Okuma, Farmer, 69, M)
Fukushima inland Power stayed OK, watch TV and Radio. Listened NHK broadcast, just
getting to know what is going on, but could not really “use” them. No information could
help us within a few hours for that scale of earthquake (Fukushima, 43, Office worker, F)
。 Mobile phone – could use Email to find family and friends in safe situation for a while.
NHK TV was best to get info. (Koriyama, 62, F)

23. 23
Info sources NOT useful
A few
hours
1 week 1 month 3 months
Mobile Mobile TV TV
Radio TV Mobile Radio
Email Radio Email Mobile
TV Email Radio Internet
Softbank Internet Mobile NHK
Internet Email Newspaper
One-seg
• Mobile was most mentioned
• Gasoline, close to your daily life
• TV and Radio was frustrating for Nuclear Power problem

24. 24
Mobile
•Mobile phone not working, only Email could be sent
occasionally. Disaster BBS was hard to use and spent
many hours to find my sister.
•No connection for Mobile made me so worried about
my kids.
•I could not use Mobile phones thus not able to find my
family, very frustrating.
•Mobile phone not working immediately after, could
not contact my family members.
•Mobile was not usable at all.

25. 25
Not useful sources, per area
Iwate Inland Disaster BBS, Telephone. All onfusing. （ Morioka, 38, M ）／ I could use
DoCoMo Mobile and Email within a few hours, then lost connection at all. Softbank was useless,
could not find my family at all! (Osaki, 31, F)
Miyagi Inland All lifelines stopped. I wished at least the mobile be working (Sendai, Office
worker, 50, M)
Iwate Coast Disaster information system nto working, phones were all out (Kamaishi, Fishing,
47, F) Mobile phones for confirming safety did not work (Kamaishi, Partime, 47, F) All lifelines
could not be used thus so inconvenient (Ofunato, Partime, 56, F)
Miyagi Coast Radio only told us “Tsunami is coming”, but no details (Sendai, Office worker, 57, F)
Only police presence was announced until Tsunami came from the City disaster management
broadcast; Tsunami at other area or more realistic live information was needed (Sendai)
Mobilewas so useless; it was a miracle that I found SoftBank BBS to find my family safe (Sendai,
Businessman, 38, M) There was no means to get information from local administration (Okachi,
Ishinomaki, 65, Fishing, M)
Fukusihma Coast TV did not tell any truth on Nuclear power station, I heard the explosion
sound, but could not figure out what it was (Minami Soma, 54, F) NO mean told me where is
safe to evacuate. We thought it better to go far and went to Kawauchi vilage, but that turned
out not to safe and thus had to move several places. (Tomioka, Housewife, 62, F)

26. 26
Available information tools
• Right after ： Radio: 65, Mobile: 47, TV:30, Smartphones: 9.7%
• 1 week: Radio, TV, Mobile
• 1 month: TV, Mobile, PC recovered
• 3 months: Fixed phone went up
(%) N=186
Fixed Phones
Radio
Mobile
TV
スマホ

27. 27
Useful information sources
• Right after: Radio, TV, One-seg broadcast, Word of mouth
• 1 week: Radio, TV, WoM, Mobile, Newspaper
• 1 to 3 months: TV, Newspaper, Radio, Mobile, Internet
(%) N=186

28. 28
Available Tools, per area
• Right after: Iwate, Miyagi Coast was “Info Vacuum”
• Whole Iwate: no PC, fixed lines usable
– Only Radio due to power loss &communication lines
destruction
– Coast Area: TV (2), Mobile (2) （ N=28)
(N=186)
Iwate Inland Iwate Coast
Miyagi Coast Fukushima CoastFukushima Inland
Miyagi Inland
TV Radio PC Fixed
Phones
Mobile
Phones
Smart
Phones

29. 29
Huge difference by Area
Right after: Iwate Coast, only Radio （ 68% ） and WoM (46%) above 10%
MiyagiCoast, Radio (64%), One-seg (23%), Mobile talk (14%)
(%) N=186
Iwate Inland
Iwate Coast
Miyagi Coast
Fukushima Coast
Fukushima Inland
Miyagi Inland
RadioTV
News
Paper
Fixed
Phones
Mobile
Voice
Email
SMS
Internet
Word
of Mouth
Nothing

30. 30
On Nuclear Power plant
（ Fukushima ）

31. 31
70% replied they heard the accident
within 2 to 3 days, not on 3.11
N = 63
Fukushima Coast
Fukushima Inland
3.11 Mar.
12/13
After
1 week
Other

32. 32
People in Coast area immediately started to
evacuate, people inland collected info
N = 63
Evacuated
im
m
ediately
C
onsidred
to
Evacuated
W
ait&
SeeC
ollected
m
ore
detailed
infoD
idn’tknow
w
hatto
do
O
thers

33. 33
Free answers for reliable
information sources
• There was info on the accident, but for evacuation very
confusing
• Only heard the Siren. First, get outside 10 km away, then got
to Futaba or Kawamata, just WoM. Traffic jam was bad, no
info on roads.
• From people working for the power plant. They got first.
• Was working inside the power plant.
• Mobile One-seg broadcast. Car Radio, WoM,but not reliable …
Internet, searched the municipal website, but not serious
information was found. We have to make own judgments.
• People in the neiborhood, word of mouth.
• TV, news
• My relative working in the local government told me at
midnight, Mar 12.

34. 34
Web Survey Results
N=2,815
Using web-based questionnaire, for 3
Tohoku prefectures: Iwate, Miyagi
and Fukushima.

35. Devices that worked: Radio, Mobile, TV, Internet…
all but Radio dropped at Day 1
Fixed phones much popular after one month

36. Useful info sources:
radio, TV, mobile-TV for Day 1
Internet, Newspaper came late
TV
Internet
Radio
Newspaper
Mobile

37. Situation was so different by area
and timeline
• People in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures faced
large-scale power cut right after the quake (for
a few days); people relied on Radio & Word of
mouth. TV, Internet and mobile were almost
useless in the early hours.
• Radio was largely available, but the content
was not so satisfactory.
• Internet, twitter and other SNS used where
power and access are available. They have
limited use, but found to be useful by these
people. Very different picture from that of
Metropolitan Tokyo.
37

38. From people’s comments:
• Mobile phones were primary source of confirming
family and friends
– Yet it became primary target of frustrations
• Power loss was the biggest cause of information black
box
– Radio and “one-seg” mobile broadcast was useful
– New devices needed
• twitter was useful to find local information such as
food and gas supply – as long as there was connection
• Special dial/Internet services were not used

39. Multi-stakeholder came, naturally
• Traditional government structure does not
work sufficiently for such emergency
• Industry and Civil Society must work together
with Central and Local governments
• But how? - complementarily
• No official recognition made (yet)

40. Lessons learned (tentative)
1. Mobile network should be robust enough
2. Power supply be seriously considered, especially for
rescue and relief operation
3. Flexible collaboration framework be placed
4. Disaster management needs new understanding for
latest ICT services
5. ICT people should establish new emergency
preparedness team – which did not exist before
6. Establish ICT recovery support for local governments

41. 41
『 3.11 被災地の証言』
“ 3.11 Testimony from Victims” published by iSPP
プロボノ プラットフォーム情報支援 ・
（ iSPP ） 編著
インプレスジャパン 刊 2012 年 3 月 5 日発
売 定価 3,990 円
[ 『 3.11 東日本大震災 情報行動調査で検証する
デジタル大国・日本の盲点』
Based on Information Behavior Survey,
testimonials and interviews from the
people in the devastated areas are
compiled into a book. We found
“information blackout” existed almost
in the entire devastated areas, but
details differ very much by locale and
timing.

42. Thank you For your help and support
This could happen to you
Let’s learn the lessons and be prepared
We shall build new and better society
together
Izumi Aizu
iza@anr.org
iSPP