2025-11-27 "Building, Sustaining, and Passing On to the Next Generation Earthquake Archives―The FY2025 Great East Japan Earthquake Archive Symposium" will be held on January 11, 2026

The National Diet Library, in collaboration with the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University (IRIDeS) [external link], will hold the Great East Japan Earthquake Archive Symposium on Sunday, January 11, 2026. The event will be held on-site at Tohoku University (Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture) and simultaneously streamed online.

The year 2026 marks the 15th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011) and the 10th anniversary of the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. During this period, various institutions in Japan and abroad have built and continuously operated distinctive earthquake archives that leverage their respective strengths. In education, examples of utilizing earthquake archives in disaster prevention learning and research activities have also emerged. These efforts play an important role in passing on the records and memories of the earthquake to the next generation.

At this symposium, Professor Andrew Gordon of Harvard University will give a special lecture on the significance of Harvard's Japan Disaster Digital Archive and Japan's earthquake archive initiatives from the perspective of a Japanese studies researcher based overseas. Representatives from the earthquake archives in Kumamoto and Ishikawa Prefectures will report on the current status of the construction and operation of their archives. In addition, teachers and students from Tagajo High School in Miyagi Prefecture will introduce the history and current activities of the school's Disaster Science Department. Finally, the speakers will hold a panel discussion on the future of earthquake archives and their potential use in education.

For details, please see the event page (in Japanese) for the National Diet Library Great East Japan Earthquake Archive (HINAGIKU).