From the Survey on the Victims of the Niigata / Fukushima Rains
December 2004
On July 13, central areas of Niigata prefecture was hit by torrential rains caused by a heavy Baui rainy point, resulting in a disaster with a loss of 15 lives and more than 8200 houses left under the water. To examine the attitudes and behavior of disaster victims as well as roles of media under such situation, our team conducted an attitude survey targeting 1000 people living in Sanjo, Mitsuke, and Nakanoshima, three cities of Niigata, which were especially heavily damaged.
Collapse of dykes spread the flood damage. Some cities and towns were slow to give out “evacuation advisory or directive” than other municipalities, or transmit information inefficiently. Therefore, we surveyed on people's recognition of the disaster and actual times of evacuation per community. The survey shows the recognition levels is lower in communities that were slow in issuing “advisory” or “directive,” or inefficiently transmit information than in communities that promptly issued “advisory” or “directive” and transmitted information relatively efficiently. Also, the formers evacuated from their houses relatively late. The result reveals differences in the response of local government affect the residents' recognition level and evacuation behavior.
To find out the usage of the media at this flood disaster, we surveyed on access media to “warning of heavy rain and local flooding” and “evacuation advisory or directive” with multiple answers. Many residents obtained weather information such as “warning of heavy rain and local flooding” through television, with 67 % through “NHK television” and 33 % through “commercial television,” and many of them knew the issuance of “evacuation advisory or directive” from “executive members of residents' association” or “officials of local fire station or municipal government.” As for the most helpful information access media, the highest number of people, 30 % of the respondents, named “NHK television,” appreciating subtitled and inversed L- formatted broadcasts in general. However, in open-ended question, some pointed out “The letters of subtitles are too small and time interval to show tickers is too short” or “The letter streams are shown too quickly in the inversed L.”