Disasters
A country built on four plates. Kobe in 1995, the sarin attack that same year, and 11 March 2011, the earthquake, the wave and Fukushima.
Part of Japan
27 moments in this segment.
- - Desolation of Nihonbashi and Kanda after Kanto Earthquake. Great Kanto earthquake 1923 Tokyo. Desolation of Nihonbashi and Kanda (central Tokyo) seen from the Roof of Dai-ichi Sogo Building, Kyobashi after the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.
- - Robert L. Capp Great Kantō earthquake 3. Great Kanto earthquake 1923 Tokyo. Photos of 1923 Great Kantō earthquake - Robert L. Capp Collection
- - Robert L. Capp Great Kantō earthquake 4. Great Kanto earthquake 1923 Tokyo. Photos of 1923 Great Kantō earthquake - Robert L. Capp Collection
- - Scenes of 17 January: home footage from the Kobe earthquake. Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution compilation of donated amateur film shot in Suma, Nagata, Hyogo, Nada and Higashinada wards and in Nishinomiya on the day of the earthquake.
- - Kobe 1995: the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. Film Archive of Japan record of the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck southern Hyogo Prefecture at 05:46 on 17 January 1995.
- - Hanshin-Awaji earthquake 1995 344. Kobe earthquake 1995 damage. 阪神淡路大震災 兵庫区民家密集地 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake
- - Hanshin-Awaji earthquake 1995 Hyogo-ku Kobe city Hyogo prefecture 001. Kobe earthquake 1995 damage. 阪神淡路大震災 兵庫区民家密集地 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake
- - Hanshin-Awaji earthquake 1995 Tokyu Hands Sannomiya branch 001. Kobe earthquake 1995 damage. 阪神淡路大震災 兵庫県神戸市中央区 生田ロード東急ハンズ三宮店前 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake
- - The tsunami running backwards up the river in Sendai, 11 March 2011. JNN archive footage of the tsunami reversing up a river in Sendai after the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake of 11 March 2011, which killed 15,899 people nationwide.
- - Damage of Tsunami at Matsushima. 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami damage. Damage of Tsunami at Matsushima, Miyagi.
- - Damage of Tsunami at Sendai port 01. 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami damage. The road was closed in the vehicle that had been thrown by the tsunami. (Sendai port)
- - Operation Tomodachi - Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant - pipe flange fitting instruct. Fukushima Daiichi 2011. Ken Holden and Blair Smith, field service mangers with Resource Equipment LTD, teach Japanese workers how to assemble pipe flange fittings at Yokota Air Base, Japan March 25, 2011 for a water pumping station that will be employed at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant d
- - Police radio from the morning of the sarin attack. TV Asahi report on the release of police radio traffic recorded on 20 March 1995, showing officers struggling to understand what was happening on the Tokyo subway.
- - The Aum Shinrikyo subway sarin attack, 25 years on. TV Asahi documentary marking 25 years since the 20 March 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, with testimony from former senior Aum figure Fumihiro Joyu on how a yoga school became a killing cult.
- - BBC: Fukushima, the nuclear disaster that shook the world. BBC News on the 11 March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and reactor meltdown that emptied towns in Fukushima Prefecture, with government cleanup estimates approaching 200 billion dollars.
- - FRONTLINE: inside Japan's nuclear meltdown. PBS FRONTLINE documentary, made in 2012, on the crisis inside the Fukushima Daiichi plant after the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011.
- - Wajima Lacquer After the Noto Earthquake. Yomiuri TV report on Wajima-nuri, a lacquerware built from over a hundred separate processes, and a long-established workshop exhibiting salvaged pieces weeks after the January 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake.
- - Traditional Sake Brewing Inscribed by UNESCO: Ishikawa Responds. Hokuriku Asahi feature on the December 2024 UNESCO listing, with reaction from Noto breweries still damaged by the New Year's Day earthquake and from brewers in their twenties.
- - An 8mm tape from Kobe, surfaced 30 years later. Sun TV on newly found 8mm video shot by a 14-year-old who cycled into the disaster zone on 17 January 1995; the earthquake killed 6,434 people.
- - The first cabinet-level meeting on bear attacks. TV Asahi reports from the Diet press building on the first ministerial-level meeting on bear attacks, elevated from an interagency meeting on Prime Minister Takaichi's instruction as casualties mounted.
- - Bears appear across Japan, including at tourist sites. TV Asahi on bear sightings spreading nationwide in autumn 2025, including at popular tourist spots and one field where eleven bears appeared at once.
- - The government adopts a bear countermeasures package. Nippon TV on the cabinet-level package to cull and capture bears near settlements and reduce populations around residential areas, staged as emergency, short and medium-term measures.
- - Did the Mount Fuji entry restrictions work?. Shizuoka Daiichi TV on the joint Shizuoka-Yamanashi council's report, which concluded the entry restrictions had a visible effect in curbing bullet climbing and severe crowding.
- - Okayama revises its Nankai Trough projections for the first time in 13 years. Okayama Prefecture's revised estimate, its first since 2013, raises the worst-case death toll by 667 to 3,778, with tsunami deaths rising as building-collapse deaths fall.
- - Kobe's national-first push against abandoned houses. Sun TV report on Kobe's akiya measures, ahead of most Japanese cities, and the fire and refuse risks that neglected houses create for neighbourhoods.
- - The Nankai Trough megaquake: the government's latest damage projection. Cabinet Office disaster management film setting out the national projection for a maximum-class Nankai Trough earthquake and tsunami, and the measures that would reduce casualties.
- - The NHK announcer who narrated the tsunami and could not say 'run'. Former NHK announcer Shinichi Takeda and Yuriage storyteller Yuko Tanno revisit 11 March 2011, when he was live on air describing the wave as it came ashore.