Transforming the Archives of the Great East Japan Earthquake into Global Natural Disaster Archives

Soon after the devastation brought by Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), a variety of Japanese agencies and organizations began to build digital archives of the disaster. Seven years onwards, over fifty digital archives collect and release millions of earthquake records. These earthquake disaster digital archive created for the Great East Japan Earthquake have the potential to lead the way for more general measures and countermeasures to reduce the impact of future ‘natural’ disasters. ¹ We also believe that the records and knowledge of ‘natural’ disasters must be systematized and shared worldwide. As a first step, this research sheds light on examples and subjects of the digital archive of GEJE and report on basic knowledge that serves for the development of digital archive of ‘natural’ disasters’ in the future.