Participants at the first ever World Tsunami Museum Conference hosted by Japan earlier this month (Photo: UNISDR)

By Yuki Matsuoka

Okinawa, 17 November - Directors and representatives from eight museums and organizations around the world, recently came together with government officials in the Japanese city of Ishigaki in Okinawa for the first ever World Tsunami Museum Conference. 

The conference was held on 5 November to mark World Tsunami Awareness Day (WTAD) and may lead to the creation of an international network of disaster museums. Participants came from Chile, Indonesia, Japan, Portugal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey and the United States. 

In welcome remarks, the Mayor of Ishigaki, Mr. Yoshitaka Nakayama, emphasized the role of local knowledge and the need to “learn from the past so we are all better prepared”. The city itself, suffered tremendous casualties from the 1771 Great Meiwa Tsunami which killed over half the population. 

Member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Teru Fukui, stressed overcoming “our natural instinct which is to forget sad events. When it came to tsunamis he said there was a need to “make it a part of daily living to evacuate to higher ground as the natural thing to do”. 

Aimed at strengthening cooperation among museums as centres of disaster prevention education, and for transferring knowledge and experiences to future generations, the conference was welcomed as a catalyst for discussions on a possible international network of disaster museums.