The Japanese Disaster Coverage And The Learning Experience For Our Country

Japan is a county which has a lot of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcano eruptions and typhoons, which occur every year. Twenty percent of earthquakes over magnitude6.0(ML) in the world happen in Japan. On March11,2011, a magnitude9.0(ML) undersea earthquake off the coast of Japan occurred. It resulted in a major tsunami that brought destruction along the Pacific coastline of Japan’s northern islands, and resulted in the loss of thousands of lives and devastated entire towns. The tsunami also caused a number of nuclear accidents, primarily the ongoing level seven meltdown at four reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex, and the associated evacuation zones affecting hundreds of thousands of residents. According to Asahi News, on January26,2012, the Japanese National Police Agency confirmed15,845deaths and3,369missing people.After the earthquake happened, Japanese media immediately started reporting on the event. The rapid reaction and objective reporting was based on Japanese media information of the earthquake disaster and distinctive use of reporting mechanisms and the concept of disaster coverage. The power of the media was very important in Japan’s disaster coverage. Media on the one hand shares government decrees, while on the other hand, they are watchdogs of government action. After each disaster coverage report, the Japanese media constantly summed up the experience.Japan’s well developed disaster coverage gives a lot of inspiration to our country. Since natural disasters have frequently occurred in China’s recent years. The government should build a practical disaster prevention and mitigation system and continuously strengthen disaster prevention and education. Specifically, we should improve laws and regulations and establish an efficient government crisis management command system. The Chinese government and the media should strengthen their cooperation with each other to disseminate information in a timely and accurate manner, in order to avoid the spread of rumors and panic. Media personnel should improve upon the spirit of journalistic professionalism and strengthen the norms of professional ethics. Besides, timely emergency drills, education and public awareness of disaster prevention should be improved.