On a usual weekday, DJs at local radio station FM Iwaki would be broadcasting their way through a mix of talk shows, music requests, prize competitions and community news.
But since the March 11 disaster, local stations like FM Iwaki in the areas ravaged by the earthquake and tsunami have played a major role in keeping people informed at a grassroots level mainstream media can’t match, relaying hyper-local information about what is going on in a certain neighborhood or specific street.
Since the disaster, the station in this Fukushima prefecture city of over 300,000 people has switched to delivering emergency information 24 hours a day, providing an indispensible resource for the people in the Iwaki region. The radio station doesn’t have listener ratings, but its online streaming broadcast has been accessed on average 45,000 times a day, or about 100 times its normal traffic.
Masaaki Abe, 53, station chief for FM Iwaki, says that in the first days after the earthquake, listeners would call in to ask about relatives or friends, or to tell family members where they fled after the tsunami swept through the town, displacing 3,500 people among 60 evacuation centers.
It may seem a stretch from the lighter, more usual programming, but broadcasting information in emergency situations is officially recognized as a key backup function at stations like FM Iwaki, which is 25%-owned by the city. At one point, the eight staff members who stayed on after the disaster took turns lining up for water and eating handouts left by listeners outside the station. Now, there are about 15 staffers, including people who returned after the initial evacuation.
The content of the information the station is relaying has now changed, Mr. Abe says. It is no longer about missing people or where to get water, but how to claim insurance and how to start planning for the next few months.
The nuclear situation is just another headache for the people in the area, but the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors 30 kilometers from Iwaki haven’t changed the focus on safety and lifestyle information at the radio station. “We are close to the reactors, but we can’t tell everyone to evacuate as long as the government says it is safe to be there. So we approach each day with the attitude of ‘Let’s try to facilitate the recovery as quickly as possible,’” says Mr. Abe.
One problem with the nuclear situation is that rumors and misinformation have made it difficult for supplies and volunteers to come into the area. Things are improving, Mr. Abe says, but the area is still receiving less aid and supplies than other tsunami-affected zones.
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