Local governments hit hard by the March 2011 disasters face ongoing challenges in preserving critical records, including those documenting emergency responses in the immediate aftermath.
Fourteen years later, these documents remain vital for passing down lessons from the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters. However, securing storage space has become a growing obstacle as the volume of records continues to increase.
In response, some local governments have implemented their own measures, such as establishing criteria for preservation.
The Miyagi Prefectural Government considers disaster-related records to have significant historical value, making them strong candidates for permanent preservation in the prefectural archives.
In fiscal 2021, a decade after the disasters, the government began discarding less critical documents. But as of the end of March 2024, approximately 17,000 volumes of disaster-related records remained in storage.
"We continue to store them in underground archives and cabinets within each relevant department, but capacity has been reached," a prefectural government official said.
In 2023, the city government of Sendai formulated guidelines outlining criteria for preserving disaster-related records. The guidelines cover about 100 items, such as the city's basic disaster reconstruction policy, to help determine which records should be retained.
"We need to preserve official records to document and pass down the city government's response to the disaster," an official said.
The town government of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, is organizing disaster-related records with the goal of utilizing them at a multipurpose facility scheduled to open in fiscal 2028. Even documents that have exceeded their designated preservation period remain archived.
Okuma is one of the host municipalities of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings' Fukushima No. 1 plant, the site of Japan's worst-ever nuclear accident on March 11, 2011.
A town official emphasized the importance of safeguarding disaster-related records. "Even 14 years after the accident, these documents remain vivid accounts of what happened. Records that might typically be abandoned could become valuable materials when we reflect on the past," the official said.
In Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, the disposal of certain records sparked intense controversy, prompting the town government to introduce an ordinance clarifying preservation rules.
The tsunami claimed the lives of the then-mayor and 39 government personnel. In 2018, the town government destroyed a collection of testimonies from 80 government workers, which had been compiled to assess the local administration's initial response to the disaster.
The revelation of the disposal drew a range of reactions, including criticism.
As a result, the town government proposed a record management ordinance — enacted by the local assembly in March 2019 — clearly defining what constitutes official records to ensure their proper preservation.
"We should manage records by assessing their future value as assets for the town," an official said.
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