Background of the event

　　　The resolution to designate November 5 as “World Tsunami Awareness Day,” advocated by Japan and later jointly proposed by 142 countries including Japan, was adopted by consensus at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in December 2015, with the goal of raising understanding about the threat of tsunamis and measures that can be taken to prepare against them.

　　　Since 2016, the year following the adoption of World Tsunami Awareness Day, the High School Students Summit on “World Tsunami Awareness Day” has been held annually, and serves as a platform for high school students around the globe to learn about the threat of tsunamis and the measures that can be taken against them. In years following, many declarations have been adopted: the “Kuroshio Declaration” in Kochi Prefecture in 2016, the “Ambassador’s Note” in Okinawa Prefecture in 2017, the “Inamura-no-Hi Declaration” in Wakayama Prefecture in 2018, and the “Irankarapte Declaration” in Hokkaido in 2019.

      In 2018, there were large scale natural disasters of all types, including the earthquake and tsunami on Sulawesi in Indonesia, as well as other volcanic eruptions, floods, and forest fires around the world. These disasters have become a great barrier to sustainable development worldwide. How we can reduce our vulnerability to these disasters and mitigate the damage they cause is an important topic of interest in our global society. 

      In Niigata, Japan, we enjoy the blessings of our natural resources from the mountains and ocean, and the plentiful snowmelt supports our flourishing agricultural industries and helps to grow our natural surroundings. However, geographical conditions like our topography and climate have also made Niigata a place prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and heavy snowfall. The prefecture has a history of being hit by a variety of natural disasters.

The 1964 Niigata earthquake created a tsunami and caused soil liquefaction, causing serious damages both along the coastline and in low-lying inland areas. Then again in 2004, the Chuetsu Earthquake struck with a reading of 7 on the Japanese shindo earthquake scale (or a moment magnitude of 6.6), and many lives were lost in the resulting large-scale landslides in the mountainous regions that hold much of our classical Japanese landscape such as farmland and rice terraces.

　　　In the midst of the suffering and pain experienced by the victims of these disasters, their desire to help one another and their kizuna, their connections to each other, became the seeds for recovery and reconstruction. The “Reconstruction Prayer Phoenix Firework,” which holds the prayers to rebuild after the Chuetsu earthquake and to rise like a phoenix no matter how many disasters come, is a symbol of recovery after the disaster.

In January of this year, Tonga suffered immense damage in low-lying coastal areas caused by an undersea volcanic eruption, said to occur only once in a few decades. Along with the recovery from damage caused by the Niigata Earthquake in coastal areas and inland areas at sea level, these serve as lessons to be discussed with other Asian and Pacific nations at this summit. In order to make use of these lessons for disaster preparedness and mitigation in each country, we must also not allow our memories of the disaster to be weathered away, and pass our experiences and the lessons we learned to the next generation.

      This year, the High School Students Summit on “World Tsunami Awareness Day” 2022 will be held in Niigata, and aims to foster the growth of new leaders who will play a central role in protecting citizens’ lives, livelihoods and assets from earthquakes, tsunamis and other disasters, while minimizing the impacts of disasters on daily life and the economy by contributing to the resilience of their societies. The event will further deepen the kizuna, or “bonds,” between each country.