35 years after Japan’s Mount Unzen disaster, a former rookie reporter shares lessons with students.

SHIMABARA, Nagasaki — June 3 marked 35 years since a major pyroclastic flow on Mount Unzen’s Fugen peak in Nagasaki Prefecture claimed the lives of 43 people in 1991. As the number of people with firsthand knowledge of the disaster dwindles, a former newspaper reporter who covered the disaster on the front lines is now working to pass on memories of the tragedy to the next generation.

The man is Kanebumi Kanbe, 59, now a professor at the University of Nagasaki’s Faculty of Global and Media Studies. He joined a national daily newspaper in April 1991, about five months after the eruption of the Fugen peak began, and was assigned to the Nagasaki bureau. He traveled daily to Shimabara for reporting, and from the following spring was stationed at the paper’s “Shimabara front-line headquarters” as a resident reporter, covering the disaster until the eruption effectively ended in 1995.

Just a few days before the massive pyroclastic flow, Kanbe had been reporting from a “fixed point” where many victims ultimately perished. Although he had returned to Nagasaki on June 3, 1991, he reentered Shimabara that night, covering police and fire departments and hospitals to check on colleagues’ safety, as well as to interview victims’ families.

His long-term coverage extended beyond the repeated pyroclastic and debris flows to include a series portraying the thoughts of more than 10,000 evacuees, examinations of the ways relief supplies were delivered to disaster areas, and analyses of flaws in legislation for victims’ recovery.

After moving to a TV broadcaster in Fukuoka in 2005, Kanbe returned to Nagasaki this spring for the first time in 31 years. “The people of Shimabara were so kind to me, a then rookie reporter covered in ash,” he recalled. “They were comrades who fought through the disaster together for years. I wanted to end my working life in Nagasaki.”

Currently, he teaches a seminar in visual media theory and has proposed to his seven students that they study the volcanic disaster. The third-year students — all natives of Nagasaki — expressed interest in the disaster that had taken place before they were born.

In late May, Kanbe and his students visited Shimabara, where he explained the events on-site. They were accompanied by Shinichi Sugimoto, 76, director of the Mt. Unzen Disaster Memorial Hall and a former city official, who recounted how he narrowly escaped danger because he happened to be in a community center downstream when the massive pyroclastic flow struck.

The students later interviewed Sugimoto at the memorial hall, which conveys the lessons of the volcanic disaster. For more than 20 minutes, they asked questions on camera such as “What are the lessons of the Fugen peak disaster?” “What challenges remain unresolved?” and “How can we pass the memory of the disaster on to children?”

Student Saki Miyachi, 20, said, “I realized how close to the mountain reporters worked to cover the event. Disaster reporting is important, but I want to think about where to draw the line.” Another student, Wakaba Sato, 20, said, “Moving forward, I want to interview those affected by the disaster, as well as young people in the same generation as us and elementary school students in Shimabara, who didn’t experience the disaster.”

The group plans to assign members to speak with former local volunteer fire squad chiefs, ex-city officials, survivors and members of the press, reconstruct the movements of people on the afternoon of June 3, 1991, and consider donating their findings to the memorial hall and preserving them at the university.

“There are many lessons from the Unzen disaster that we must not forget, and perhaps some things can only be spoken about for the first time now,” Kanbe said. “I look forward to seeing what the students, who are around the same age I was as a newcomer then, will feel, what they want to ask, and how they want to present these to others. I hope we can record not only the stories but also how the media worked hand in hand with local residents during coverage.”

This is how Kanbe reflects today, having remained on the scene as a reporter until the eruption finally subsided.