An international telecommunication symposium was held in the quake/tsunami hit Japanese city of Sendai. The goal was to discover which form of telecommunications works best in a tsunami disaster.

Cells phones proved to be useless, as there was no way to charge the batteries.  Use of pay phones was limited because of tsunami damage.

It turns out that the best way to communicate with disaster victims is still the tried and true Radio!  A study found that most survivors, who knew what was going on, were listening to portable radios.

The boss of Japan’s NHK broadcaster (NHK actually won awards for their reporting on the disaster), said in the next disaster they will focus even more on getting useful information out for those survivors who might be listening on portable radios.