Reporting two tragedies at once for Indian news network WION

The first three days of the new year are typically the most quiet time in Japan. Even people who never take time off will get some rest and visit family. This year was different.

On January 1st, one of the worst recent earthquakes hit Japan in the rural Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture. This resulted in the cancellation of the Emperor’s traditional New Year’s greeting from a balcony in the imperial palace on January 2nd, which is one of the very few events during that time in Japan.

Then, in the late afternoon of the same day, another tragedy hit. Will still doing on-camera reporting on the situation in the disaster-affected region, shocking images came in from Tokyo’s Haneda airport where a big passenger jet was on fire! It seemed to have hit a smaller airplane. Thankfully, all passengers of the large plane made it out, however, it was later confirmed that five people on the smaller Japan Coast Guard plane, which was supposed to carry emergency goods to earthquake-striken Noto peninsula, had perished in the flames.

All of this meant doing live-reporting about two Japan-related topics at the same time for two TV stations, namely the English service of the Deutsche Welle (DW), and for the first time also for Indian news channel WION.

WION also pre-recorded a more in-depth interview about disaster management in Japan with me, which you can watch here: