Analysis of rescue request and damage report tweets posted during 2019 typhoon hagibis

Abstract

The 2019 Typhoon Hagibis (No. 19) caused widespread destruction in eastern Japan. During the disaster, many tweets including rescue request hashtags such as (meaning #Rescue) and (meaning #Rescue-request) were posted on Twitter. An official disaster information account of the Nagano Prefectural Government asked the public to provide information in the form of damage reports and rescue requests using the hashtag 19 (#Typhoon-No.19-Nagano-Prefecture-damage). As a result, many tweets were posted using this hashtag. Moreover, the account contacted the posters of tweets requesting rescue and delivered the information to the Fire Department. In this study, we analyze the circumstances of the above tweets.