Reuniting friends, announcing restaurant and shop reopenings, sharing information on where people can get health care, it’s all in a day’s work for the crew of Miyako FM 77.4, a makeshift radio station born days after the deadly tsunami of March 11 swept over their city.

“After the tsunami and earthquake, we had nothing: no electricity, no lights, no telephone …  It was so dark, we couldn’t even watch TV, so we didn’t know what was going on, we didn’t get any information,” said Satou Shoji, a retired Miyako city worker who runs the station. “Only radio was something that we could listen to.”

Miyako, tucked into a state park and home to 60,000 people, was hard hit when the quake-generated waves roared ashore:  At least 420 people were killed in the city, 3,670 homes were destroyed and at least 1,170 were left homeless.

Shoji, 61, said he and other members of the Miyako Community Broadcasting Society had already laid the groundwork for a local radio station and quickly sprang into action. They got permission to go on the air and arranged for a consulting company in Fukushima to the south to bring up the equipment they needed, including audio processors, a microphone and a sound mixer.

They uttered their first words on the air on March 22 -- just 11 days after the quake.

The early broadcasts focused on immediate needs, Shoji said.

“For the first month, it was all about the dead people or the missing people and also the lifeline (electricity, water, other infrastructure), whether it’s going to come back,” said Shoji, whose home was among those destroyed and whose parents and an aunt were killed in the nearby city of Yamada.

Kyle Drubek for msnbc.com

Station manager Satou Shoji checks listener emails at his desk. Questions and comments from other listeners are aired daily. .

The station, which airs daily from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 to 4 p.m. and is also broadcast on Ustream, a live video webcasting service, has built a good following. The volunteer staff regularly receives email and faxes from residents trying to locate missing friends or find out where they can obtain goods or services.

The station has helped reconnect a handful of residents, Shoji said.

“There were five to six cases that I know of,” he said, noting it may seem like “small numbers but we started without having any information at all. This is something a newspaper or TV couldn’t do, but this is something that, because we are a local station, that we could do.”

Local radio has a proven track record in sorting through the chaos after a major disaster. In 2005, msnbc.com documented how a tiny radio station in Kiln, Miss., became a lifeline for that community. And at least two other local emergency radio stations have sprung up along the northeastern coast of Japan --  in the communities of Kamaishi and Ofunato  –  since  the tsunami.

In the first days and weeks after the disaster, “People were confused, the city itself was confused,” Shoji said. “Every day, we heard the patrol car or the ambulance with the sirens on. … It was just a mess, a mess.”

But Miyako FM came on the air as the city was beginning to shift into clean-up and recovery mode and has played a small but important part in moving that process along, he said.

 “People’s needs were shifting towards the future,” and they needed to know when a shop or hospital had reopened, or when temporary housing would be built, Shoji said. “As the city has calmed down (from the disaster), I think the economic activity has gradually been coming back again.”

The station, which is funded by the city, has two volunteer announcers, three paid workers and a small staff of high school students who help do research. The studio is crammed into in a single office, with the equipment and a pile of email stacked on a table big enough for two people. One of the walls is decorated with a flag and cards from well-wishers to the people of Tohoku region, which encompasses Miyako.

Kyle Drubek for msnbc.com

Tetsutaro Yoshida, left, a veteran announcer from Okinawa, and local co-host Miiko Fujiwara wrap up the early show on Friday.

Miyako FM has developed a strong fan base, some from as far away as Tokyo.

Among them is Jun Saito, a 52-year-old Miyako resident. Saito, whose home was not affected by the tsunami, said she found out about the station on Twitter and discovered that it offered useful information on where you could buy necessities. She also noted that the announcers’ “soothing” voices helped her feel better in the post-disaster reality.

“When I listen to it I feel like I am safe,” she said. “This voice makes me relieved and secured. This announcer is talking to us Miyako people. It's a heartwarming station and I want to keep listening.”

Shoji would like to see Miyako FM 77.4 evolve into a commercial station with expanded offerings, such as comedy, as the needs of the community evolve.

“At the moment, I can’t enjoy it,” he said. “This is something we have to do. A day passes so quickly and we’re doing it every day. This is something that we feel obligated to do and we think that we are being helpful. …  (But) as the reconstruction moves on, we won’t have to do this temporary disaster radio station, I hope.”