A street leading from the Daimaru store in Motomachi to Higashi Yuenchi Park (next to Kobe city hall) is decorated with arches of multicoloured lights that were donated by the Italian government. After Japanese television reporter asked an earthquake survivor, "Don't you feel cold?" More than 300,000 people were moved to emergency shelters in schools, gymnasiums and other buildings, where they slept like packed sardines on floors and even on the stairs. [My daughter] was so unfortunate to be sleeping beside me. The majority of deaths (over 4,000) occurred in cities and suburbs in Hyōgo Prefecture. ", One Kobe survivor who lived in a two-story wood house that collapsed told the Yomiuri Shimbun, “All five members of my family were buried alive. Aerial view of a corner of Rokko Island. The railways rebounded quickly after the quake, reaching 80% operability in one month. The Mj 7.3 earthquake struck at 05:46 JST on the morning of January 17, 1995. Questions or comments, e-mail ajhays98@yahoo.com, Nature, Science, Animals - Land, Weather, Volcanoes and Earthquakes. The year 1995 is often regarded as a turning point in the emergence of volunteerism as a major form of civic engagement. One in five of the buildings in the worst-hit areas were completely destroyed or rendered uninhabitable. kobe earthquake The Great Hanshin earthquake, or Kobe earthquake, was an earthquake that occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995, at 05:46 JST in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. But for real reconstruction, a long-term process requiring a huge budget, the ministry tightened its purse strings. The Great Hanshin earthquake, otherwise known as the Kobe earthquake, struck at 05.46 JST on 17 January 1995. "One of the oddities of natural disasters," reported Time magazine, "is that rebuilding eventually generates a surge in economic growth and that is almost certain to occur in Japan..Construction firms and producers who supply the steel, glass, concrete, telephones and machinery they need can expect to do well.". Kobe, city, capital of Hyogo prefecture, west-central Honshu, Japan. 1995 Kobe Japan Earthquake Emily L. Laity September 16, 2005 Kobe Japan • Population: 1.5 million • Japan’s 6th Largest city • World’s 6th Largest port Ground Shaking News • When: January 17, 1995 – 5:46am • How long: 20s solid rock 2-3min. The fact that volunteers from all over Japan converged on Kobe to help victims of the quake was an important event in the history of volunteerism in Japan. Fires following the earthquake incinerated the equivalent of 70 U.S. city blocks. People remained in temporary housing units until January 2000. Many people were killed when heavy typhoon-resistant tile roofs collapsed on top of them. Apr 24, 2013 - Explore Alan Banks's board "Kobe Earthquake 1995" on Pinterest. Whole buildings, apartment blocks and an elevated highway collapsed killing at … The Kobe Earthquake of 1995 The Facts: Where- Kobe, Japan When- Tuesday, January 17, 1995 at 5:46 a.m. Magnitude- 6.9 Deaths: 6,425 Injured: 25,000 Displaced: 300,000 Buildings destroyed: 100,000 Damage: $132 billion What caused this earthquake? After the Kobe Earthquake responses focussed on rehousing people. In December 1995, the government declared January 17 a national "Disaster Prevention and Volunteerism Day", and the week from January 15 to 21 a national "Disaster Prevention and Volunteerism Week", to be commemorated with lectures, seminars, and other events designed to encourage voluntary disaster preparedness and relief efforts. The Hyogo prefectural government complained at the time: "We were forced to issue a lot of local bonds. Phones in twisted and toppled phone booths continued to work. But we couldn't do a thing. People died and houses burned because ambulances and fire trucks were stuck in a 20-mile traffic jam eon the main Osaka-Kobe highway couldn't get to them in time. Good Websites and Sources: Kobe Earthquake Digital Material Collection lib.kobe-u.ac.jp ; Kobe Earthquake Site seismo.unr.edu ; Wikipedia Wikipedia ; Earthquake Image Archive geot.civil.metro-u.ac.jp ; Medical and Public Health Response to the Kobe Earthquake pdf file ippnw.org/MGS ; Insurance and the Kobe Earthquake pdf file u-tokyo.ac.jp/cemano/research ; Kobe Earthquake Restoration kkr.mlit.go.jp ; Book: After the Quake (Knopf, 2002) by Haruki Murakami is a collection of stories related to survivors of the Kobe earthquake in 1995. "7-2(2)The 1995 Southern Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake", CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of September 2020 (, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Japan remembers more than 6,400 victims of Kobe earthquake after 22 years", "A fault model of the 1995 Kobe earthquake derived from the GPS data on the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge and other datasets", Hunt for tsunami orphans hampered, unprecedented, "The Great Hanshin Earthquake: Lessons for Niigata", "Restoration from the earthquake disaster – City planning based on the lessons learned from the disaster", "Earthquake Readiness: From Underground Stores to Satellite Monitoring", Great Hanshin Earthquake and the destruction of the infrastructure, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, The Medical and Public Health Response to the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in Japan: A Case Study in Disaster Planning, Are People Insured Against Natural Disasters? During this time the south side of the Nojima Fault moved 1.5 meters to the right and 1.2 meters downwards. p.153-156 • Risk Management Solutions, 2005, 1995 Kobe Earthquake 10- Experts believe that one of the first thing the Japanese government should have done was make sure the roads were clear so rescuers, emergency equipment and firefighters could make their way to the city. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. The Hyogo-ken Nanbu earthquake was not only powerful ( magnitude 6.9 ), but with the epicentre only 20km southwest of the city, it resulted in massive damage to property and loss of life. One of the primary effects of the Kobe Earthquake for the survivors was coping with utility services being cut off. There, people who lost their homes, became depressed after moving to places where they didn’t know anybody. [19], In response to the widespread damage to transportation infrastructure, and the resulting effect on emergency response times in the disaster area, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport began designating special disaster prevention routes and reinforcing the roads and surrounding buildings so as to keep them as intact as possible in the event of another earthquake. Fire raged on and off for two days, and gas and water mains were ruptured. In the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, the subsequent deaths of about 920 people days and weeks after the disaster, or about 14 percent of all victims, were recognized as being caused by the earthquake. Kobe's modern buildings "seemed to have performed very well," a former Stanford engineering professor told Newsweek. Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Daily Yomiuri, Times of London, Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO), National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications. Also referred to as the Great Hanshin earthquake, the Kobe earthquake stands second to the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, wherein the death toll was somewhere around 140,000. Approximately 1.2 million volunteers were involved in relief efforts during the first three months following the earthquake. A professor at Tokyo University told the New York Times: "This earthquake symbolizes the systematic weak points in our postwar system. Later, when it became clear that Korean victims in Kobe were receiving the same treatment as Japanese, the columnist changed his tune and wrote that the Japanese have "amazing power of self-discipline, perseverance and solidarity. Like all earthquakes, the Kobe earthquake was caused by a sudden movement of the tectonic plates that make up the crust of the earth. The devastation caused by the Kobe Earthquake--5,500 fatalities and extensive property damage--has resulted in innovative approaches by Japanese … This constitutes 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Such was its intensity that even the sensors on the other side of the world picked it. The reason for this is that they were mainly the one who lived in the older houses that collapsed. Even at lower magnitudes, they can be very destructive because they often occur near populated areas and because their hypocenters are located less than 20 km below the surface. This movement could be seen in a rice field on Awaji Island. The hypocentre of the quake was only 16km beneath the surface and 20km from the centre of Kobe, under the reclaimed Awaji island. About 70,000 people were still in shelters, two months after the earthquake. The Kobe earthquake, also referred to as the Great Hanshin earthquake, was a 7.3-magnitude earthquake that rocked the Hyōgo Prefecture of Japan on the dawn of January 17, 1995.Such was its intensity that even the sensors on the other side of the world picked it. The government allocated 3.2 trillion yen, including the issuance of deficit bonds, by compiling three supplementary budgets to carry out such "reconstruction" work as debris removal. May 14, 2011], “The reconstruction committee held five meetings from February 16 to March 23, 1995, and drafted seven emergency proposals for reconstruction planning, housing construction, employment, economic measures and other issues. 46:55. Getting Kobe Back on Its Feet After the 1995 Earthquake, “To deal with the disaster, the government utilized existing bureaucratic entities,” the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Few people died in new homes. The three railroad companies that serviced Kobe announced that service had been restored. Many of homeowners who lost their homes were not insured. Sixty percent of those who died were over 60 years old. 25:07. Food was scarce for the first two days, when some Kobe residents fought over packets of noodles. Do you think is 'partially damaged? It was the worst earthquake that hit Japan in the twentieth century, apart from the Great Kanto (Tokyo) earthquake in 1923. ", Japanese TV shot The Japanese and Western coverage of the earthquake was quite different. The collapse of 18 spans (total length 630 m) of the Hanshin Expressway Route 3 elevated highway bridge in Fukae during the 1995 Kobe earthquake is investigated. The Philippine Sea Plate is subducted beneath the Eurasian plate.What triggered the earthquake was the Median Tectonic Line and it was sudden movement along this fault that triggered the earthquake that hit Kobe. The overturned concrete deck was monolithically connected (“piltz” form) to 3.1-m-diameter circular-column piers, founded on 17-pile groups in alluvium sand and gravel. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been authorized by the copyright owner. the size of the earthquake was 7.2. the earthquake injured 25,000; 46,440 building laid in ruins after the quake. Shoddy construction and poor planning were blamed for the death toll being so high. When the wood supports gave way, the roof crushed the unreinforced walls and floors in a pancake collapse. Posted on June 5, 2013 by manlikekeynes. People were forced to wait in corridors due to the overcrowding and lack of space. At 5.46am on January 17th 1995, whilst many of its citizens were still asleep, the Japanese city of Kobe was hit by largest earthquake in Japan since 1923. The headquarters acted as a coordinator among ministries and agencies, and implemented reconstruction work.” [Source: Yomiuri Shimbun. One woman who was sleeping with her daughter told the Washington Post: "The second floor and a neighbor's house all crashed on us. Gratitude in the workplace: How gratitude can improve your well-being and relationships An on-the spot investigation by JMA concluded that tremors by this earthquake were at seismic intensity of Level 7 in particular areas in northern Awaji Island (now Awaji City) and in the cities of Kobe, Ashiya, Nishinomiya and Takarazuka. Outside Japan the earthquake is commonly known as the Kobe earthquake. About 22% of the offices in Kobe's central business district were rendered unusable, and over half of the houses in that area were deemed unfit for occupancy. In terms of fire incidence in regions heavily affected by the earthquake, fires occurred almost evenly in proportion to the ratio of damaged structures even other than Nagata-ward in Kobe city where major conflagrations were concentrated. '"[Source: Washington Post]. This earthquake registered as 7.2 on the Richter scale and caused mass destruction. The Japanese government subsidized 90 percent of the cost of repairing or replacing public facilities like schools, roads, railroads and the port. Most people in Japan believed those structures to be relatively safe from earthquake damage because of the steel-reinforced concrete design. Hanshin refers to the region between Osaka and Kobe. Evidence from the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake in 1995, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Hanshin_earthquake&oldid=992706984, CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of September 2020, Articles needing additional references from February 2015, All articles needing additional references, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Internal link templates linking to redirects, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 6 December 2020, at 18:08. The earthquake that hit Kobe during the winter of 1995 measured 6.9 on the Richter scale. The great destruction which resulted from the 1995 Kobe Earthquake was due to the shallow depth of the focus which was only about 16 kms. It measured 6.8 on the Moment magnitude scale (USGS), and Mj7.3 (adjusted from 7.2) on JMA magnitude scale. Sort of. Fire raged unchecked in several places. The national government changed its disaster response policies in the wake of the earthquake, and its response to the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake was significantly faster and more effective. At this plate margin, the Pacific plate is being pushed under the Eurasian plate, stresses build up and when they are released the Earth shakes. Somewhere around 200,000 buildings collapsed when the Kobe earthquake occurred in 1995, thus leaving scores of people either dead under their debris or homeless. On the basis of the proposals, the government headquarters decided in the following month on a package of measures that included making Kobe Port fully functional again in two years. Kobe City: Official Kobe Tourism site feel-kobe.jp Hyogo Prefecture site hyogo-tourism.jp ; Map: Japan National Tourism Organization JNTO ;Official Kobe Tourism site feel-kobe.jp ; Links in this Website: VOLCANOS AND JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; MAJOR VOLCANOS AND ERUPTIONS IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; EARTHQUAKES AND JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; EARTHQUAKES AND LIFE IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; LARGE EARTHQUAKES IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; KOBE EARTHQUAKE OF 1995 Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; LARGE EARTHQUAKES IN JAPAN IN THE 2000s Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; TSUNAMIS IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan. Liquefaction during the Great Hanshin earthquake began North of the cities in Japan material this! Shallow earthquake '' but they didn ’ t collapse to stop them because there were Hundreds of fires [! 4 ] the tremors lasted for approximately two weeks every December `` this earthquake symbolizes the weak... 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