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Japan marks 30 years since Kobe quake that killed over 6,400

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Recall this event my very first time coming to Japan. Terrible tragedy. Unfortunately, the post-quake fires led to much of the destruction and death. Fire trucks couldn't access many of the neighborhoods full of wooden structures. Area is drastically improved!

12 ( +12 / -0 )

I was teaching a class of tax officials from around Japan in Tokyo. Several were from the Kansai Area. Not too long after the quake hit the class was interrupted and staff came in to excuse the students from the Kansai area to share the news.

RIP victims of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.

That was a very sad day and period for all of Japan. A year later I moved to the Kansai region and lived there for several years. I was and remain a big fan of Kansai.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Many roads were impassable due to fallen buildings but also there were breaks in many pipes leading to fire hydrants-no water.

However, rivers around Kobe should have been utilized more as sources of water.

Even after the quake, the local onsen (I used) close to Nagata had a plentiful supply of water which was a boon to the residents.

Even now, in 2025, 30 years after the quake, there are still pieces of land which are obviously vacant in Nagata

3 ( +6 / -3 )

I came to live in Japan in 1994. Not coming from an earthquake-prone country, the Kobe earthquake was a shock to see on TV. We were living in Nagano then, and local food companies were trucking relief food to Kobe.

We moved to Kobe after the reconstruction and stayed 16 years. Lovely city. There were many sites where homes once stood.

Attended the yearly memorials for the victims.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Attention is now on plans to establish a new disaster management agency in quake-prone Japan to enhance and expedite responses to earthquakes, typhoons and other natural disasters. The agency is expected to be launched by fiscal 2026.

30 years and just how many disasters later, and it still doesnt exist. Perfect example of Japanese bureaucracy!

It's sad, and everyone involved in the process should be ashamed.

-5 ( +8 / -13 )

The socialist prime minister at the time refused to dispatch the SDF, as he said that residents would be upset at the sight of people in military uniforms on their streets. Crazy times, indeed.

-3 ( +7 / -10 )

Water was not available to many residents and the local municipal hospital on Port Island could be smelt before being seen.

The number of homes that just simply collapsed completely hid many bodies which fortunately, being January did not decompose quickly.

Had the disaster occurred in the summer then the situation would have been very different and the SDF would certainly have been needed.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

The Kobe Yakuza were the first to hand out blankets, food, water, and toiletries to the victims.

At least 70 yakuza trucks were sent to the affected areas.

The yakuza delivered over $500,000 worth of relief goods.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

Had a friend who was the CEO of a company in Osaka but the rail lines were destroyed. For several months he travelled from Kobe to Osaka and back by private boat.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

I also experienced the quake from a neighbouring prefecture, at a much less intensity of course. I had arrived in Japan only hours earlier.

Originally I had planned to stay with a local couple who I met in Australia in Nada, Kobe.

But 1 month before I left, I got an offer to share a house with another student in another city.

My friends in Nada were safe but their house was completely destroyed. Always think how lucky I was.

As news filtered in in the morning, people were shocked esp with the news videos of destruction and fires.

Wallace - that may well be true about the Yakuza - embellished by folklore - but don't forget that the money/goods they spread were made off of the misery, pain and exploitation of 1,000s others - mainly ordinary folks. The yakuza were not godsends - they were merely propping up their base and influence, to consolidate themselves as rulers of the kingdom.

The largest group - The Yamaguchi clan - had headquarters in Nada and were the group you mentioned as supplying aid. They could do relief work because they were actually there and other help couldn't get in. But even tyrants historically gave aid to the peasants. Their list of bad-doings has no end.

And on a positive Kobe and Awaji have really bounced back. I recommend people to visit Awaji Island sometime. Many lovely spots.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

A huge tragedy with many lessons to learn. The main one is that it was lucky for it to happen at 5:46 am and not when people were on the move. The Hanshin highway collapsed on the whatever multilane trunk road below is called (Route 47?), and the Shinkansen collapsed in four places. Hankyu Itami station, on the Japanese second floor, collapsed and crushed its first floor, luckily killing only a couple of policemen in the koban. Much of this was due to buildings and elevated structures not being built to withstand vertical movement. Kobe is on typhoon alley, so many buildings have heavy tiled roofs whose weight crushed the houses when they started shaking. The Chuetsu earthquake in Niigata had similarly aged houses, but built with fatter timbers for snow loads and few tiled roofs, so far fewer actual collapses.

The main lesson is that if you live in an old house, such as an akiya, you should reinforce it. A couple of months ago NHK's Science Zero said this typically costs 1.2 to 1.5 million yen, a small sum in the world of home renovations. Anyone with a new car, even a kei, will have spend at least that much more than I spent on my van. "Oh no we can't afford it" doesn't wash for many people.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Wallace - that may well be true about the Yakuza - embellished by folklore - but don't forget that the money/goods they spread were made off of the misery, pain and exploitation of 1,000s others - mainly ordinary folks. The yakuza were not godsends - they were merely propping up their base and influence, to consolidate themselves as rulers of the kingdom.

I was not trying to justify the Yakuza and its criminal activities but in this case, they moved quicker than the government to give aid to the victims. Sometimes bad people can do good stuff.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Engineers generally attribute the collapse of the Hanshin highway to inadequate structural design and to a lesser extent the materials used. Let us hope that all other structures designed and built in the 70s and 80s have now been retrofitted, and all subsequent ones built to the stricter standards brought in after the tragedy.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Kobe forever strong!!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

i also remember it well. i’d been in japan for a few years already. the image of the toppled highway remains.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The socialist prime minister at the time refused to dispatch the SDF, as he said that residents would be upset at the sight of people in military uniforms on their streets. Crazy times, indeed.

The truth is totally different. PM could not, by law, dispatch the SDF. Prior to the Hanshin quake, rules, regulations and precedents this along with political concerns about deploying the SDF for non-military purposes.

Laws were changed to allow the PM to dispatch them in cases of natural disasters, and they HAVE been since.

Be nice to have folks get their facts straight!

4 ( +5 / -1 )

People's "google" skills seem to be lacking here!

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Wallace - thanks.

Yes I didn't mean that you actually thought the Yakuza were saviors, but many people still do/did because of their aid at that time.

Probably need to clarify that when posting, because even some on this forum may well have thought,

"Well they can't be that bad".

In fact they are. As I said they were in a position to help because they were right there in the midst of the damage - it was their turf. I doubt any organized crime syndicates immediately moved into the zone from outside the prefecture, bearing benevolent offers of food, money and assistance.

Milked it for sure.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The Kobe Yakuza were the first to hand out blankets, food, water, and toiletries to the victims.

I think most people and organizations in the affected area helped out. It's still a huge memory for me. I lived in southern Kansai and wasn't badly affected. (A couple of broken glasses in our house.) But over half of the employees in our company lived between Kobe and Osaka. I spent most of the day on the phone along with other employees trying to check that everyone was OK. They were, but there was an American woman we were unable to contact. Three days later, she walked into the Osaka office. One of the female staff members shouted at her in anger - "Why didn't you let us know you were OK?" And then she ran up and hugged her. Hard to forget.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Lived in Kobe during the Big One as was the loudest sound heard ever to wake up as was flying hitting the ceiling and was real bad outside no help for foreigners other then staying at the Kobe Cub across the street from my home. Seems the government learned some lessons but do not want to test them here now in Tokyo.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

There was nothing GREAT about it. I was living in Kameari when that happened.

Felt it all the way in Tokyo.

I had just come home from work an hour or two (in the morning) .

Wife slept through it, and it was still a 5? In Tokyo area

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

During 30 years, this country had experienced even more disasters including March 2011.

But, evacuation places are poor as ever, situation that evacuees cannot but stay or sleep on hard and cold floor is not rare, it's still hotbed of disaster-related death.

Besides, recent LDP regime has no interest safe of citizen, they are always too late and insufficient such as initial response or recovery, continue to victimize the lives that could be saved one after another.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

YubaruJan. 17  08:07 am JST

Attention is now on plans to establish a new disaster management agency in quake-prone Japan to enhance and expedite responses to earthquakes, typhoons and other natural disasters. The agency is expected to be launched by fiscal 2026.

30 years and just how many disasters later, and it still doesnt exist. Perfect example of Japanese bureaucracy!

That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

It says "plans to establish a new disaster management agency" -- implying that there is already one, but is being replaced.

And the text says the new agency will aim "to enhance and expedite responses."

This presumably means that there are already response procedures in place -- but they are being improved.

To replace, update, and improve upon existing agencies and procedures is not an uncommon thing at all -- in any country or in any field of endeavor.

And it hardly means that the agencies and procedures "didn't exist" previously.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

wallaceJan. 17  09:58 am JST

> I was not trying to justify the Yakuza and its criminal activities but in this case, they moved quicker than the government to give aid to the victims. Sometimes bad people can do good stuff.

Yes, sometimes they can do good -- but other times, they can "do good" but with totally ulterior motives.

Al Capone ran soup kitchens during the Depression. Pablo Escobar helped a lot of poor people. Gang leaders and drug dealers in major U.S. cities often help the needy in the neighborhoods in which they operate.

For entirely good motives? No way.

They did/do so in order to ingratiate themselves with the people, who would then keep quiet whenever the police came around asking questions.

Do the yakuza do the same thing with regard to the aid they provide to disaster victims? It's not unreasonable to assume, or at least to suspect, that they do.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

And it hardly means that the agencies and procedures "didn't exist" previously.

Let me guess, you are unfamiliar with how things work in Japan?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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