JAPAN: Desperate Situation in Kobe Worries Tokyoites

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jan 20 1995 (IPS) - The inadequacy of relief efforts for victims of Tuesday’s killer quake in western Japan is causing much anxiety in the earthquake-prone nation, especially in densely populated Tokyo where another temblor is expected soon.

Tokyoites have begun panic-buying, stocking up on bottled water and foodstuffs in anticipation of another major quake in this city of 13 million people.

“When I see the devastated areas I cannot sleep. I think of the damage that will occur should an earthquake strike Tokyo. I’ve stocked up on water and we sleep with helmets and our shoes by the side of our futons,” says Keiko Sato, a Tokyo housewife.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency says the number of tremors strong enough to be felt by people has increased sharply in Tokyo since December.

Katsuyaki Aber, a researcher at Tokyo University’s Earthquake Research Institute, says a nest of large faults lies beneath Tokyo and an intensity 7 quake can occur anytime.

The Tokyo fire department predicts casualties could run up to 60,000 if an earthquake as strong as the one that jolted Kobe hits the capital.

Tokyoites fear a repeat of the devastation caused by the Great Kanto earthquake that rocked Tokyo in 1923, killing more than 140,000 people.

They are also worried that the government will not be able to cope with another disaster after this week’s intensity 7.2 quake which reduced the city of Kobe to rubble. The death toll is now nearing 4,500 and some 275,000 people have been left homeless.

Hundreds of exhausted Kobe residents have been trooping to train stations, carrying huge backpacks and paper bags stuffed with clothes and other belongings.

“There is no point staying at the evacuation centres in the city. They are cold and crowded. There is no food or water, and the lack of toilets is just unbearable. We are going away to stay with relatives,” said a middle-aged woman who walked three hours to the Hanshin-Koshien train station.

“I need a bath and some comfort, things that the city is just not capable of giving us,” added her husband who said he had not slept a wink since the earthquake levelled their two-storey wooden house in Chuo-ku, the city centre.

Victims of the killer quake complain about the inadequate relief conditions offered by the government.

Toshiko Higuchi, a 50-year-old woman from Higashi-Nada ward, says she has been sleeping in her car because there was no more space at the evacuation centre.

“Yesterday I lined up for an hour at the evacuation centre to receive a cream-filled bread roll for breakfast which I shared with my son. It’s really too much,” she said as she got into her four-seater car filled with bags of instant noodles, biscuits and water that she has managed to buy from the supermarket.

More than 30,000 members of the Self Defence Forces, fire brigade and police force are continuing their desperate rescue operations and authorities are working to restore water and electricity supplies to the worst-hit areas.

But the mangled roads, railway tracks and mountains of rubble from damaged buildings and burnt houses have slowed relief operations to an agonising pace.

“We need water to extinguish fires. We need more volunteers, helicopters, any kind of help,” said a firefighter who had worked through the night clearing debris and looking for trapped people. “This is a panic situation.”

The nation has yet to get over the shock of the failure of their country’s much-vaunted ‘anti-earthquake’ technology. Authorities say it could take up to three years to rebuild the devastated areas.

“The quake was so strong. We were not prepared for such a big one,” admitted one government official.

But Prof Robert Geller, a seismologist at the University of Tokyo, says such an explanation is unacceptable in the most earthquake-prone country in the world.

“Kobe has taught Japan some important lessons,” says Geller. “The most obvious is that Japan now knows it is impossible to predict an earthquake. The next painful one is the urgent necessity to be better prepared.”

Japan spends more than one billion dollars a year for its earthquake programme which Geller describes as “science fiction”. A large bulk of that amount is spent on earthquake prediction techniques.

“We must get down to basics such as a better organisation to handle relief operations. It’s a shame that Japanese cities don’t have an extra water supply such as the one in Los Angeles. Japan doesn’t even have trained dogs to help in disaster relief,” Geller adds.

The government admits the massive destruction from the Kobe disaster has highlighted the need to set stricter building standards than the ones set in 1980. “We have to set new standards despite the economic costs,” said one official.

Geller says public resentment over the devastation in Kobe will force the government to improve construction standards.

“If the government can build the Shinkansen train at billions of dollars, I don’t see why the money cannot be diverted for the safety of the people,” says Osamu Higuchi, a Tokyo employee whose sister from Kobe has moved in with him.