JAPAN: In Kobe, Roads are Restored but Quake Survivors Struggle

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

OSAKA, Japan, Jan 17 1996 (IPS) - It has been a long, tough year for Yoshikazu Iwanami, a 70-year-old widower who lives in a cramped two-roomed prefabricated house provided by the government after his apartment was burned down in the killer Kobe earthquake.

“I don’t want to leave this place,” he says softly, tears rolling down his face. Iwanami is almost bed-ridden after a severe bout of rheumatism, a condition he developed after being forced to live in a cold, damp emergency shelter for four months after he lost his home.

He is now settled in his free accommodation, but will soon have to move in accordance with a stated Japanese government policy to evacuate by January 1997, the more than 700 people who still live in prefabricated homes in Kobe, situated west of the commercial city of Osaka.

The prospect is terrifying for the residents and highlights one of the most pressing problems facing the survivor of the earthquake today.

For while the city shows few signs of the devastation that wrecked parts of it on Jan. 17, 1995, more than 90,000 people continue to live in temporary housing and surveys indicate stress and anxiety affects almost all the survivors of the quake.

“It is impossible for me to pay for my own apartment from the Yen 120,000 (1,200 dollars) monthly pension that I depend on,” explains the thin-framed Iwanami. “I also do not want to live in a home for the aged which is my only other option.”

Wednesday marks the first anniversary of the Great Hanshin Earthquake that claimed more than 6,000 victims and left most of the port city in a twisted, blackened, flattened ruin. Added to the physical destruction left by the quake that measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, was the scar left on Japanese psyche.

Television pictures of firemen standing helplessly before the raging fires that swept the city after the quake, and buildings smashed into a dusty pulp remains a nightmare for a people who had been told about the virtues of their country’s quake resistant technology.

“The terrible day has illustrated our weak points and strengths,” says Masako Fujita, Director of the Disaster Victim Assistance Programme.

“We realise now how important is it to have a better welfare system. On the other hand we have learnt to cooperate and care about each other, values we were losing fast in our single-minded march towards economic success,” the volunteer worker adds.

In a desperate bid to restore national confidence, the Japanese government pumped in more than three trillion yen (30 billion dollars) for the rebuilding of Kobe in 1995. It has resulted in the quick restoration of roads, railroads and power and gas supplies.

Bulldozers cleared away the rubble within a month; Kobe port, which was closed after the quake, is working at 80 per cent of its capacity today.

But for the affected people, life is far from back to normal.

High unemployment — four per cent in Kobe — will be a long- term consequence because large companies have moved operations to other areas.

“Government efforts have concentrated heavily on building the infrastructure in the damaged area. While this is important, politicians and officials have ignored individual needs, the more pressing concern,” reported TBS television, a popular channel.

It is hard to ignore the frustration among the thousands of displaced. Survivors talk endlessly about their desperate need for secure jobs and homes.

“After living without running water, electricity and no help for four days (after the quake), my wife left with the children to her parents home in Hiroshima. We now face the difficult decision of leaving a secure life there for Kobe, the place we love but offers us no future,” explained Hiromasa Uchiro, 44, manager of a Kobe coffee shop for 20 years.

The quake reduced the shop to rubble. The raging fire that consumed parts of the city burnt out a long line of shops that surrounded his cafe. While government funds have restored much of the infrastructure of the shopping complex, store owners are loathe to return mainly because of the lack of customers.

“To start my coffee shop I will need to take a 30 million yen (300,000 dollar) loan. But with less customers how do you expect me to pay it back?” asks Uchiro.

One of the main reasons why the problem of housing remains unsolved is the current heated debate between the government and the survivors.

An official plan to turn the devastated section of the city into high-rise apartment complexes has been met with scorn and suspicion among the affected public which would rather have their small residential lots.

Most of houses that were destroyed during the quake were traditional old wooden houses that belonged to the lower-classes in Japanese society. These people, many being ethnic Koreans and Burakumin — the latter official outcasts — depend on each other for survival in a country which largely shuts them out of wider society.

Volunteers also point out that with so many elderly among the displaced, the government must be sensitive to their needs.

These people made a significant contribution to Japan’s post- war economic boom, notes Fujita of the Disaster Victim Assistance Programme. “They cannot be dumped in the process of turning Kobe into a high-tech city.”