JAPAN: In Kobe Roads Restored but Most Survivors of Killer Quake Still Suffering from Stress and Anxiety

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

OSAKA, Jan 20 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 survivors of the earthquake today.

For while the city shows few signs of the devastation that wrecked some blocks Jan 17, 1995, more than 90,000 people continue to live in temporary housing. 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 marked 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 construction 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 it is 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.