Kobe Case study

17th January 1995 (5:46 local time)

• Magnuitude - 7.2
• Duration - 20 secs
• No. of people injured - 33,000
• Number of deaths - 5,470
• Focus - 20km under the island of Awaji
• This region is the second - most powerful undustrialised area after Tokyo, with a total population of about 10 mill people.

This region is the second - most populated industrialised area after Tokyo, with a total population of about 10 mill people.

Many of the older wooden buildings collapsed.

The 1960's office blocks often collapsed in the middle so that floors in the middle were crushed by the floor above though that floor remained in tact.

The Modern building remained largely intact though some were left art an angle because of the liquefaction.

300,000 people were made homeless by the earthquake and had to be given emergency shelter

Severe winter did not make it any better.

Food, blankets, medical supplies and clean water for the first few days were in short supply.

The firefighters were not well prepared enough to tackle the flames.

A lot of gridlock prevented health services from reaching.

• Several ssections of motorway collpased, toppled sideways.
• Railway lines were buckled
• 120 out of 150 quays were destroyed
• Port buildings were badly damaged.

• Most new buildings and roads designed to be earthquake
• Schools and factories had regular earthquake drills educating them what they should do
• Did not help as many old building damaged. Led to a lot of homelessness and many roads were blocked

• $200bn of damages
• $100bn to restore basic functions
• $50bn in loss of private property
• 144,032 buildings lost
• 82,090 building collapsed.
• All ports shut down

Water, electricity, gas, telephone services were fully working by July 1995

The railways were back in service by August 1995

³A year after the earthquake, most of the port was working but the motorway was still closed.

• ³By January 1999, 134,000 houses had been constructed but some people were still having to live in
• temporary accommodation.

New laws were passed to make buildings and transport structures even more earthquake proof.

More instruments were installed in the area to monitor earthquake movements.

• At first quite slow as they did not want to accept help from other cities.
• Volunteerism born.
• Japanese Mafia provided with aid
• Army was sent in but inexperienced?
• School gymnasiums were filled.