Geography GCSE: Earthquake Case Study (Kobe)

How did the Japanese authorities’ respond to the Kobe earthquake in the short-term. Tell me about the immediate response: the relief effort, aid, emergency organisations, and the speed of the recovery.

Immediately after when the earthquake hit many hospitals were still standing but that was not the problem since the injured could not reach the hospitals. This was down to the roads being blocked by the debris from collapsed buildings. The debris also damaged communication lines, electricity and water which cut these supplies off to this area. In response to this authorities decided that the police would deal with the initial search and rescue until more emergency services had been mobilised. Hundreds of bulldozers were deployed to clear out the debris and behind them came field hospitals. This was done so that the affected could be treated more rapidly. The more seriously injured were taken to the hospitals which now were given emergency power supplies but this only happened three days after the disaster struck. The army was supposed to be in charge of the field hospitals but the national government acted extremely slowly since it took them about 5 hours to prepare the national defence force and then there were only two hundred of them.

The Government underestimated the effects of the earthquake as only 300,000 people were initially involved in the rescue. However major companies helped for example, Motorola and NTT  provided free telephone service for victims and Daiei alongside 7-eleven provided clothing for victims as well to keep them warm.

Fires were a problem because of the poor organisation, as the fire brigade could not move until the roads had been cleared. They did have the tools to remove debris but not enough because the government was slow in giving instruction and allocating personnel.

The dead eventually were cleared away since they might start of diseases leading to even further loss of life, which was a good move by the authorities as they could contaminate water supplies which would lead to people dying of thirst or disease. Shelters were set up so that people were protected from the elements such as bad weather as well as to help address the psychological effects of such a disaster because people would feel safer and taken care of. At the start it is fair to say that the response was slow but it gained speed and efficiency as he process continued and NGOs and foreign aid were allowed to help.

Did Japan receive help from other countries? I understand that some offers of

international aid was turned down at first.

You are correct in saying that we did receive offers but since our communication systems were down then information about the scale of the disaster could not be determined completely. The Politicians in the capital and other officials argued against one another over whether to designate Kobe a ‘Disaster Zone’. This took several days to resolve and if the did say Kobe was a ‘Disaster Zone’ then emergency relief services could go in. This delayed the whole process and a similar thing occurred with international aid. The lack of information led people to believe that the situation could be dealt with without the need for international aid. This proved to be an error since more equipment and personnel would have been a great help. Also the mindset the Japanese Government had also went against us since they believed that they had the earthquake ‘situation’ under control since a lot of invest had gone into this area of research. Earthquake proof buildings had been put into place and the early warning systems were in their eyes extremely sophisticated.

A year on, how has Kobe recovered?

The costs were extremely elevated, around $100billion dollars of damage and disruption to the economy. This is approximately 2.5% of Japan’s total GDP and to make matters worse only 3% of Kobe was insured against earthquakes and this is because many businesses were not aware that this was a earthquake prone zone. This meant that after the earthquake a lot of large companies that contribute to the economy of Kobe left. Another factor that made them leave was that around a quarter of all large office buildings were declared unusable.Tokyo has around 16% of buildings under earthquake insurance and it has a much larger population. The port was also almost entirely unusable and it was 40% of Kobe’s total output. This makes our task even harder and a longer more stressful process for the citizens.

The obvious urgent issues that needed to be addressed quickly are the construction of new homes for the people that were left homeless by this earthquake. This is set to be completed by the middle of 1999. At the moment they have good accommodation in temporary shelters. The majority of people have been moved into buildings which are warm and they are provided with the vital supplies especially food and water. The psychological effects cannot really be dealt with but the measures above will do their best to comfort the people affected. There is also a longer term plan of resettlement.

The communications, electricity lines, gas and water were all restored shortly after the disaster and all areas are steadily recovering. Overall it is an enormous challenge, but so far it has gone well and the future is brighter for Kobe.

Has Japan learnt any lessons from the recovery – would you react differently to an earthquake of similar magnitude if it struck Kobe today?

Most of the deaths and injuries occurred in districts such as the Nagata ward, where there were a large number of timber-framed buildings with heavy roof tiles. These had been designed to withstand heavy rain and typhoons, and so were poorly suited against an earthquake where they became death traps and the tiles fell on people in the street. Also, older and poorer people who could not afford more modern, earthquake-resistant buildings were concentrated here. Therefore, the Japanese learned to improve the seismic resistance of existing, older buildings and the Kobe city council will eventually retrofit all such houses - meanwhile within several months of the disaster 48000 housing units were provided for the homeless. There is also planning for rezoning and larger thoroughfares.

Also the government took a long time to respond to the disaster because of inadequate  coordination and communication (many telecommunications were damaged) between politicians and local administrators. Therefore it took longer for emergency services to get to where they were needed. The lesson learned from this is to protect lifelines and place backup systems for them.

Another lesson learned from the disaster was improving the fire-fighting capacity as a large number of buildings were severely damaged by fires that followed the earthquake and the city council is currently exploring solutions to this such including adding more use of rivers and the sea.

During the earthquake despite Japan debatably having the best educated population about earthquakes, people still panicked, and those who did not could not do anything to help or any basic tools. The people need to be better informed through awareness and education programs especially in the stockpiling of resources for emergency, the ability of ordinary people to fight fires and basic tools for search and rescue. The council is also encouring a range of NGOs as they seemed more flexible in the event of emergency than the government.

Lastly, there needs to be an improval in disaster resistant measures which would protect people from both the primary and secondary hazards caused by earthquakes such s firebreaks along rivers and roadways, mountain greenbelts to reduce landslides and a canal project to ensure water supply and backup for hospitals.

What about the response in the long-term? Has it led to any changes in laws and regulations that could prevent another disaster of this scale?

Only 19 of the 269 high rise buildings are planned to be rebuilt and 62 were demolished in order to stop them from toppling over and damaging other buildings around them. Many businesses were moved away as well, reducing the need for such a large concentration of high rise offices. Lessons learned from the earthquake will be incorporated into new building design. A form of land-use planning and rezoning was introduced as it is clear that major city-service buildings should not be clustered together in order to decrease the risk of the complete loss of these services during an earthquake. More public open spaces and wider thoroughfares are planned as these proved to be good at providing safe areas for people to shelter from fires and aftershock damage to buildings. On a national level the Japanese Government decided to move some of the countries administrative and political functions to less seismically active areas such as Honshu island.

Risk assessment and adjustment – what is your understanding of these terms?

Risk assessment is the determination of the probability of a hazard and potential areas it can affect and the scale of damage that can do to them. Risk adjustment is taking this a step further and finding ways of minimising the damaging effects of a hazard.

How has Japan protected themselves from these earthquake hazards?

There is land-use zoning so buildings that can be more dangerous in an earthquake are only restricted to be built in limited areas. The ability of emergency services has been assessed and people are now being educated in how to help themselves in basic ways after a disaster and how to deal with secondary effects. The government has moved important infrastructure and administration to less earthquake prone areas in order to avoid devastation of the whole chain of command. Older buildings and office towers (buildings more succeptible to earthquakes) are having structural adjustments and improvements made to them on a large scale.