Scarred Kobe sends tsunami reminder

Although the focus of discussion at the recent United Nations conference in Japan was the staggering death toll of the Asian tsunami, the gathering had actually been planned to coincide with the 10th anniversary of another disaster... the Kobe earthquake.

As they arrived in their rooms, many of the delegates attending the UN conference were surprised to find a written message from the hotel management.

"Dear guests," it read, "please do not be alarmed if the building creaks. This is normal, due to high winds this season."

It certainly did creak disconcertingly through the night, only, we were told, because the high-rise hotel had a flexible structure, to help resist earth tremors.

The reassurance was perhaps necessary because this was, after all, Kobe, the Japanese city which has become a byword for unforeseen disaster.

Living in one of the most geologically unstable countries on the planet, the Japanese have always prided themselves on their readiness to face earthquakes, typhoons, floods, landslides and volcanoes. Japan has them all.

They rehearse incessantly for such events.

They also pride themselves on the engineering prowess they have acquired while trying to tame their volatile terrain.

They make world-class products that do not break, world-class infrastructure that never fails, and they have a world-beating addiction to concrete, with which they have smothered their rivers and mountainsides to stop them moving around so much.

So it came as a shock on the morning of 17 January 1995 to hear that parts of the country's second largest port, Kobe, had collapsed.

People watched in disbelief at pictures of elevated motorways toppled on their sides and fires raging uncontrollably in residential neighbourhoods. More than 6,000 people lost their lives and 300,000 their homes... in an area the experts had said was low-risk.

Patchy development

Today the city centre is rebuilt, its gleaming towers clustered along Osaka bay, backed dramatically by mountains.

It was this magnificent location that sealed the city's fate.

At 0546, a relatively minor geological fault ruptured close to the earth's surface, just offshore. Boxed in by the mountains, the tremors rippled along the coast in the soft and easily-moved soil under Kobe.

The shocks lasted just 20 seconds, but at more than seven on the Richter scale, they were powerful enough to crumble the foundations of older buildings, and bring down the giant cranes on the harbour.

I took a walk around the district of Nagata, west of the city centre.

This area of old houses, many wooden, was almost entirely consumed by fire after the quake.

Ten years later, many homes have been rebuilt but often only with cheap, pre-fabricated materials, and there are large gaps where no rebuilding has taken place.

Even with all Japan's wealth, recovery has been hard for the people of this poorer neighbourhood.

Crippling chaos

At the Symphony bakery, I spoke to Yoshiko Inaoka. She and her husband have run bakeries in Kobe for 20 years.

She recalls a strange sensation just before the quake. "My heart was pounding as I lay in bed," she said, "then the house started rocking from side to side like a ship at sea."

She remembers people running out of their broken homes in their nightclothes when it was still dark.

"Neighbours tried to help and comfort each other," she said, "but there were many still trapped inside."

No-one came to rescue them.

With roads and communications crippled, the city government was powerless.

At 0800, just over two hours after the quake, shouts of "fire" could be heard. The flames spread quickly, burning those who could not get out, to death, in front of their distraught families.

Firefighters from other towns rushed to Kobe to help, but got stuck in huge traffic jams. When they arrived, they found their hoses did not fit the Kobe hydrants.

The fire in Nagata burned for two days.

Long road ahead

The UN chose to hold its disaster reduction conference here to concentrate minds on the lessons learned from Kobe: that with all the technology and experience Japan has, it was still taken by surprise.

Then the Asian Tsunami occurred... and concentrated minds even more.

As it happens, Japan also has a state-of-the-art tsunami warning system which the conference was happy to adopt as the basis for something similar in the Indian Ocean.

But the much thornier issues they discussed were how to keep people informed and educated to minimise casualties, and how to help devastated regions like Aceh and the Sri Lankan east coast recover.

In her cake shop, tears welled up in Yoshiko Inaoka's eyes, as she talked about hearing news of the tsunami.

"I really feel for those people," she said, "not just for what they've been through, but what they still have to go through."

She and her husband borrowed heavily to rebuild their bakeries. They are still overwhelmed by debt.

People moved out of Nagata. Their children's school lost 40% of its pupils.

"I was so grateful just to survive," she said. "I didn't worry about losing our home and business. But I had no idea how hard the past 10 years would be.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 22 January, 2005 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.