Geography Review Vol 20 No4 March 2007 has an excellent article on Kobe and the effects of the Earthquake.The earthquake
TIME: 5.46am 17 January 1995.
Epicenter: 16km below surface,Awaji Island
The effects include:-
Cost: $100 billion.
Dead: 4.571
Injured: 14.678
Over 60 yr olds dead:59%
Emergency Shelters provided 599
People needing emergency shelter:236,899 Building destroyed 67,421; Schools damaged: 85%; Hospitals damaged 191 of 222; 100% power failure (fixed in 7 days). 25% phones lines damaged. Whole city lost water supply, fixed in 91 days. Gas failure 80% (fixed in 85 days) 1 0f 3 shopping districts heavily damaged.
Over 1.13 million volunteers arrived to help local communities.Laptops used for storing information on missing persons and identifying availability of water, shelter and food.(Informal GIS ). Later information on job opportunities, schooling and housing collected.
Japanese goverment allocated over $58 billion for rebuilding city infrastructure in first 3 years.
Thousands of buildings damaged particularly the old timber framed houses. Low income households, elderly people lived in the older timber houses. The middle income households lived in modern more expensive homes, that were stronger. Half of those affected moved to live with relatives or into rented accomadation. 236,899 remained homeless. these were mainly lower income elderly people.Emergency shelter and temporary housing in suburbs were provided. Many homeowners were not allowed to build a new house on teh same plot as their old one, as planning regulations had changed since the original houses were built. many landowners sold their their city centre plots to private developers so they could build high cost housing. Low income housing (public housing) was built on the edge of the city. By 2000 all temporary housing had been removed.
