Local Scale Hazard - Kobe Earthquake Flashcards
Date
17th January 1995
Magnitude
6.8 on the Richter scale
Cost
$100 billion, costliest urban disaster of the time.
Death, injured and homeless
6,000 dead, 35,000 injured and 250,000 homeless.
How was Kobe unprepared for the earthquake?
Some suggestions of overconfidence as there hadn’t been a serious earthquake for 400 years.
People thought they were safe due to overall defences across Japan and Tokyo and large wealth.
Many older houses with large tiled rOOFES THAT KILLED CITIZENS WHEN THE BUILDINGS WERE UNSETTLED.
ALSO GOVERNMENT DIDNT REACT FAST ENOUGH TO THE SCALE OF THE DISASTER BY PROMOTING VOLUNTEERS AND THEY DECLINED INTERNATIONAL HELP.
Short/long term responses - 5
Electricity, water, communication and transportation was restored within months of the event.
Creation of 48,000 housing units to house the homeless that made up 20% of the city.
70% of port operations were restored within a year.
Most of the debris was removed and 60% was reused in landfill sites.
Manufacturing output was back up at 95% after 15 months.
Longer term responses and lessons learnt - 6 more general points.
Improved seismic resistance of existing buildings.
Improved fire fighting capacity.
Protecting lifelines (water, energy and communication)
Community participation (education and awareness schemes)
Encouragement of NGOs that are more flexible during the disaster as they are based elsewhere - can preserve losses and reinvest in local area.
More Disaster resistant measures.
