Kobe+(Japan)+1995

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__**Kobe (Japan) 1995**__
 

 **Section 1: Background to the earthquake.**

 The Kobe earthquake, also known as, the Great Hanshin earthquake, is a result of a destruvtive plate margin.

The Japanese Islands belongs to four tectonic plates, that is, the Okhotsk(or North America), the Eurasia(or Amurian), the Pacific, and the Philippine Sea plates (Figure 1). The former two continental plates are colliding in Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The location of the boundary of these plates is still controvertible.

So,two oceanic plates (Phillippines and the Pacific plates) and one continental plate (Eurasian plate) collided to create a subduction zone. **(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subduction)**

Kobe, the sixth largest city in Japan, has a population of 1.5 million people.It is located on the south central coastline of Japan. The total area of Kobe is 551.40 square kilometers. The city, of Kobe, is built on a plain, however there is a mountaineous region within approximately 100km. ( Epicenter: 34.6 N 135.0 E Awajishima Island, 20 miles south of Kobe ) **Section 2: What Happened?**

Earthquakes are natural hazards, which occur on plate margins. Earthquakes are the result of plate movements. The strain builds up along the fault line between two plates until they move causing earthquakes. So why did the Kobe earthquake happen? Japan is at a high risk to earthquakes. Kobe is no exception. Japan's second most major port is situated on a minor fault, the Nojma Fault. Unfortunately it lies above a destructive plate margin. Kobe is located above where the Philippines crust (oceanic crust) and the Eurasian crust (continental crust) meet. It was along this fault that the triggered the earthquake that hit Kobe.

The Richter scale reading was 7.2 which indicates that a lot of damage was caused. Primary effects included 200,000 buildings collapsing, 1 km of the expressway collapsing, and 120 of the 150 quays in the port of Kobe being destroyed. Secondary effects include electricity supplies disrupted. People were afraid to return home as the 716 recorded aftershocks lasted several days after the main event. (74 of these were strong enough to be felt by humans). During this time the ground moved 18cm horizontally and 12cm vertically. The earthquake was not only powerful but the epicenter was only 20km away from the city, it resulted in massive damage to property and loss of life.

 **Section 3 Impact of the earthquake:** __Political - social__ The 1995 Kobe earthquake really changed the mindset of Japanese people. The earthquake created an open psychological space in post-war Japanese society. It opened a new frontier. The social construction of reality drastically shifted from a one dimensional public interest model to a two dimensional model. This shift allowed us to share the common language of civil society, active citizenship and community involvement with the rest of the world. __Social:__ The Kobe earthquake killed over 5,470 people and 34,900peolpe got injured.Over 136,000 housing units were destroyed in the earthquake or subsequently demolished. The vast destruction, heavy casualties, and economic losses in the earthquake underscored the importance of bettering our understanding and forecasting seismic hazards in urban areas. 

  __Economic:__ Damage to infrastructure of port logistics and transportation.  After the Kobe earthquake, there was a wider negative impact on business confidence in Japan. Similarly after this disaster there will be a wider negative impact, as tourism and consumer and business confidence is impacted by the scale of the disaster. Not only is tourism important, but also for many countries this is the peak tourist season, compounding the impact.

 __Government  __ The earthquake caused a shift in our view of society, simply because the government also became a victim and it functions were paralyzed for about three months. What happened during this time was the emergence of volunteerism all over the earthquake disaster hit frontier. The OHP shows a quote from a volunteer manager who ran the relief volunteer operation for the neighboring city of Ashiya. 

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 * Section 4: Evaluation**

This earthquake had devastating effects on Japan. It is estimated that around 5,500-6,500 people lost their lives in this earthquake in which 4,600 were from Kobe. It also caused ten trillion yen or $200 billion in damages. Which constituted 2.5% of GDP of Japan. Around 300,000 people were left homeless after this earthquake. These catastrofical amounts of money were lost because of the attempt to evade a different hazard: Hurricanes. Houses were built with heavy roofs so as to withstand the strong winds and reduce ocsilation. However these heavy roofs (mostly lead) were a main reason why so many buildings collapsed in a supposedly earthquake proof (to some extent) city. Another reason is the mistakes that were created during the engineering of the buildings. This should be taken into consideration due to the fact that the expressway collapsed. It was built to be entierly earthquake proof but even so, over 1km of the expressway was destroyed.

This earthquake is a very good example of how unprepared LEDCs can be to deal with the damages. 2 years to fix the ports, a year to fix the roads and 7 months to fix the railway. It took the Japanese governement almost ten years to rehouse all the people that became homeless due to the earthquake.