Social Scientific Issues Revealed in the Kobe Earthquake of 1995

Abstract

The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster which occurred in the dawn of January 17, 1995 resulted in the severest damages in terms of moralities and physical losses ever since Kanto earthquake in 1923. It affected more than three million people who have lived in the impacted area. This disaster management in addition to physical issues. Unfortunately disaster researches with social scientific orientation have been underrepresented in the disaster studies. This paper reviews some of the major possible research issues for the disaster researchers who are interested in human and societal reactions to disasters. In this paper, three independent operations with different goals has been identified: emergency responses, rehabilitation, and rebuilding. Emergency responses are the opration with the goal to save the endangered life as much as possible. Based on the search and rescue data in Kobe city, it was noted that emergency responses should be prioritizes for the first 72 hours after the disaster onset. Rehabilitation is the processes to restore everyday life for the disaster survivors. Based on the shelter operations data in Kobe city, it was found that lifetime functional failure has a great impact on shelter operations which have been the prime focus in this phase. In fact, this phase has lasted for the first hundred days after the earthquake, it is ended when the Self Defense Force has withdrawn completely from the impacted area. Rebuilding has two aspects; recovery of the victims, and reconstruction of the impacted area. The restoration plans made by both Hyogo prefecture and Kobe city were mainly the plans for rebuilding the impacted area. The rebuilding of the future of each victim was left for themselves without clear guidelines. In all processes of emergency responses, rehabilitation, and rebuilding, there are some many research questions to be studied not only by natural scientists but also by social scientists in collaboration with them.