January 17th, 1995.

For those like me, who were living in the Kobe area in 1995, January 17th carries a significant meaning: the day our town was completely devastated by a massive earthquake that became known as the Great Hanshin Earthquake. 

I was 12 years old at that time. I lived in Nishinomiya, a city located between Osaka and Kobe.

In the early hours of that cold winter’s day, I was awaken by a massive jolt from the ground. For a few moments, I had no idea what was happening. My mother, who was sleeping next to me, screamed “It’s an earthquake!”

She covered my sister and me with a heavy blanket, crouched over us and held us tightly. The earth rambled. The furniture rattled. Frightened to death, we stayed very still until the tremor passed.

“Do you remember the evacuation drill at your school?” Mom asked me. “I’m not too sure what we are supposed to do now.”

I was terrified. I tried hard to remember the instructions we received at the drill:

“First, you have to duck under the desk, away from tall furniture or windows… And then, open the door to evacuate. And don’t run outside until the shaking stopped.” I said.

“Okay, anything else?”

“Uh… make sure there are no fire risk from gas stoves, oil heaters, and so on.”

“Okay, I just go and close the gas valves. Can you smell any gas?” 

She went downstairs to the kitchen. A strong aftershock rocked the house again. 

I was worried the house was going to collapse and she would die. I held my younger sister close to me. She didn’t say a word, and she was quivering. 

When mom came back to the bedroom, I was almost in tears.

“It looks our house has been badly damaged. We’d better to go to grandparents’ house.” Mom said. She was possibly thinking that the house may collapse in any minute. 

“Get ready, quickly. Put some warm clothes on.” Though she was trying to keep calm, she sounded really scared.

While I was changing, she brought my sneakers to the bedroom and told me to put them on. I was surprised to be told to wear shoes in the house. But as I went out of the bedroom, I understood why; The hallway was covered with dust and glass shards from the shattered windows. The floor was uneven and cracked. There was a huge gap on the top of the staircase. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

—

As soon as I stepped outside, I looked for my dog, Daisy. I called out, “Daisy! Daisy!”. She came from around the back of the house.

She ran to me and licked my hand. It was a huge relief to see that she was safe. 

“We have to leave her here. C’mon, hurry up.” Mom said.

“Can’t we take her with us?” I asked her.

“No, it will be safer for her here. We will pick her up later.” 

“But the house might fall down and she may get killed!” I cried. 

“She will be alright, I promise. I will come back here to take care of her after we get to your grandparents’ house. C’mon, we really have to leave here now.“ Mom said firmly. 

Daisy howled as we walked away. It broke my heart to leave her behind. 

The street was strangely quiet. It must have been around 7 am or so, but we could see nobody in the neighborhood. It was as surreal as a sci-fi movie. I was shocked to see large crevices in the asphalt. Some of the houses along the street were badly damaged. Some walls have caved in, some were at an angle,  whole houses were leaning to one side or another. Fences and hedges have fallen down. We could smell the sewage from a broken waste pipe running down the street. I couldn’t recognize the place I lived in all my life.

 

Mom took my sister’s hand and mine, and we walked for 15 minutes to our grandparents’ house without saying a word. 20 years later, she could still remember how terrified she was, walking with her two young daughters, not knowing what she could find next.

Our grandparents’ house stood solid. Some of the roofing tiles had fallen and there was a crack on a wall. 

My grandparents, my cousins and uncles were all safe fortunately. When we went into the house, my grandpa was busy trying to make calls to relatives and friends. It was taking very long for a call to be connected. The telephone system could barely cope with the large amount of emergency calls. 

Mom told my sister and me to lie down in the living room. I didn’t feel tired or sleepy. I stayed with grandma as she picked up a clock off the floor, reset it, and put it back on the wall. It showed the time I should have normally been at school.

—

The electricity was restored around noon. When we turned on the TV, we were struck by the images shown on the news.

Kobe was burning. The Hanshin Expressway had collapsed to the side. It made the front pages on newspapers worldwide on the following day. Most railways were damaged. Even concrete buildings that we thought were safe, were a pile of rubble. Kobe, a city of 1.5 million, looked completely devastated. 640,000 homes were destroyed. Later we learned that the size of the quake was massive —7.1 magnitude, seismic intensity 7: the highest level.

Adults were wondering how long before disaster relief would begin given such a catastrophic situation. The radio stations had only very sketchy information to broadcast.

Grandpa and uncle set off to see the nearby school to find out what was going on in the neighborhood. 

“It is like being in times of war again.” Grandma muttered. “I’ve never imagined experiencing such a calamity again in my life.”

In the late afternoon, we finally managed to reach my father by phone. He was then living in Osaka, approximately 15 kms away from Nishinomiya. 

“So relieved to hear you are safe. I have been watching the news since morning. It is terrible.” He sounded distraught.

“We are okay, dad. But we have no running water and I don’t think there is much food left at grandma’s. Can you bring us food and water, as much as you can?” I asked him.

“You’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Osaka was spared from the serious damage, but it’s still chaotic.” He said.

Grandpa and uncle came back from the school in the evening. 

“The school shelter was packed with people. It was freezing there. We’d better stay the night here.” Uncle said.

They brought back two buckets of water. 

“There was a very long queue for water. It took us hours to get this much.” Grandpa complained. 

That was all the water we had for nine of us. 

We heated water in the microwave and cooked some instant noodles. As the water had not fully boiled, it smelled. It was the most unappetizing dinner I ever have had, but it was the only food we could put on the table on that day. As we had to ration our water, I felt very thirsty at night. Also, we had to minimize the frequency to use bathroom to save water to flush the toilet and wash our hands.

We slept in the living room. Frequent aftershocks woke us up a number of times during the night. Even today, more than 20 years after the earthquake, I still freeze when I hear windows rattling in the wind or a heavy truck drives past.

In the early afternoon next day, dad finally arrived. 

It took him 5 hours to drive from Osaka to Nishinomiya, a journey that normally takes only 30 minutes. 

“Traffic was dreadful. The main roads were jammed with cars, trucks and emergency vehicles.” He told us. 

Mom decided to send me and my sister to dad’s place. I was worried about leaving her alone, but she insisted that she needs to stay Nishinomiya to take care of her parents and our house. She asked me to take Daisy to dad’s place as well. 

I was so relieved to have Daisy with us again. 

Driving to Osaka was exhausting as it took us over 6 hours. The line of traffic on the highway seemed to go on forever.

As we approached Osaka, I was surprised to see that there was no great damage to the city despite the short distance between Osaka and Nishinomiya. Everything appeared to be normal. The familiar light of a convenience store seemed to reassure me that the earthquake was not the end of the world. 

—

One month later, my school was reopened. My friends and I were so happy to see each other came to no harm from the earthquake. But some of the classmates have already changed to another schools in non-affected areas even though it was just a month before our graduation. It was sad that after 6 years in the same school, we couldn’t graduate together. 

We have now learned that the earthquake we experienced that morning was the biggest natural disaster in a metropolitan area of Japan since WWII. It took 7 months to restore most major infrastructures in Kobe.

Photo Credit: http://kobe117shinsai.jp