5B
Thursday, January 19, 1995
NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Quake's death toll passes 3,000
870 missing, feared dead in hard-hit Kobe; 120,000 left homeless
The Associated Press
KOBE, Japan — Some hungry survivors got a single rice ball, a makeshift morgue did without coffins and hospitals struggled to find antibiotics and blood.
As the death toll topped 3,000 in Kobe's earthquake disaster, thousands tried to flee what was once a sleek and efficient city, many of them bandaged as they limped past huge piles of rubble and collapsed buildings.
Raging fires that erupted after Tuesday's quake had mostly died out yesterday, leaving a sooty, gray pallor that heightened the sense of dismay in the city of 1.4 million.
Rescuers, often working with bare hands,
sifted through the ruins looking for survivors.
But hopes faded with each passing hour for the 870 people still listed as missing.
Japanese police reported early yesterday that 3,021 people had been killed in the quake. More than 14,500 were injured, and nearly 20,000 buildings were heavily damaged or destroyed.
Criticism mounted that Japanese authorities, despite their long experience with earthquakes, were clearly unprepared for a disaster of this magnitude.
Japanese Self-Defense Forces sent about 2,000 soldiers and 50 aircraft to the stricken city. But it took more than four hours to even begin mobilizing them.
Tokuichiro Tamazawa, chief of the defense agency, blamed the delay on local officials who "hadn't thought of what should be done."
"City officials didn't come here at all, so we had to do everything ourselves," complained Yukiji Matsui, a volunteer running an evacuation center in suburban Nishinomiya, where about 500 people had taken shelter.
"We have people who are getting weaker and weaker," she said. "We have sick people here, but if we call an ambulance, if it comes at all, it takes at least four hours."
The flood of misery overwhelmed local hospitals, depleting their supplies. Some of the hospitals also were without water and were relying on generators for their electricity.
"Our only treatment now is painkillers."
said Toshihiko Oi, physician at a hospital in suburban Ninomiya.
In Tokyo, the health ministry said it would start sending antibiotics, bandages, blood and other medical supplies by helicopter to the area.
With most telephone links down, authorities outside the Kobe area were uncertain what emergency supplies were needed. Huge traffic jams delayed shipments of relief goods.
"You had a situation where rescue efforts couldn't go forward because of traffic jams," said Professor Hirotada Hirose of Tokyo Women's University. "For example, ambulances couldn't get through. It was an unprecedented event, so all the officials were confused."
One of the major problems facing survivors was finding food. Shoppers jammed the few operating supermarkets and convenience stores, often waiting hours to get inside. More than 120,000 people were left homeless.
Still, police said there was no looting
"I've been waiting for more than an hour. I'm trying to get something to drink," one man told Japanese TV as he queued up with hundreds of others outside a convenience store.
Quake victims largely were looking to the government, rather than to charity, for emergency supplies. Although there was no conspicuous outpouring of donations, relief officials said they had been receiving offers of aid from corporations and some individuals.
At a makeshift morge at a school in suburban Nishinomiya, a green pickup truck delivered bodies wrapped in blankets. Relatives sat on folding chairs in the back, waiting to identify the bodies.
"They're just taking pictures of the corpse and trying to figure out who's who," said one man, who had just identified the body of his younger brother.
Throughout the day, hundreds of thousands of Kobe residents packed the roads leaving the city. They traveled on foot, by bicycle and in shared cars fleeing the devastation.
Others were trying to enter the city in search of relatives and friends.
"When I got here, there was no water, no gas. The inside of the house was almost destroyed," said Ryoichi Miwa, who had come from Tokyo to fetch his mother. He found her in a Kobe suburb.
The American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington,
D.C., 2001., (800) 842-2200.
Some relief agencies in the United States taking donations for earthquake victims in Japan are:
Helping Out
American Jewish World Service, 15 West Stt., 9th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10010. (212) 683-1161
AmeriCares, 161 Cherry St., New Canaan, Conn.
06840 / 800) 486-4357
Disaster Relief Fund of B'rail B rith, 1640 Rhode Island Ave. N., W. N., Washington D.C., 20036, (202) 857-6582.
Lutheran World Relief, 390 Park Ave. South, New York, N.Y. 10016, (800) 597-1527.
Operation USA, 8320 Melrose Ave., Suite 200, Los Angeles, Calif. 90069, (800) 678-7255
The Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief-Episcopal Church, 815 Second Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017. (212) 922-5144.
Salvation Army, 615 Staters Lane, Alexandria, Va., 22131 (703) 684-5500
■ Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
Checks may be made out to "Orthodox Union," 333
Seventh Ave., New York, N.Y., 10001 (212) 563-4000.
■ World Relief, P.O. Box WRX, Wheaton II, 60389. (800)
World Relief, P.O. Box WRC, Wheaton III., 60189,(800)
535-5433.
Source: The Associated Press
Quake victims stoic in destruction
TOKYO — They stand in an orderly line for food and water. Nobody cuts in.
They walk by easy pickings in shattered stonefronts and homes. Nobody roots.
They witness the painfully slow arrival of desperately needed medical aid and other relief. Nobody whines.
quake, and in 1992 in south Florida, ravaged by a hurricane, authorities descended in force to halt looting and mobs of frustrated people at shelters and food centers.
A remarkable calm characterizes the Japanese attitude toward the country's worst urban disaster of modern times, an earthquake that tore apart the port city of Kobe.
Here's the rundown on looting in Kobe:
Before the television cameras of the world, the country is displaying the value it still places on the tradition of "gaman," or endurance, in the face of disaster. Extravagant grieving is frowned upon; heartbreak is better kept inside.
Yes, Kobe survivors wept and grieved, but they tried to keep their tears off-camera.
"We have no reported incidents of looting. I guess no Japanese could be so cold as to toot during such a disaster as this," said Keiichi Shibamoto, the police superintendent in a hard-hit Kobe suburb. Nishinomiya.
In Tokyo, the quake produced no financial panic. Instead, shrewd investors bet on a rebuilding boom.
Food, medicine and other basic, badly needed aid made its way to Kobe with painful slowness, but complaints were muted. People without blankets, food or water at shelters bore their suffering mostly in silence.
Yes, a few survivors were heard complaining about not having enough to eat.
But how did Kazuo Nakagawa, the governor of Osaka, respond? They "should cook food
for themselves but lack the will to do so," the Kyodo News Service quoted him as saying.
Efforts by The Associated Press to reach Nakagawa for further comment were unsuccessful. Osaka, Japan's second-largest city and a neighbor of Kobe, was largely uncashed in the quake.
The most potent symbol of the nation, Emperor Akihito, did not rush out with any statement of condolence. That's not the custom in disasters, though later the emperor will often visit stricken areas.
Of course, the calm only went so far. Newspapers ran huge black headlines on page after page, while television stations canceled regular programming and broadcast quake news almost continuously for 36 hours or more.
The devastation shattered the confidence of many Japanese in the earthquake-resistant engineering employed in many buildings and roads in their cities. It failed to hold up in Kobe.
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