The earthquake in Kobe, Japan, in 1995 was one of the most serious in an urban setting in modern times, until that in Port au Prince, Haiti. Although Japan is one of the most developed countries in the world and Haiti is the least developed in the northern hemisphere, there are many similarities between the Japanese disaster and urban areas in developing countries and the lessons drawn from it can, to some extent, be applied to the reconstruction of Port au Prince. Six of these lessons are listed below.
1. The role of the urban communities was one of the key factors in saving lives at the time of the disaster. The victims of the earthquake had to rely first and foremost on their neighbours, their friends and their families. This was exactly the same in Gujarat in India and Izmir in Turkey. The result was that communities that already existed and the roots of a civil society emerged from the earthquake stronger and more united because of the earthquake.
2. Despite the efforts and considerable resources provided to help the victims, the poor and most vulnerable – in Kobe the elderly and working class immigrants – were the most affected by the disaster as well as those who gained least from the reconstruction. Destruction was concentrated in the poor districts of the city centre and reconstruction was faster and more efficient outside these districts. Reconstruction policies allowed owners to rebuild using their own resources, clearly leaving the poor unable to reconstruct their homes.
3. The earthquake had a lasting effect on the face of the city and its demography. Movements of people in both directions (leaving and arriving) left an urban, social and economic area that was radically different after in comparison with before the earthquake. Knowing and accepting a priori that it is not possible to return to the previous situation may help political decision-makers to try to “milk” the disaster to “use” it as a means to try to resolve some of the problems that existed well before the earthquake.
4. Most of the problems and issues that have emerged from the disaster have not been a direct result of the earthquake itself but rather the consequences of conditions that, to a great extent, existed before the earthquake. Although an earthquake is a natural event unrelated to human activities, the inequality of its impact on the people is clearly the result of social disparities. Affluent and reasonably well off families had already begun to leave the city centre with its housing that was becoming old and often even unhealthy.
5. The population density in Kobe posed significant problems for the emergency rescue operations and subsequent reconstruction. Setting up temporary shelters was a contributory factor in breaking up the social networks, the importance of which at such times has repeatedly been stressed. The city had to deal with large numbers of people who were homeless and lack of space for reconstructing homes subsequently. The government therefore concentrated on providing material aid to the poor, often at the expense of the social capital and existing family bonds. It would have been preferable to have worked more closely with residents to try to find more acceptable compromises to obtain a more sustainable situation.
6. The narrow roads and traditional tiled roofs (to combat the effects of frequent hurricanes) were factors identified as determinant in the excessive mortality during the earthquake. These clearly identified dangers were not easy to eliminate during reconstruction. Cities have their own heritage: local conditions are determinant as well (a cyclone hits Kobe, like Haiti, nearly every year, but an earthquake occurs once in a hundred years or even less) and these features make the old, traditional districts of major urban centres particularly vulnerable.
In conclusion, in the final instalment of this series, it is difficult to evaluate and measure the efficacy of reconstruction after a disaster such as that which hit Kobe in 1995. The urban area has now been completely reconstructed but many survivors of the earthquake have never returned to live there. As was said after hurricane Katrina, the current situation in New Orleans gives a false (or falsified) impression of a success which is (essentially) based only on moving those most in need of aid far away from the scene of the disaster. The Kobe that has been rebuilt has become significantly different from the old Kobe, and, even in 2010, the scars of the surviving victims most affected still do not appear to have healed. Even in one of the richest countries in the world.
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