Today is the 17th anniversary of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which destroyed the city of Kobe and greatly damaged nearby Osaka and Kyoto, causing more than 6400 deaths. The 1995 earthquake was a mere 6.8 magnitude, a walk in the park compared the unbelievable destruction of the 9.0 magnitude quake last March, but because the Hanshin (Kobe and Osaka) region of Japan has historically enjoyed lower instances of serious earthquakes compared with the Kanto (Tokyo) area, the building codes were less strict, which resulted in many collapsed buildings. As with the terrible disaster last year, Japanese came together to help one another, with no rioting or hoarding of food or other problems. I remember one story about a man who ran a public bath, who allowed everyone to bathe for free since the earthquake had damaged the water pipes, leaving most people with no water in their homes. While the rebuilding of the Tohoku region is still progressing slowly, hopefully people in the area can look to the shining example of Kobe and realize that, someday, the slow process of rebuilding will be over.
Just as Kobe showed us, Japan will definitely rebuild and bounce back.
