With candles and prayers, songs and moments of silence, Japan yesterday mournfully marked the 10th anniversary of the earthquake that ripped through the port city of Kobe, killing nearly 6,500 people and demonstrating the vulnerability of modern metropolises to natural disasters.
A plethora of commemorations testified to the depth of the 1995 tragedy: Hundreds of tearful survivors held a candlelight vigil at the time of the pre-dawn quake at 5:46am, illuminating the form of the date, "1.17;" students sang memorial songs about the catastrophe; rafts of dignitaries, including Emperor Akihito, filed into ceremonies organized by local authorities.
"It was terrifying," said Taiko Yamana, 68, recalling the day the 7.3-magnitude quake violently shook her house, killing her 90-year-old mother. "I come here every year on this day. I wonder if this one will be the last."
The Asian tsunami disaster loomed large over the landmark anniversary yesterday. Many people in Kobe said seeing the damage on television brought back harsh memories of their own tragedy; others saw the common links between all victims of natural disasters. Some were moved to action, collecting relief donations at memorials to the Kobe victims.
For others, the tsunami disaster demonstrated how much worse the quake could have been.
"When I saw the tsunami on television, I thought, `Thank goodness there wasn't anything like that in Kobe,'" Yamana said.
Still, the human and material tolls of the quake were astounding: 6,433 were killed in a city that many thought was in an area largely immune to earthquakes, and 43,792 were injured.
Hundreds of thousands of buildings were damaged, and the overall cost totaled some US$96 billion.
The city has been nearly completely rebuilt: Trains now buzz over rails that were once gnarled by the quake; downtown now shines with shopping centers and office buildings. Fire-savaged neighborhoods are full of newly built homes.
But emotional and economic scars remain just below the surface. Many still require counseling to grapple with the shock of the disaster, and polls show many residents feel their lives have not fully recovered from the quake. Livelihoods were lost forever.
"The city has just been rebuilt on the outside, but inside things are different," said Mamoru Maekawa, 67, a taxi-driver who survived the quake without injury. "My income is half of what it was before the quake. There's nobody here any more -- just old people."
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese