Word: kobe
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...sitting in the rubble of earthquake-ravaged Kobe, weeping softly, when photographer Yoichi Kume found her. He captured the scene on film, but chose not to intrude on the woman's grief to ask her name. The photo appeared on the cover of last week's Time and was transmitted to newspapers around the world by Reuter--one of the most poignant images of Japan's worst natural disaster in a half-century...
...created an atrophy of vigilance in the western part of the country: in Tokyo 27% of homes kept emergency supplies; in Osaka the number had shrunk to 2.6%. While Tokyo's army and civilian officials conducted yearly drills to test their coordination, military officials reluctantly admit that in the Kobe area they...
...they smiled to themselves and thought, We would have fared far better. Not only did they believe their seismologists could predict the next Big One, but their leaders gave the impression they would be ready for it when it came. But when the ground shook under Kobe on Jan. 17, 1995, that faith suffered its own Richter shock, and Japanese confidence in their ability to outsmart nature lay in ruins. A vast feeling of insecurity rushed into the vacuum, accompanied by anger...
...result was a deadly confusion that seemed to overtake every level of government. Immediately after the quake, Kobe authorities failed to cordon off main roads for official use, and the delay of police and fire vehicles undoubtedly raised the death toll. For nearly four hours, the Governor of Hyogo prefecture, which includes Kobe, neglected to make the necessary request for aid to the national armed forces, which would provide 16,000 rescuers by week's end. The national government could also have stepped in sooner to aid with coordination. Soldiers who did arrive were plagued by communications snafus: at midnight...
...rebuild the devastated area. But when he suggested that the relief effort had faltered because of the quake's unprecedented severity, loud jeers rang out from the opposition benches. It was widely reported that Murayama had learned of the disaster only two hours after it struck. When he toured Kobe, Tokyo papers featured quotes from angry residents, along the lines of ``We don't need Murayama. We need drinking water.'' By the end of the week, welcome food and water shipments finally arrived at the Nishinomiya sports center and other large shelters--enough, in fact, so that authorities claimed everyone...