Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Kobe Earthquake: Telecommunications Survives at Kobe University.

1996; 1105 Media; Volume: 23; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

0192-592X

Virginia E. Garland, Mayumi Morimoto,

Geographic Information Systems Studies

Soon after the devastating, 7.2 magnitude temblor of the Great Hanshin Earthquake Disaster hit the Kobe, Japan area at 5:46 A.M. on January 17, 1995, Mayumi Morimoto, professor of Cross-cultural Studies at Kobe University, escaped through the window of her crumbled Ashiya condominium complex with only her Macintosh Powerbook 160/14/80 in her backpack. Across town, Virginia Garland, Visiting Professor of English and American Studies at Kobe University, along with her husband and two cats, evacuated their damaged high rise apartment building. They watched news of the disaster on CNN on a Sony Watchman television set in a nearby elementary school shelter. Professors Morimoto and Garland were initially unaware that the pre-dawn earthquake would claim more than 5,400 lives, including 249 foreigners, and that they were among 300,000 people who had instantly become homeless during the 40 seconds which shook them and their apartments in the greatest vertical tremors from an earthquake ever recorded. The two faculty colleagues had both become survivors and evacuees. However, they found that the latest telecommunications technologies from japan and the United States were effective tools in dealing with this tragedy in the hours and days which followed. * Infrastructure Interrupted Several communications-related issues were evident on the day of the quake, when it became increasingly apparent that the cities of Kobe, Ashiya and Nishinomiya were isolated from the rest of Japan. Radio and TV broadcasts indicated that raging fires and continuous aftershocks were contributing to the destruction. Telephone contact within the devastated Hyogo area was impossible, but phone communication was possible to other prefectures in Japan and to foreign countries. Transportation was also cut off, due to the unprecedented collapse of major highways and railroad lines. Professors Garland and Morimoto both lived in Ashiya, one of the hardest hit areas. Separated by the severed Hanshin, JR and Hankyu railways and the horrifically overturned Hanshin Expressway, the two friends were unable to contact each other until January 18, through emergency phone lines belatedly set up by the Japanese Self Defense Forces (SDF) at the school shelter to which Garland and her family had evacuated. It was clear that the people in the quake-stricken cities had to re-establish contact with friends, relatives, colleagues, employers and students as well as with disaster relief and embassy personnel in the national and international community as soon as possible. At Kobe University, two staff and 39 students (including seven international students) from the 14,000-strong student body perished in the quake. All of the laboratory animals in the Biology Department at the Faculty of Science died of cold and starvation. Faculty members, especially in the downtown Kobe University School of Medicine, lost vital research data and samples. Many faculty, staff and students were injured and lost their homes. Over 1,100 people in Kobe's destroyed Nada ward took shelter in the university's gymnasium. Physical damage was minimal at the Rokko mountain campus but use of the Internet was temporarily halted with a power outage. Computers on rolling carts and heavy weight computers on tables were generally undamaged; but other computers were destroyed by falling furniture, particularly bookcases. Normal telephone and fax communications were cut off. * Can't Stop the Net Masao Tanaka, Dean of the Faculty of Cross-Cultural Studies, bravely managed to get to his Kobe office from his Osaka home on January 17 and promptly implemented emergency government telephone lines. Tanaka first contacted all parents of the 280 Cross-cultural Studies majors, then he determined the status of his faculty colleagues and staff members. The dean's office continued to operate by phone, fax and computer on a 24 hours-per-day basis for several weeks after the earthquake. …