January 18, 2016
On January 17, the 21st anniversary of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake which took the lives of nearly 6,500 people, various memorial events took place from early morning across Hyogo Prefecture. Participants renewed their determination not to allow the memories of the disaster to fade away.
At Suwayama Park with its panoramic view over Kobe City, 110 people offered a silent prayer to victims at 5:46 a.m., the exact time of the quake. Shigematsu Motoe, 68, living in Kobe’s Nagata Ward, said, “Even though the lights of the city look very beautiful, many victims sleep there. They must have wanted to live longer. We, the survivors, have to hand down our experiences to the future generation.”
On the same day, the Hanshin-Awaji Great Earthquake Hyogo Congress for Rescue and Restoration held a memorial ceremony in Kobe with about 300 citizens taking part.
A member of a residents’ group working on the housing problem, Danno Taichi, condemned the authorities of the prefecture and affected cities for putting pressure on disaster victims to leave their subsidized housing units which the local governments had rented to them following the massive earthquake.
Japanese Communist Party member of the Kobe City Assembly Morimoto Shin criticized the city government for moving ahead with a redevelopment project around the local station under the pretext of “reconstruction measures”. He underlined the need to provide direct support to local residents and business owners in order to bring life back to the stricken areas.
At the ceremony, JCP member of the House of Representatives Horiuchi Terufumi gave a speech in solidarity.
Past related article:
> 1995 Hanshin-Awaji quake victims still struggling to find place to get settled [January 16 & 17, 2015]
At Suwayama Park with its panoramic view over Kobe City, 110 people offered a silent prayer to victims at 5:46 a.m., the exact time of the quake. Shigematsu Motoe, 68, living in Kobe’s Nagata Ward, said, “Even though the lights of the city look very beautiful, many victims sleep there. They must have wanted to live longer. We, the survivors, have to hand down our experiences to the future generation.”
On the same day, the Hanshin-Awaji Great Earthquake Hyogo Congress for Rescue and Restoration held a memorial ceremony in Kobe with about 300 citizens taking part.
A member of a residents’ group working on the housing problem, Danno Taichi, condemned the authorities of the prefecture and affected cities for putting pressure on disaster victims to leave their subsidized housing units which the local governments had rented to them following the massive earthquake.
Japanese Communist Party member of the Kobe City Assembly Morimoto Shin criticized the city government for moving ahead with a redevelopment project around the local station under the pretext of “reconstruction measures”. He underlined the need to provide direct support to local residents and business owners in order to bring life back to the stricken areas.
At the ceremony, JCP member of the House of Representatives Horiuchi Terufumi gave a speech in solidarity.
Past related article:
> 1995 Hanshin-Awaji quake victims still struggling to find place to get settled [January 16 & 17, 2015]
