Disaster Area Tour Boosting Kobe Revival after 1995 Quake

Kobe, Jan. 15 (Jiji Press)--Store owners in Nagata Ward of the western city of Kobe, battered by a powerful earthquake 30 years ago, are welcoming students on school trips from all over Japan to help revitalize the area.

Kiyoto Morisaki, 72, president of Kinki Taxi Co., who proposed the program to show the current state of Nagata Ward, said he wanted to bring back the liveliness of the area after the quake on Jan. 17, 1995, caused immense damage there.

Morisaki said that, although the company's headquarters and his home were spared from damage, he was "stunned" seeing the area burned to the ground in a fire that occurred soon after the temblor.

With a sense of hopelessness taking hold in the ward even as one year passed after the quake, one volunteer ended aid activities in the area and left, saying, "If volunteers stay too long, locals are kept away from opportunities to take action."

This prompted Morisaki, who had thought about the need to act but was busy rebuilding his company, to be determined not to live as a disaster victim but to contribute to local revitalization as a survivor.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]