INTERVIEW: 1995 Quake Was "Turning Point" in Govt Disaster Response

Tokyo, Jan. 20 (Jiji Press)--The devastating earthquake that struck Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture's capital, and other western Japan areas 30 years ago was a "turning point in the government's approach to disaster response," Japanese minister Ryosei Akazawa said in a recent interview.

Akazawa, who is the minister in charge of preparations for establishing a new disaster management agency in Japan, said Thursday that the government will engage in "serious preemptive disaster prevention" in light of anticipated major disasters such as a possible megaquake around the Nankai Trough off the country's Pacific coast. He also said that he will accelerate efforts for setting up the agency, a signature policy of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

The minister said that the Jan. 17, 1995, Kobe temblor was Japan's first major earthquake directly striking an urban area since the end of World War II, noting that it caused expressways and houses to collapse and people who survived the shaking to lose their lives in fires. "There is much to regret," he said.

The quake prompted Japan to adopt legislation on setting up emergency government response teams and on-site task forces, and paved the way for reviewing earthquake resistance standards, promoting volunteers' full-fledged participation in disaster prevention activities and enacting the law on support for rebuilding the livelihoods of disaster victims, he added.

On the powerful earthquake that rocked the Noto Peninsula in central Japan on New Year's Day 2024, Akazawa said that it was difficult to evacuate disaster victims and deliver relief goods to affected areas due to the peninsula's mountainous terrain.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]