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At 05 :46 a.m. on January 17, 1995, a great earthquake of magnitude 7.2
occurred directly under the northern part of Awaji Island attacked the Hanshin-Awaji
area.
Violent quakes lasting only 20 seconds recorded seismic intensity of 7,
in a wide area with Kobe City as its center, and caused the largest-scale disaster
in Japan after World War II. With the number of the deceased having exceeded
that caused by the Ise-Bay Typhoon in 1958, it has renewed our fears of earthquakes
occurring directly under urban areas in which urban functions have been highly
integrated.
Transport facilities, mainly railways and port facilities, were seriously
damaged and mobility and physical distribution were greatly affected not only
in the stricken area but also all over Japan. It is taking a long time and a
huge amount of money to reconstruct the stricken area and the national government
and the local governments concerned must engage themselves in the revival of
the area to the best of their ability.
The Ministry of Transport, with the Japan Meteorological Agency as the central
office, started, immediately after the occurrence of the earthquake, to clarify
cause of the earthquake and to observe any occurrence of aftershock. On the
other hand, the Maritime Safety Agency was engaged in emergency relief operations
day and night and carried out various measures including establishment of a
system of transportation of emergency relief supplies, securing of substitute
transport means and reconstruction of railways and port facilities.
Based on the foregoing, the Annual Report on the Transport Economy this
year selected "In Quest of Transport Resistible to Disaster" as the theme for
Part 1. In Chapter 1, first, an overview is provided regarding an outlook of
the Southern Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake and damages to the transport sector
which amounted to 1.6 trillion yen ; effects of the interruption of railways
and greatly lowered functions of port facilities on the transport and tourism
by land, sea and air ; relief activities carried out after the occurrence of
the earthquake with the Maritime Safety Agency as a main acting body ; emergency
transport which was conducted jointly by the government and private sectors
with their all possible efforts and situation of substitute transport adopted
for passengers and cargoes. Chapter I then touches upon the engagement with
all possible efforts in rehabilitation and reconstruction works by means of
enactment of special legislation and financial and monetary assistance measures
with a main emphasis on the fields of railway, port and tourism for the purpose
of reconstruction of the Hanshin and Awaji Area which is an extremely important
area for Japan. Chapter 2 touches upon the following various measures against
the earthquake disaster which have been worked out by the Ministry of Transport
based on experiences this time : (i) efforts to improve the earthquake resistance
of the infrastructure for transport such as rail-ways and port facilities so
as to resist the directly-under-city earth-quake such as the earthquake of this
time ; (ii) construction of bases for prevention of disaster in urban areas
at ports ; (iii) further strengthening of the system of observation of earthquakes
and tsunami ; and (iv) engagement in strengthening of the system based on the
assumption of occurrence of earthquake disaster including reexamination of plans
for prevention of disaster, strengthening of the system for collection of information
and reporting among the government offices concerned, reinforcement of the system
of relief activities and emergency transport and prior examination of the substitute
transport means, etc. Chapter 3 introduces the measures taken by the Ministry
of Transport against the disaster caused by other than the earthquake and tsunami,
such as the eruption of volcano, damage from a storm and flood, damage from
snow, disaster at sea, etc.
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