Worldwide Family Activity Report - Special Issue on the Kobe Earthquake
FAR012 - GP
April 1995 by The Family, Zurich, Switzerland

The Family
Making a Difference!

Relief and Rays of Hope
AFTER THE KOBE EARTHQUAKE!

Part 1
Picking Up the Pieces!

Emergency Relief Project in Kobe, Japan
         In the early morning of January 17th, the most destructive earthquake ever to directly strike a major city in the modern, industrialized world leveled parts of the western Japanese port city of Kobe. Family members throughout Japan were among the first to go to the aid of the survivors. The following account of the Family's relief work in Kobe was compiled from on-the-scenes reports by Family volunteers.

Devastation and despair
         Over 5,000 people were killed in what is now know as the Great Hanshin Earthquake. Another 26,000 injured--many in the gas explosions and major fires that followed--and 300,000 were left homeless.
         An estimated 80% of the buildings in the downtown area were damaged beyond repair. The four major train lines and three expressways which link Kobe to the rest of Japan all collapsed in various locations. Kobe's port facility, the largest in Japan, will remain unserviceable for at least a year.
         In the days that followed, nearly all of Kobe was without electricity and a million households were without heating in the dead of winter. Safe water was scarce, and bureaucratic red tape kept stockpiles of emergency food and medical supplies tied up for days. The city--and all of Japan--was in a state of shock, confusion and despair.

Family volunteers take action
         Family members throughout Japan immediately volunteered to help in the relief efforts. When several days of phone calls indicated that going through official government channels would be quite difficult and slow, the Family volunteers looked elsewhere for possible openings. They contacted Mr. Iwashita, a friend of the Family who is a prominent Kobe businessman, and learned that he had already begun his own relief project with members of his personal family and a handful of his employees, independent from the various government agencies. The Family offered their help, and Mr. Iwashita was overjoyed. "I can get supplies and know of places which need help," he said, "but lack sufficient dedicated and organized personnel to run an effective operation." This was the opening the Family had been praying for!
         Within hours, the first team of 24 Family volunteers left from Osaka, traveling in three buses and a two-ton truck laden with relief supplies. Arriving in Kobe at 4:00 a.m., Mr. Iwashita was there to meet them and helped them set up in large tents which his workers had already erected in front of Shin-Kobe station, Kobe's main train station in the center of town. One of the Family's buses was quickly transformed into their first kitchen and food distribution point. Coincidentally, this bus was originally a mobile food stand, complete with fold-out service counter, awning and gas stove, so it made an ideal emergency kitchen.
         By dawn, the Family team was already distributing thousands of bread rolls which had been donated by a baker in Osaka. Some of the first people to be fed broke down and cried as they ate for the first time in four or five days. Mr. Iwashita notified local officials in charge of several emergency supply depots that an efficient distribution center was in operation, and before the bread rolls ran out, they had authorized the release of more truckloads of food for the Family to distribute.
         Radio and TV stations notified the public that the Family was passing out food at this location, and people began pouring in from the outlying area. John tells of one mother who walked ten kilometers with her two children, ages three and five. "She was almost in tears when she found us. Surprised that so many of us were foreigners and that everyone was so positive and outgoing in this tense and trying situation, she asked who we were and what we were doing. I explained that we were missionaries, distributing food. She was speechless. It was as though she thought she had found Heaven on earth!
         That evening another team of five from nearby Family Homes arrived with two more truckloads of supplies and stayed to help. Over the next week, the number of Family volunteers grew to over 50, mostly teenagers and young adults.

Living and working under survival conditions
         Some houses and whole sections of Kobe were destroyed by the earthquake or the ensuing fires. Other neighborhoods where evacuated when gas leaks threatened more explosions and fires. Thousands of other dwellings were condemned as unsafe until inspected, and their occupants were likewise evacuated. In all, over 300,000 people were forced from their homes. A fortunate few found refuge in government-sponsored shelters--mostly in surviving school buildings--but the majority of homeless were left to fend for themselves, sleeping in their cars on the street, or in makeshift tents and lean-tos on sidewalks, yards and public parks. Many had only the clothes on their backs.
         Ever since they arrived, the Family volunteers have also been sleeping in tents in near-zero winter temperatures. For the first weeks, there was just one working flush toilet within walking distance of their camp. They have been able to take a hot bath about once a week; Mr. Iwashita's own house, thirty minutes away by car, suffered little damage and he graciously invited the fifty Family members in Kobe to go there for baths on a rotational basis. In addition to the rigors of carrying out taxing physical jobs under survival conditions in the dead of winter, the volunteers also constantly face the emotional stress of being involved with the earthquake victims' personal problems. Sixteen- and eighteen-hour work days are the norm.
         Even when Family workers stop to eat or warm themselves with a hot drink, the moment is nearly always shared with some needy soul. Martin relates the following story: "When I stopped for a cup of coffee, I noticed a man who appeared to be in his 80's, peering over one of the tents and into our camp. `Why don't you join me for a cup of coffee,' I offered. He looked embarrassed and declined. I took him a cup of coffee anyway, and struck up a conversation. I asked him if his house was okay, and he answered that it was damaged but not beyond repair. I introduced myself and invited him again to come and sit down with us for a few minutes. At that, tears started streaming down his face. `Are you all right?' I asked. `I was fine when I was just standing here watching, but something came over me when you started talking to me. I felt you really cared about me. I needed that.'"

Bicycle teams and hot meals
         Several days after the Family's project began, a woman told Family members, "Where I live, there are 70 people who haven't eaten in days. The area is so difficult to access that no one has brought us any relief supplies. People are afraid to leave their few belongings to go searching for food. Can you please help us?" When they heard this, several Family teens headed off on bicycles to take them some emergency rations and see what else they could do for these poor people.
         Within a few days, the teens had organized daily bike and motor scooter teams to take food to this and other areas which were unreachable by car or truck. They have now distributed many truckloads of goods this way, parcel by parcel. In some sections, these bicycle teams have become such a familiar sight that bystanders bow in respect and appreciation as the Family teenagers ride by.
         Miso soup (Japanese-style soup made from soy bean paste) and Udon takidashi (translated literally, "soup with thick white noodles which is cooked and served outside") are normally the humblest of meals. In these circumstances, however, they are appreciated like nothing else! Nearly all of the government's emergency rations are highly-processed dry goods which are eaten cold. For weeks, they kept meeting people who said they had gone without any vegetables or a single hot meal since the earthquake.
         One team set up a soup kitchen on the back of a flat-bed truck, drove it to distressed neighborhoods and cooked a hot meal for the people there. This was also a great moral booster, as the people in these camps united and pitched in to set up tables, cook the soup, etc.

Helping wherever there was a need
         Once the food operation was running, some Family members were able to help other urgent situations. One such project was at an eleven-story hospital on Port Island, which was without running water. Water trucks made deliveries several times a day, but the water had to be transferred to jerry cans and carried to every corner of the hospital. The hospital's elevators had survived the quake and were operating on generated power, but this was still an enormous, back-breaking job for the teen boys who volunteered.
         Other teams from the Family helped at various shelters, including one in an elementary school which was built for several hundred students but now houses 2,000 homeless people ranging in age from small children to elderly people. The very small staff at this shelter greatly appreciated the Family's young, energetic volunteers' cheerfulness, "can-be-done" attitude and willingness to pitch in and help with menial but very needed jobs.
         Others made the rounds in some of the worst-hit neighborhoods, setting up tents for those living in make-shift shelters. They found one family who had been living in a section of concrete construction pipe for two weeks. They also found as many as 25 or 30 people crammed into a tent designed for six, and nearly 100 people living in a basement, surviving on instant noodles and candy. In one neighborhood they found about 100 Japanese and 75 Vietnamese with virtually no shelter at all. They spent the afternoon clearing the area and setting up 21 tents for them. People were especially touched when Family volunteers took note of other needed items and returned with them later: a pair of shoes, warm socks, a can of cooking gas, a towel, tissues.
         Yet others went door to door in neighborhoods where the houses were still standing, taking food and supplies to those who were too old or too afraid to leave their houses. They also met a lot of elderly people whose furniture had fallen over, or whose walls or roofs had collapsed in places. These old folks weren't strong enough to move the heavy objects and, as a result, hadn't been able to get around in their houses. The teens pitched in and helped put things back in order. They also took time to help meet other special needs, such as repairing the wheelchair of a handicapped person.
         A longtime friend informed the Family team that one YMCA shelter was housing several hundred foreigners--mostly Chinese, Filipinos and other Asians--who were quite distressed. "The rich foreigners have already left," he explained. "Those staying in this shelter have little or no money. Some have been separated from their families. They don't speak Japanese, so they don't know what's happening and they're quite worried. They have food, but they are in desperate need of counseling and help regarding their personal situations." Family volunteers visited these people a number of times, helped in their efforts to contact missing relatives or associates, and put them in touch with their embassies.
         Meanwhile, the rest of the Family all over Japan did all they could to help. Those who couldn't go themselves, supported the others in prayer, and contacted manufacturers and businesses in the cities where they were, arranging for the donation and shipping of food and other emergency supplies to Kobe.   The Family volunteers' sacrifices do not go unnoticed by those they assist. One earthquake victim summed it up this way: "I am here by circumstance, but you are here by choice. I am here because I have nowhere else to go, but you are here for love."

         (To be continued.)


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family