Kobe earthquake takes toll on poor, weak and aged

[Reuter / Velisarios Kattoulas]

KOBE, Japan (Reuter) - Like most great human tragedies, the
earthquake that devastated the Japanese city of Kobe two weeks
ago took its heaviest toll on the poor, the elderly and the
weak.
According to provisional studies by Japan's NHK television
and the Asahi Shimbun newspaper 52 percent of the people
confirmed killed in the earthquake were aged over 60. The number
of dead in the earthquake stood at 5,097 Tuesday, but a final
toll has yet to be determined.
The two casualty surveys, issued over the weekend, bear out
the sad fact of history that it is often the weakest who suffer
most from natural disasters.
The Kobe earthquake wrought its worst destruction in poor
neighborhoods and left homes of the rich still standing.
As for the handicapped, officials were still trying Tuesday
to track down hundreds of deaf and blind people displaced by the
Jan. 17 tremor.
Japan's modern ``nuclear family'' lifestyle has robbed the
elderly of traditional shared homes with children or
grandchildren and relegated them to low-cost, single-room
apartments, especially in cities.
``Many of the worst-hit areas ... were crowded with wooden
apartments,'' said Tomio Ito, architecture professor at Osaka
University. ``Residents there entered these homes and apartments
in the immediate postwar period. Their children, now in their
30s or above, have all moved out to the suburbs,'' Ito said.
The elderly and the physically weak were particularly
vulnerable because the earthquake struck in the early hours.
NHK said in its study that many elderly people preferred to
sleep in ground-level rooms rather than on upper storys because
of the daily burden of climbing up and down stairs. In most
two-story homes, the ground floor was smashed.
It was apparent to those entering Kobe after the tremor soon
realized that the poorest districts suffered most. The greatest
damage was along a 12.5 mile coastal belt which, while not a
slum, was crammed with small wooden houses that became engulfed
in fire.
The confusion which befell the city after the earthquake
caused particular terror for the handicapped.
In one highly publicized case that has sparked intense
criticism, the Kobe Disaster Relief headquarters turned down a
request to rescue a wheelchair-bound man who was trapped in a
high-rise apartment with his 80-year-old mother, who had
suffered a nervous breakdown.
When he called the headquarters, he was told to try the
police instead. His calls never got through because of severe
damage to telephone lines.
The man was rescued five days after the earthquake by
workers of a private welfare institute.