Editorial

15:37 JST, January 17, 2025

The Japanese archipelago is constantly threatened by major earthquakes. It is important to make thorough preparations without letting the memory of the disaster that claimed 6,434 lives fade away.

Thirty years have passed since the Great Hanshin Earthquake. The earthquake, which had a focus directly under a large city, recorded 7 — the highest on the Japanese seismic intensity scale. High-rise buildings and expressways collapsed, and urban areas turned into rubble-strewn, burned fields.

By looking at today’s townscapes lined with skyscrapers, it is probably difficult to imagine the scenes of those days that shook the very foundation of the “safety myth” of postwar Japan.

In October last year, the last remaining redevelopment project covering about 20 hectares in Nagata Ward, Kobe, was finally completed.

Store owners and others have moved out while negotiations on land transactions have been........

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