February 2, 1995
Anyone who has been to Kobe, Japan will tell you of its beauty, of its hills and mansions. But, on Jan. 17th, a deadly earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 struck the city, destroying buildings and costing the lives of more than 5,000 people.
Kobe, which is in the Kansai provence of Japan, located in the south, is a port city of 1.5 million people. To most, the earthquake was a tragic catastrophe which happened in a far away place, but for some the tragedy struck closer to home.
Satoko Tsujimoto, a teaching assistant in SF State's Japanese language program, was in the city of Nara, a one hour train ride from Kobe, when the earthquake hit.
"It was early in the morning when the earthquake hit and I was sleeping." Tsujimoto said. "I was very astonished at how big the earthquake was. Our house, except for some things falling down, was undamaged.
"We turned the TV on and at first there was no real information about how bad the damage was, but a few hours later we saw the pictures." Tsujimoto said. "I was worried about a relative of mine who lived in the downtown section of Kobe (the hardest hit area). All the telephone lines were busy. We got in touch with her two days later."
Tsujimoto had gone to visit friends in Kobe just days before the earthquake. After seeing reports of the destruction, she was shocked to see the Nishinomiya train station she had been in two days earlier had been completely destroyed.
"Some of my friends who live in Kobe had their houses destroyed by the earthquake, and my mother's friend's sister was killed," Tsujimoto said.
"Kobe is a very exotic place and it is by the ocean. The hills are very beautiful and many of the houses are western style. This is because of Kobe's history as a port town which brought a lot of foreigners there. When you are in Kobe you don't feel like you are in Japan," Tsujimoto said.
Tricia Furukawa, a SF State senior studying Japanese, attended high school in Kobe for three years.
"When I first heard about the earthquake I was worried about my friends. A lot of them lived in some of the worst hit areas. All of them are OK. One of my friends got out of his house just in time," Furukawa said. "It's amazing to me that the train station I used to go to and the downtown area where I would hang out are gone.
"I talked to one of my friends who said that after the earthquake she had to live on one can of juice and a piece of bread for the whole day," Furukawa said. "Most of my friends had places to go after the earthquake. It was the older people with nowhere to go who were hit the hardest," she said.
Jennifer Delury, a junior studying Japanese, spent three years teaching English in Kobe. She returned from Kobe in July of last year.
"When I learned of the earthquake, I wondered if everyone was OK. I have about 50 foreign friends living [in Kobe] and many Japanese friends," Delury said. "On CNN I saw the street I lived on. I saw them pull people out of a Chinese restaurant on the street where I lived that had collapsed. I used to eat there with my friends," she said.
"Kobe is a beautiful city. It is a great place for foreigners and it has beautiful mansions," Delury said. "I have contacted everybody except for two people. One is a friend of mine. She is 94 years old. The other is a woman I used to teach with who is Japanese American. She lived in the hardest hit part of the city. I'm worried about them.
"I have two Australian friends whose homes collapsed on them but they are OK. I had to call Australia to find out about them," she said. "It was unreal seeing all the damage on TV. I don't want to go back. Too many things are gone. Places I used to go and places I lived in are destroyed. It is really upsetting," Delury said.
SF State Teaching Assistant Tsujimoto believes that the people of Kobe will overcome this and rebuild.
"They will rebuild. The Japanese have overcome serious destruction before and after World War II and they will overcome this as well," she said.