Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 19, 1995 TAG: 9501190115
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: KOBE, JAPAN LENGTH: Medium
A few survivors were pulled from collapsed buildings Wednesday, but hopes faded for more than 600 still missing from Kobe's earthquake disaster.
As the death toll topped 3,100, thousands tried to flee what was once a sleek and efficient city of 1.4 million people, many of them bandaged as they limped past huge piles of rubble and fallen buildings.
New fires erupted today in downtown Kobe. Firefighters appeared helpless to stem a raging blaze that had broken out at the block-long Sannomiya market.
Rescuers, often working with bare hands, sifted through the ruins looking for survivors from the 6.8-magnitude quake. But the likelihood of finding survivors faded with each passing hour for the 645 people still listed as missing.
Police, however, weren't giving up the search for the living, and said that they wouldn't be able to dig out the dead until all hope was lost. Some survivors kept vigil outside destroyed homes where loved ones lay buried.
An 85-year-old man was pulled from the rubble of his house in Nishinomiya on Wednesday, 33 hours after the quake, but his life had still collapsed. His 83-year-old wife died while waiting for help.
``If they had just come earlier, my wife would have lived,'' Kaoru Azuma told the Asahi newspaper. She died 30 minutes after the quake, as her husband gripped her hand to give comfort as they lay pinned beneath furniture.
By early today, Japanese police reported that 3,109 people had been killed in the quake. They said 15,277 were injured and more than 21,500 buildings heavily damaged or destroyed.
Criticism mounted that Japanese authorities, despite their long experience with earthquakes, were clearly unprepared for a disaster of this magnitude.
Japanese Self-Defense Forces sent about 2,000 soldiers and 50 aircraft to the stricken city. But it took more than four hours even to begin mobilizing them.
Tokuichiro Tamazawa, chief of the Defense Agency, blamed the delay on local officials who ``hadn't thought of what should be done.''
``City officials didn't come here at all, so we had to do everything ourselves,'' complained Yukiji Matsui, a volunteer running an evacuation center in suburban Nishinomiya, where about 500 people had taken shelter.
``We have people who are getting weaker and weaker,'' she said. ``We have sick people here, but if we call an ambulance, if it comes at all, it takes at least four hours.''
The flood of misery overwhelmed local hospitals, depleting their supplies. Some of the hospitals also were without water and were relying on generators for their electricity.
``Our only treatment now is painkillers,'' said Dr. Toshihiko Oi at a hospital in suburban Ninomiya.
In Tokyo, the health ministry said it would start sending antibiotics, bandages, blood and other medical supplies by helicopter to the area.
With most telephone links down, authorities outside the Kobe area were uncertain what emergency supplies were needed and huge traffic jams delayed shipments of relief goods.
by CNB