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20th anniversary of quake marked in Kobe
People on Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of the Kobe earthquake that killed more than 6,400 people with renewed calls for the quake-prone nation to stay vigilant against the next âBig One
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eople on Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of the Kobe earthquake that killed more than 6,400 people with renewed calls for the quake-prone nation to stay vigilant against the next 'Big One.'
More than 14,000 people gathered to commemorate the victims in the western port city of Kobe, where a magnitude-7.2 quake hit at 5:46 am on January 17, 1995.
The quake, which killed 6,434 people, leveled much of the city and sparked a major review of quake preparedness in the island-nation that suffers about one fifth of the world's most powerful tremors.
The warning was brought into reality four years ago when a 9.0 magnitude quake struck in March 2011, triggering a huge tsunami that smashed into the country's northeast coast, killing around 18,000 people and creating the world's worst nuclear emergency in a generation.
Kobe survivors and family members of victims gathered before dawn to lay bouquets and light thousands of candles in a park used as an evacuation centre after the 1995 jolt.
Later in the day, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko attended a memorial ceremony in the city and offered a one-minute prayer with some 500 other participants.
'By learning lessons from the disaster we will do our best to build a community where we can live in safety,' Eriko Yamatani, state minister for disaster management, told the ceremony.
