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Published on September 15, 2007

The documentary film they show at the Great Hanshin Earthquake Memorial Museum is designed to shake up visitors - the monstrous Kobe catastrophe of 1995 chillingly recaptured - and I'm still shaking.

I can never exactly share the survivors' feelings, of course, but the movie hammers home exactly what happened in the Japanese city when disaster struck in the form of a 7.3 quake.

On a cold January morning while most people were still in bed, the silence was broken by the earth's roar, instantly followed by the cacophony of a hundred buildings shattering.

The expressway, already filling up with buses and cars, collapsed. Toppled structures blocked a main street. Fires broke out in several areas.

The immediate help had to come from loved ones and neighbours. It was a while before officials could reach the victims. In fact some were impossible to reach.

The quake was over in 15 seconds, but it left 460,000 homes and 241,000 other buildings damaged - and gaping wounds in the hearts of those who survived. The swift and intensely brutal assault had killed 6,434 people.

The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institute, based in the museum, was founded in 2002 as an effort to heal the wounds. Its staff studies disasters and shares the knowledge gleaned. They also remind visitors how precious life is - and thus how important it is to live in harmony.

Pragmatically, the centre educates visitors as well on what to do when an earthquake strikes.

It accomplishes this array of tasks using more than 166,000 images - primarily films, photographs and other images - and each of the 150 volunteers on hand can share a direct personal experience of the 1995 tragedy, in Japanese, English and other languages.

The messages have to get through to children as well, so there's plenty of fun stuff for them, including experiments and games.

What I saw at the museum - and what half a million other visitors a year see - indicates how careful the Japanese have become about earthquakes. As well, Hyogo Prefecture organises memorial walks on the anniversary each January 17, and other activities commemorate the disaster. It's clear that the residents of the port city are not going to forget about the quake.

There are more than 250 community-sponsored monuments in the area that was hit. Each one reminds passers-by of lives lost and lessons learned.

The main memorial is the Great Hanshin Earthquake Monument, which has an underground hall whose walls list the victims' names. Nearby another memorial has an eternal flame burning in thanks for the kindness shown in the wake of the catastrophe - and in the hope that it always remains a human trait.

No one, a sign there says, knows even one second of the future.

A busy street in Nagata district illustrates another lesson: It was here that destiny was divided.

One side of the road was incinerated in the quake-sparked fires, more than 1,000 residents burned to death in their homes and buried in the ashes. Family members, friends and neighbours heard the victims' screams and calls for help but could do nothing. The other side of the street was untouched.

The community was rebuilt, other than a few areas that remain deserted, and the citizens erected a memorial that houses a photo exhibition.

As I was looking at the photos a woman rode past on her bicycle with her daughter on the back seat. The little girl waved at me and I smiled back. Then I realised that she wasn't waving to me at all, but to the people in the pictures - the lost souls still cherished in the community's memory.

The people of this port city have warmed the biting chill of that January morning with the love in their hearts, and forever more they'll be passing on the kindness.

Kornchanok Raksaseri

The Nation