On January 17, 1995, at 5:46 am on a bitterly cold winter morning, a massive earthquake struck Kobe, Osaka, and the surrounding areas in Hyōgo Prefecture. This region, home to 3.5 million people and a vital hub of Japan’s economy, suffered widespread, catastrophic damage.
The disaster claimed over 6,400 lives and injured tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands lost their homes, forced into shelters and temporary housing while cut off from electricity, gas, water, and transportation.
Known as the Great Hanshin Earthquake, the event devastated the urban corridor between Osaka and Kobe—Japan’s second-largest metropolitan area.
Twenty-two years later, on an early September morning, my plane touched down at Kansai International Airport. Built entirely on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay, the airport feels like landing in the open ocean, though planes actually touch down on paved runways connected to the mainland by a 3.7-kilometer bridge.
As we landed, I looked forward to visiting the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Memorial, as the 1995 television footage still haunted my memory.
I vividly recalled how live coverage of the earthquake had shocked us in our living rooms decades earlier. We watched in disbelief as Kobe, a modern Japanese city, crumbled. The most haunting scenes captured the sudden loss of infrastructure, the helplessness of bystanders, and a city consumed by uncontrollable fires. Live broadcasts showed a colossal 600-meter stretch of the Hanshin Expressway lying completely on its side, with passenger cars precariously dangling over the edge.
As a journalist who has covered numerous disasters in my home country—including floods, tornadoes, and severe river erosion—I was deeply curious about how Kobe’s local media managed to cover a disaster of this magnitude when their entire city was reduced to rubble. When my local guides showed me the itinerary, I felt upbeat. This trip would take me not only to the memorial but also to the headquarters of the Kobe Shimbun, the daily newspaper that managed to publish its earthquake coverage from Kyoto, over 70 kilometers away.
On September 7, 2017, I visited a Kobe Shimbun facility. The paper’s managing editor and a young colleague walked me through an exhibit room displaying samples of their 1995 earthquake coverage. They explained how they kept publishing by relying on a mutual emergency agreement signed with the Kyoto Shimbun just the year before.
Because their own headquarters in Kobe were severely damaged on the morning of January 17, the staff had to improvise. The makeshift publishing operation unfolded in a highly coordinated, albeit rushed, sequence. Early that morning, the Kobe Shimbun’s printing office collapsed, power lines were severed, and 12 staff members were injured. Just three hours later, the Kobe team contacted the Kyoto Shimbun to activate their emergency pact.
With roads between the two cities destroyed, reporters could not physically transport their stories. Instead, top editors spent the entire day dictating breaking news articles and updates over open telephone lines to layout editors in Kyoto. Using these phone-read reports, the Kyoto Shimbun printed 520,000 copies of the Kobe Shimbun—reducing the page count to conserve resources—allowing them to successfully deliver newspapers to the devastated residents of Kobe by the morning of January 18.
Sending news via telephone calls wasn’t easy either. Only a tiny fraction of the physical lines and specific public payphones miraculously survived, as the telecommunications network had nearly collapsed. Millions of worried friends and relatives from all over Japan and the world simultaneously tried to call into the disaster zone. Call volumes spiked up to 25 times higher than normal, creating a massive gridlock that triggered automated switchboard shutdowns and perpetual busy signals.
The earthquake physically severed more than 285,000 telephone lines in the prefecture. Additionally, widespread electricity blackouts knocked out telephone exchange buildings. Backup generators and batteries at these stations over-discharged and died within a few hours.
During the visit, the Kobe Shimbun team took a brief quote from me for their own coverage of our delegation. The next day, I found my words translated into Japanese in their morning edition: “Reaz Ahmad (47), a journalist working in North Dhaka, said, 'I think citizens in North Dhaka underestimate disasters. I want to return home and emphasize that being prepared is vital.'” The emphasis was placed heavily on North Dhaka because my co-visitors included elected public representatives and officials from the North Dhaka City Corporation.
Later, at the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Memorial, I had the opportunity to view artifacts and photographs of the devastation up close, and to listen to the harrowing recollections of Kataribes. In Japan, Kataribes are traditional storytellers who pass down historical tales, folklore, and personal experiences—particularly regarding disasters and lessons from the past.
Aside from experiencing earthquake simulations and documentary videos, I deeply appreciated the firsthand accounts shared by an elderly female Kataribe. Decades after the tragedy, many survivors like her continue to share their stories of pain and resilience to ensure the disaster is never forgotten.
That visit served as a wake-up call. It made many of us realize that an earthquake is not something you can ever be fully prepared for, but we must do everything within our power to minimize casualties and devastation.
Bangladesh’s tremor readiness needs to be urgently revisited. We must examine whether our buildings are truly earthquake-resistant and whether we have managed to train the thousands of volunteers promised years ago.
On the UN's International Day in Memory of the Victims of Earthquakes, observed for the first time on April 29 this year, the United Nations Secretary-General aptly noted: “Earthquakes are inevitable, but the devastation they cause does not have to be. With intention and forethought, we can build safer towns and cities, however hard the ground shakes.”
Earthquakes remain one of nature’s deadliest hazards, capable of turning homes into ruins and undoing decades of progress in mere seconds. Effective precautions—from regular drills and stricter building codes to smarter urban planning—are the ultimate keys to protecting our communities.
