What happened to elderly people in the great Hanshin earthquake

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Abstract
On 17 January 1995 the great Hanshin earthquake devastated an area 20 km long and 1 km wide, causing heavy damage to Kobe and nearby cities in Japan (table 1). There were nearly 1.6 million inhabitants in this heavily damaged area, and the immediate victims included 5502 dead and 41 527 wounded. By December 1995, the earthquake related death toll amounted to a total of 6308. A total of 394 440 houses were damaged, 100 282 were completely demolished and 108 402 damaged beyond repair. At the time of maximum evacuation, 23 January 1995, there were 317 000 evacuees and 1150 shelters. Up to 49 681 temporary houses had been constructed by 28 August 1995. This earthquake turned out to be the worst natural disaster in terms of its effect on elderly people, and the suffering of elderly people seemed to be different from that in previous disasters.1 2 This paper describes what happened to elderly people in this earthquake.

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