Hanshin quake sparked changes to Japan's disaster response policies
- Hge News
- Jan 16
- 4 min read
Three decades after the Great Hanshin Earthquake leveled Kobe and its surrounding areas, Japan has made significant changes to its disaster response policies and plans to create a new central government agency in 2026 to better respond when disaster strikes.
The magnitude 7.3 quake struck the Hanshin region of Kobe and Osaka, as well as the Awaji Island area, at 5:46 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1995, killing 6,434 people, severely injuring 10,683 and damaging or destroying 639,686 homes.
The devastation, with televised scenes of collapsed buildings and highways, shocked Japan and the world. Unprepared for the disaster, local authorities and the central government were initially slow to respond.
The Hanshin quake fundamentally altered the way Japan’s disaster management system subsequently operated. New laws and regulations came into force to better respond to future disasters, including the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku and the Noto Peninsula quake on New Year’s Day 2024.
Legal changes to allow the Self-Defense Forces to respond to natural disasters formed one legacy of the Hanshin post-quake experience. The government’s Disaster Prevention Plan was amended in 1995 to establish the basis for SDF unit commanders and other officials to order discretionary dispatches, particularly when time is of the essence.
Prior to the Hanshin quake, rules, regulations and precedents — along with political concerns about deploying the SDF for non-military purposes — made it difficult for local governments to immediately request SDF assistance in times of natural disaster. These issues led to a delay in SDF assistance arriving to Kobe and the Hanshin area after the 1995 quake.
Meanwhile, the experiences of the volunteers who poured into the region to help resulted in the enactment of a 1998 law allowing civil society organizations, especially those involved in disaster response and assistance, to more easily acquire nonprofit corporation status, helping them attract volunteers and become more involved.
Moved by the plight of those forced into temporary shelters with little in the way of critical supplies, volunteers from around Japan and the world rushed into the devastated areas in Hanshin.
Hyogo Prefecture estimates that in the first month after the quake, 620,000 volunteers showed up. Their efforts led to the establishment of new nongovernmental organizations that would train and dispatch volunteers to future domestic and international disaster sites.
Another significant legal development was the passing of a 1998 law that allowed the disbursement of government funds to disaster victims, says lawyer and former Hyogo Bar Association President Susumu Tsukui.
"There is now legal support, compensation and assistance for individual disaster victims. Initially, the maximum grant was ¥1 million ($6,420) but it’s now ¥3 million, with no restrictions on usage,” Tsukui said.
But while such changes made it easier for the central government to coordinate with local authorities, the SDF and volunteer groups when responding to local disasters, there are calls for a powerful central government entity to take charge in the event of a massive disaster impacting the entire country, such as a Nankai trough quake that could level numerous large cities on Japan’s Pacific coast or a temblor directly underneath Tokyo.
Mayumi Sakamoto, a professor at the University of Hyogo’s graduate school of disaster governance, says there are three main lessons for disaster response that the government learned from the Hanshin quake.
“The first was, don’t assume major quakes never take place. Preparation for the unexpected is necessary.
“Second, there are limitations to a decentralized disaster response (which had been left largely to local governments), a realization that led to the establishment of a Cabinet Office Disaster Management bureau in 2001,” Sakamoto said.
“Finally, the quake demonstrated the need for developing human resources for disaster management and relief,” she said.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is pushing for a new disaster relief agency to be created by April 2026, and aims to upgrade it to a full-fledged ministry. It is an initiative that Japan’s 47 prefectural governors have supported since 2018 amid concern that it is becoming more difficult for local governments to fund and manage disaster prevention and response measures as their local populations age and decline.
At a Dec. 24 news conference, Ishiba said the new agency would be headed by a minister who would answer to parliament, which means the ministerial office can’t be outside of Tokyo. But he did express support for setting up local branches of the agency.
“Considering the nature of the ‘disaster prevention agency,’ we believe that there should be some type of (local) branch office. If Hyogo Prefecture has such a proposal, of course we would like to hear it,” Ishiba said.
Both Tsukui and Sakamoto indicated support for such an agency, as long as it is properly funded for a wide range of missions and truly responsive to the needs of victims.
“At the moment, when a natural disaster occurs, we only use contingency funds to deal with them on a case-by-case basis. We need to take proper budgetary measures and allocate funds for disaster prevention, crime prevention, disaster recovery support, and livelihood reconstruction,” Tsukui said.
Sakamoto pointed to the United States’ Federation Emergency Management Agency — which has its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and 10 regional offices around the country — and suggested Japan’s new agency could be based on a similar model.
“We need a system where national government officials can easily reach the affected local government, or the prefecture or municipality that has been affected by a natural disaster, in order to provide support quickly.
“To do this, we need regional offices, or prefectural offices, for the agency,” she said.
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