Disaster and School

The Lessons of
the Great Hanshin-Awaji Disaster(known as Kobe Earthquake)

It is said that more than 90% of the people killed by the Hanshin-Awaji Disaster lost their lives within 30 minutes. It is also said that more than 80% of the saved people were rescued by the neighboring citizens, not by the soldiers of Japan Self-Defense Army or the rescue teams of fire bureau. Fire fighters could not extinguish all the fires that morning because the city caught fires in too many places at the same time and that was beyond the capacity of fire fighters. The stop of the water supply also made it impossible to put out the fires. I believe from these facts that the most important lesson of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Disaster is that the citizens noticed for the first time that the lives of the citizens should be protected by the citizens themselves. For the citizens who had thought that the soldiers of the Japan Self-Defense Army or the rescue teams of the fire stations would manage to rescue them, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Disaster was the crucial event that made them realize how little they were aware and prepared.

Schools as the refuge during the Great Hanshin-Awaji Disaster

During the Great Hanshin-Awaji Disaster there were more than 1,100 refuges at the peak time and most of them were schools and kindergartens. There, those who took care of the refugees were the schoolteachers and staffs who had never received a special training on running the refuges. At an elementary school all the keys of the rooms were broken and the rooms were occupied by the evacuating people before one teacher got to the school in the morning. At a high school refugees had to sleep not only on the floors of the gym, the classrooms and in the tents hoisted at the school ground, but also on the floors of the corridors and the steps of the stairs. At many schools the refugees used the toilet, where the supply of water stopped. Their feces formed a small tower and were got rid of by the teachers and the volunteering students. The teachers also had to take care of the sick old people, hear the sad stories by the some refugees who said they wanted to die, arrange their meals, and tackle many difficult affairs, until the volunteers functioned systematically. When more than 3,000 or 3,500 people evacuated in one school, the situation of the school became something like the mess that was mentioned above. School staffs who were also suffering from the disaster made great efforts to support the refugees by sacrificing themselves.

Disasters and the Functions of School

Not only during the earthquake, but also during the volcanic eruption, flood and so on, Japanese schools function as refuges. Schools are the places for those who lost their houses or in danger of losing their lives and houses by the disasters.

During the Great Hanshin-Awaji Disaster 310,000 people escaped from the collapsed and burning cities to the schools and the kindergartens nearby. Japanese people naturally regard school as the refuge during the disaster. Being a refuge is one function of school during the disaster.

Now, school has one more important function. School is the only place where the disaster mitigation education could be performed systematically. The idea of school = refuge is the idea during the disaster. On the other hand, the idea of school being the place for the disaster mitigation education ranges from "before the disaster", through "during the disaster", to "after the disaster". Disaster mitigation education can function from the moment of the disaster taking place, through the emergency treatment and the recovery, to preparedness, as shown in the chart 1(in Disaster Mitigation Education).

Schools thus have two functions: the place for "refuge" and the place for "disaster mitigation education.