Earthquake Tsunami Trauma
Long Sustained Mental Health Care Needs for Children and the Elderly for Earthquake and Tsunami Trauma Victims
Scars remain a decade after Japan's Kobe earthquake
The 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit western Japan at 5:46 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1995, killing 6,433 people, forcing more than 300,000 to take refuge, destroying homes, factories, roads and railways. Total damage was estimated at 10 trillion yen ($96 billion).
A decade later, Kobe is again a glittering modern city of more than 1.5 million people.
But scars remain, especially among the poor, the elderly and the children who were hardest hit when the disaster stuck.
The same is all certain to be true for victims of the tsunami, which ravaged the weak and the poor most of all.
"Those who suffered (in Kobe) most were already worst off economically, and it was hard for them to rebuild their lives. That situation persisted and caused stress and ultimately, health problems," said Hitoshi Kato, director of the Hyogo Institute for Traumatic Stress, set up after the quake.
LONELY ELDERLY, TRAUMATISED CHILDREN
Yoshiko Fujita, 78, also remembers the fires that destroyed her home. "I lived in that house for 20 years, but I didn't have the money to rebuild it," said Fujita as she sat on a park bench.
Fujita now lives in an apartment building in her old neighbourhood, but many aged residents were less fortunate.
"Many elderly, who already had shaky finances, lost everything. They were too old to borrow to rebuild and had to be relocated to public housing," said the Hyogo Institute's Kato.
"Those who were moved far away to new homes suffered stress and were unable to cope with the unfamiliar environment."
When the tsunami struck Indian Ocean coasts, children were among the its biggest victims. UNICEF estimates about 50,000 children died, a third of the total death toll. Tens of thousands were orphaned and are likely to suffer trauma for years.
In Kobe, Tomoyuki Nagake, 17, lost his father to a stress-induced stroke three months after the quake.
"When I lost my dad, I had no one to rely on and I stuck to my mom, developing a kind of mother-complex and was bullied," Nagake said last week at a gathering in Tokyo of orphans from 11 countries.
An estimated 1,300 children in Kobe still require mental care for disorders they suffer as a result of the quake.
Reuters AlertNet 11 Jan 2005
This article in full reviews some of the long term known effects of the 1995 Kobe area earthquake on children and the elderly, and so highlights the need for many years to come for focused and sustained mental health care of the hundreds of thousands of children and elderly people who are currently already suffering the trauma of the Indian Ocean eathquake and tsunami. - Timi
Scars remain a decade after Japan's Kobe earthquake
The 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit western Japan at 5:46 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1995, killing 6,433 people, forcing more than 300,000 to take refuge, destroying homes, factories, roads and railways. Total damage was estimated at 10 trillion yen ($96 billion).
A decade later, Kobe is again a glittering modern city of more than 1.5 million people.
But scars remain, especially among the poor, the elderly and the children who were hardest hit when the disaster stuck.
The same is all certain to be true for victims of the tsunami, which ravaged the weak and the poor most of all.
"Those who suffered (in Kobe) most were already worst off economically, and it was hard for them to rebuild their lives. That situation persisted and caused stress and ultimately, health problems," said Hitoshi Kato, director of the Hyogo Institute for Traumatic Stress, set up after the quake.
LONELY ELDERLY, TRAUMATISED CHILDREN
Yoshiko Fujita, 78, also remembers the fires that destroyed her home. "I lived in that house for 20 years, but I didn't have the money to rebuild it," said Fujita as she sat on a park bench.
Fujita now lives in an apartment building in her old neighbourhood, but many aged residents were less fortunate.
"Many elderly, who already had shaky finances, lost everything. They were too old to borrow to rebuild and had to be relocated to public housing," said the Hyogo Institute's Kato.
"Those who were moved far away to new homes suffered stress and were unable to cope with the unfamiliar environment."
When the tsunami struck Indian Ocean coasts, children were among the its biggest victims. UNICEF estimates about 50,000 children died, a third of the total death toll. Tens of thousands were orphaned and are likely to suffer trauma for years.
In Kobe, Tomoyuki Nagake, 17, lost his father to a stress-induced stroke three months after the quake.
"When I lost my dad, I had no one to rely on and I stuck to my mom, developing a kind of mother-complex and was bullied," Nagake said last week at a gathering in Tokyo of orphans from 11 countries.
An estimated 1,300 children in Kobe still require mental care for disorders they suffer as a result of the quake.
Reuters AlertNet 11 Jan 2005
This article in full reviews some of the long term known effects of the 1995 Kobe area earthquake on children and the elderly, and so highlights the need for many years to come for focused and sustained mental health care of the hundreds of thousands of children and elderly people who are currently already suffering the trauma of the Indian Ocean eathquake and tsunami. - Timi
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