"The government calls this place a waiting centre. But they don't tell us why we are still waiting after all these months. We're so unsure of things, we feel like we're waiting for nothing..."

Kobe earthquake victim, currently resident in a 'waiting centre' (26 September 1995)

From 23 - 30 September 1995, a four-person delegation of Habitat International Coalition (HIC) under-took a fact-finding mission (FFM) in Kobe, Japan to investigate allegations of housing rights and human rights abuses related to the period following the 17 January 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake.

Established in 1976, Habitat International Coalition is an independent and non-partial international non-governmental organization, comprised of more than 350 member NGOs and community based organizations from 75 countries which works for the full realization of the human right to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere. HIC, in conjunction with its affiliates the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights and the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) , has carried out more than a dozen similar missions to countries including Turkey (1995) , the Dominican Republic (1994) , Palestine/Israel(1993) , Nicaragua (1992) , Panama (1992) , South Korea (1988) , Hong Kong (1988) and India (1988).

The four members of the mission have had extensive experience in the area of fact-finding in various countries, and each brought with them particular knowledge of issues relevant to the situation in Kobe. The delegation hailed from Canada, India, Mexico, and the Netherlands.

The basis upon which the FFM team analyzed the situation in Kobe was international human rights law, with particular emphasis placed on the human right to adequate housing. Moreover the team - two members of which have extensive post-earthquake experience in their own countries - sought to examine how experiences in other nations previously affected by large-scale natural disasters, most notably Mexico and India, might be of use in assisting in the longer-term implementation of a post-quake reconstruction plan in a manner fully consistent with international human rights standards.

The HIC team was assisted logistically by many persons and institutions throughout its mission which ensured an efficient use of time, translations of important documents, transportation, secretarial tasks, and other matters. The team is deeply appreciative of this assistance, without which the mission could not have taken place. The FFM team would like also to express its gratitude to the many governmental officials, academics, NGOs. lawyers, community leaders and others for sharing their time, experiences, information and knowledge with us. in particular HIC would like to thank the courageous victims of the earthquake who continue to struggle for their rights, for sharing their personal stories with us.

The mission attempted to develop a comprehensive picture of the pre- and post-disaster housing situation in Kobe within the limited time at its disposal by meeting with and recording evidence from a wide range of inhabitants of Kobe including earthquake survivors, residents of city parks, evacuation centres, waiting centres, temporary housing, reconstructed and repaired houses and private rental housing. An emphasis was placed on the circumstances faced by women, children, the elderly and the disabled.

The mission also held detailed discussions with officials of the Kobe city government, the Hyogo prefectural administration and senior officials of the Bureaus of Social Welfare and Construction in in Tokyo responsible for the planning and execution of the rehabilitation of earthquake affected communities. The mission had the opportunity to meet with representatives of various community groups, NGOs and advocacy groups, leading lawyers, housing, earthquake, economics and socials science academics and, professional and planning associations involved in preparing alternative plans for Kobe's reconstruction.

The HIC team sought to achieve six key objectives:

1 To assess whether the living and housing conditions of people in communities are attributable to violations of the housing rights provisions established pursuant to article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by governmental agencies and to suggest measures designed to promote the full realization of housing rights in Japan;

2 To understand the housing situation in Kobe before the disaster with specific reference to housing markets, building, and planning regulations, disaster management plans and official jurisdiction and planning processes, with a view to determining whether sufficient precautions were taken by public authorities toward disaster mitigation;

3 To understand the rescue, relief, temporary housing and reconstruction phases of the post-disaster situation with specific emphasis on the housing and living conditions of earthquake-affected people and communities;

4 To understand the adequacy of the response of the government at various levels to the disaster and the innovations, limitations and constraints comprising their operation;

5 To determine whether legal redress and/or compensation for any human rights violations should be accorded victims by the responsible authorities; and

6 To provide concrete recommendations to both government and civil society to ensure that the preventable dimensions of disasters such as the 17 January 1995 earthquake are not repeated.

The Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale (7 on the JMA scale) hit the city of Kobe and surrounding areas in Hyogo prefecture on 17 January 1995 at 05:46 local time, resulting in the largest urban earthquake to hit Japan since the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923.

The seismic intensity of the Kobe earthquake was estimated at XII on the Modified Mercalli Scale (MMS) and caused extensive damage to old houses and buildings constructed before the revision of the Japanese Building Code in 1981.

The devastating fire that followed destroyed a large section of the old-quarter in Kobe known as Nagata-ku.

Over 5,500 fatalities and more than 40,000 serious injuries were caused by the earthquake. 88% of the deaths were instantaneous, caused by building collapse which literally crushed people in their sleep.

Serious structural damage was sustained by the railways, expressways, buildings connecting the main land to artificial lands and port infrastructure, including the power and telecommunication networks.

The conditions in the evacuation shelters, public parks and other locations where people took shelter immediately after the earthquake were exceptionally difficult.

The scale of the disaster was tremendous, resulting in over 320,000 people occupying the shelters in early 1995. The difficult living conditions persisted despite a rapid drop off in the populations in March and April 1995.

Nearly 55,000 houses collapsed and 32,000 houses were severely damaged in the city of Kobe. Traditional wooden houses with heavy tiled roofs suffered the most severe impact. Most of these collapsed. Many of the new timber houses with light roofs partially collapsed. Both of these types of houses caught fire easily, leading to the destruction of over 23,000 buildings by fire.

Old concrete buildings partially collapsed killing or trapping large numbers of people. New reinforced concrete buildings suffered less damage and combination steel and concrete buildings with effective shear walls hardly had any damage.

In total, over 500,000 persons effectively lost their place to live as a direct result of the quake; 100,209 housing units were official classified as 'totally damaged'、with 107,074 designated as 'severely damaged'.

The cost of reconstruction of buildings alone was roughly estimated at between US ＄61-70 billion.

Kobe, an international port city had a population of l.48 million at the time of the earthquake and is the sixth largest city in Japan. The Kobe port is the largest port in the country and handled 30% of Japan's foreign trade.

Analyses of governmental compliance with international human rights obligations are not generally carried out in post-disaster contexts; technical reports and examinations are generally the norm in this respect, and the same situation applies to Kobe. This report, however examines the direct relationship between the Kobe earthquake, particularly measures taken following the quake, and the enjoyment of human rights by residents of the earthquake of affected zone.

While the exceptional circumstances surrounding major disasters such as the Great Hanshin Earth-quake in Kobe might be seen as an in appropriate context for examining human rights issues, Habitat International Coalition believes it to be entirely fitting to examine the housing rights situation in Kobe following the disaster.

Probing human rights problems in the context of an earthquake, for instance, provides an opportunity to analyze pre-disaster governmental decisions relating to disaster preparedness, building codes and standards, overall living and housing conditions and other issues which may have led to unnecessarily high numbers of persons being killed and injured than may have been the case had different, more appropriate decisions been made.

This framework also provides possibilities for closely examining the types and results of decisions made immediately following the disaster and those made in the medium- and longer-terms which may have influenced, whether positively or negatively, the enjoyment of human rights, including housing rights.

Of course, disasters wherever they occur are invariably shocking and complex events, resulting in a profusion of post-disaster decisions by government, involving difficult dilemmas, solution-seeking and other problems. This report has telescoped the vast range of considerations arising in Kobe following the quake, and while examining several key technical issues, focuses primarily on the housing dimensions of the post-earthquake period. It does not, for instance, address the reconstruction of bridges and roads, issues of macro-economic public finance or geological concerns. The fact-finding mission instead focused on the effects of the dramatic earthquake on the home; the place so commonly effected during natural disasters.

The extreme housing and other hardships facing hundreds of thousands of Kobe citizens after 17 January 1995 raises many significant human rights concerns, not the least of which how earthquake victims - as citizens and as dwellers - were treated and are being currently treated by government.

To a degree, the actions of government regarding victims following disasters tend to reflect the manner by which governments generally incorporate economic, social and cultural rights considerations into overall social and economic policy and thus, he prominence these rights take in non-disaster situations.

The HIC mission inquired repeatedly with public officials into the question as to whether or not the government in making post-earthquake decisions had even known of - let alone taken fully into account - the housing rights provisions established under human rights law. The responses provided by the government unfortunately conveyed the clear impression that presently or in the past, economic, social and cultural rights have not traditionally been accorded any degree of priority by the various governments of Japan.

Other than rather rhetorical comments, virtually absent of any legal or other substance regarding housing and other socio-economic rights, the public officials with whom the HIC team spoke had only by chance dealt with relevant housing rights issues, rather than including them centrally in any post-disaster plans.

There can be no doubting that human rights considerations must, consistent with Japan's international and national legal obligations, be considered to be relevant at all times, including period following natural disasters. The nexus between human rights and pre- and post-disaster planning and decision-making by governments can serve as a useful vantage point for the position accorded human rights provisions within society at large, and indeed. indicate the seriousness with which the basic rights of citizens are taken by the State.

That many of Kobe's earthquake victims come from Social and economic groups traditionally excluded from the higher echelons of political power in the country, as well as the fact that a large portion of those victimized on 17 January 1995 and there after were already suffering difficulties as far as economic, Social and cultural rights are concerned, provides at least some indication that more needs to be done in Japan to secure these rights, in particular housing rights to everyone residing there.

Furthermore, examining housing rights issues within a post-disaster framework allows an analysis to emerge which squarely positions the overall governmental attitude towards housing within both the legislative sphere, as well as within the entire body politic.

(i) Housing stock ＆ a growth

The total housing stock in Kobe prior to the earthquake was 579, 259 houses. The growth rate of new houses concomitant with the sharp drop in property prices. The rate of new construction in 1994 was estimated at roughly 8,000 units based on new building permits issued. A comparable figure after the earthquake was 5, 000 units over a 3 month period starting May 1995. 100,209 houses were destroyed (totally damaged), 107, 074 severely damaged and 183,436 were classified as partially destroyed throughout the earthquake affected zone. In Kobe, the proportion of damage varied considerably between wards with Higashinada and Nada wards reporting 17% of total damage and Nagata reporting 18% damage.

(ii) House Type

There are broadly six types of houses in Kobe city:

1 Traditional timber houses (usually pre-1950) with heavy tile roofs on timber frame post-and-beam walls with limited partitions, sliding paper walls and boulder foundations, built to resist typhoons and medium intensity earthquakes and not constructed to meet any building standards.

2 New timber framed houses with right tile roofs, braced timber frames, timber partitions and concrete foundations that were built after the Fukui earthquake and the 1st Japan Building Code when the lateral seismic coefficient of 0.2 was introduced.

3 Old reinforced concrete buildings constructed before the 3rd (revised) Japanese building code was brought into force in 1980.

4 New Reinforced Concrete Buildings constructed after 1980 in accordance with the new coral provisions following the Tokachi-Oki & Miyagi-Ken-Oki earthquakes.

5 Steel Frame Buildings with steel frames and masonry or glass cladding.

6 Combination Structures with steel and reinforced concrete, especially concrete shear walls.

(iii) Tenure conditions and Public Housing

Roughly 50% of houses in Kobe, are owned with the rest found in the rental sector. The average figure for Japan was 61% owner occupied housing in 1988; 10% public rental housing; and the remainder in the private rental sector.

(iv) Housing Markets

The housing market in Kobe appears to be driven by property prices determined by commercial official development. Since the "privatization" policy in the housing sector of Japan, property prices boomed until the early 1990s as large corporations with huge cash surpluses invested in real estate, pushing up prices across the country.

The proportion of public housing for the economically disadvantaged remained roughly constant at less than 10% of total stock, thereby having little impact on overall supply-demand dynamics. In Kobe, roughly 50% of the housing stock was largely outside of the formal housing market - this traditional community housing was located in the most densely populated areas, where close community ties and long-term relationships between aging landowners and tenants kept prices down.

The destruction of more than half this stock, which housed a large rent paying population has altered the structure of demand for housing in Kobe dramatically with a resultant large increase in the demand for public housing, as the life-savings of many people have been destroyed. Current incomes neither permit them to buy new houses or even to rent them at current market rates. If the promised 82,000 new public housing units are not built in the next 3 years - large scale homelessness or occupation of partially damaged and therefore unsafe houses will undoubtedly result.