US-Japanese Internet Exchanges of Information about the 1995 South Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake

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9520977 Bardet On January 17, 1995, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the city of Kobe in Japan, and inflicted the worst natural disaster to Japan since the 1923 Tokyo Earthquake. Some of the 10,000 buildings toppled by the quake were modern structures. The modern port of Kobe was completely shut down, mainly due to massive liquefaction of the soil foundations for its wharves and container yards. The infrastructure of Kobe, including railways, Shinkansen lines, expressways, and subways was heavily damaged. There were more than 30 bridge failures in the Hyogo Prefecture. The lifelines, including electricity, gas, and water were severely disrupted in the city of Kobe. Such a large scale disaster confronts engineers with the devastating effects of an intensity 7 earthquake in a populated area. The damage to Kobe transportation systems rendered access difficult. Owing to the transportation problems and the large scale damage to Kobe, foreign reconnaissance teams experienced difficulties in assessing the earthquake damage. There are many geotechnical lessons to learn from this earthquake which can be used to avoid similar catastrophes in the US. The objective of this project is to collaborate with the Japanese reconnaissance teams in order to collect and release data about the geotechnical features of the South Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake, using the modern and efficient means of Internet communication. This new means of communication not only speeds up the dissemination of critical information, but it also promotes the exchange of information between US and Japan earthquake engineers. The Japanese Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundations has agreed to collaborate with the principal investigator on the translation of the Japanese reports into English, and to put these translated reports on the GEOTECH Internet subscriber list and Mosaic Server of the Southern California Earthquake Center. The information will contain digitized strong motion recordings, map s, aerial photographs, and photographs taken during field observations. All this information will be made available to the US earthquake engineering community as rapidly as possible in order to inform them in a timely manner, and to help them to take appropriate research actions to learn as much as is possible from the South Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake. ***