Safety culture is defined as those sets of norms, roles, beliefs, attitudes and
social and technical practices within an organisation, which are concerned with
minimising the exposure of individuals to conditions considered dangerous. In this
context, although Japan is known for its high earthquake risk, Kobe had never been hit
by any major earthquake in the historic past, which left residents with the belief that
Kobe was somehow safe from earthquakes. This concept is reflected in the
construction pattern of the area, which is strong for other hazards like typhoon, but did
not allow for earthquake countermeasures.
Granot (1996) emphasises the term ‘disaster subculture’, and concluded that
although the term was introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, disaster or emergency
subculture does not seem to be an appropriate application of the wider sociological
concept of subculture. Gheradi (1998) also analysed the culture and subculture issues,
and made a summary of the evolution of the term. Britton (1992) focused on the
sociological concept of disaster subculture, and termed it as a standby mechanism, that
permits individuals who are faced with crisis to opt for an alternative normative
structure. Britton also justified different sorts of social action by different segments of
society by introducing subculture. In contrast, Granot (1996) concluded that disaster or
emergency subculture represents an aspect of that dominant culture that only manifests
itself under particular circumstances.
Japanese society was traditionally a closed one, with tight bonds and social
norms as a part of its culture. However, after urbanisation, modernisation and gradual
exposure to the outside world, these traditional cultural issues became dormant, and reemerged
as disaster subculture during the emergency period. In the old districts of
Kobe city, the subculture issue was dominant, however, government was not in a
position to perceive this critical aspect, and applied homogeneous regulations in both
the new town and old districts, which created subsequent problems in terms of
dissatisfaction among residents.
Listening to ‘victim’s voices’
The gap between the administration’s and people’s perceptions can be understood by
listening to the victims in the temporary shelters. As evident from Figure 2, younger
victims have relatively positive opinions and elder victims feel acutely worried about
their future. In general, women have more optimistic outlooks than men. Because the
victim’s voices mostly contain opinions from those who were not able to move out
from temporary housing, the majority of voices are pessimistic. The two major
problems for victims are: human relationships in their new communities and lack of
support systems. Most of these problems arose from lack of communication between
the victims and the administration, which resulted mutual distrust.
Summarising all these items, the emerging issues of the rehabilitation
programme after the Kobe earthquake can be listed as follows:
• Bipolarisation: The disaster-stricken areas were divided into supported areas
where human resources and public money were invested, and unsupported areas
where rehabilitation was left to residents. Moreover, gaps in industry,
employment and community rebuilding were expanding. New policies were
required to reduce the gaps.