January 19, 1995: Vol26n13: Students safe in Kobe quake

By STEVE COX
Reporter Staff
Two UB students who arrived in Kobe, Japan only last Thursday have
reported to their families that they are safe, although shaken, after
that city was devastated by an earthquake early Tuesday.
	Lisa M. Dalfonso, a 26-year-old UB law student, and Sakura
Moriya, 21- year-old junior, were among a delegation of American
students who had begun classes at Konan University in Kobe only
Monday. The students were to study Japanese language and culture at
the university this semester. However, some reports indicate that
damage to Konan University was extensive.
	The predawn quake, which was measured at a preliminary
magnitude of 7.2, devastated Kobe, an inland Japanese city of 1.4
million people. By Wednesday morning, at least 2,800 were known dead,
including one American. More than 6,000 were injured and many more
were still missing. Japanese scientists classify the quake as one of
the worst this century.
	According to Joseph Williams, director of international
student and scholar services, UB initiated an exchange program with
Konan in 1993. The students in the program are housed with Japanese
families in Kobe near the university. 
	Moriya, a Japanese-American from East Setauket on Long Island,
is an Art History major. According to Williams, her parents had heard
from their daughter and she was reportedly fine. 
	Though travel and communication may be difficult now, the
students are aware of the presence of a U.S. consulate in Osaka, about
30 miles from Kobe, according to Williams.
	Laura Dalfonso, Lisa's sister, said she spoke to her sister
around 2 a.m EST on Tuesday morning. She described Lisa as unharmed,
but nearly hysterical. "She just said there are dead bodies all around
her. She had to climb over bodies to get to the phone. The home she
was staying in didn't come down, but she called it 'pretty messy,'"
Laura said. 
	Although people have been able to call out of the affected
area of southern Japan, it has been impossible to call into the
region.
	Political Science Professor Claude Welch, Dalfonso's faculty
advisor, said she is in her third year of a joint J.D./PhD program in
law and political science. She specifically planned to study labor law
matters, including equal opportunity programs, in Japan. Andrea
Dargush, assistant director for research and education at UB's
National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, explained that
Japan, like California, rests virtually atop the edge of one of the
earth's surface plates. That makes earthquakes more common there.
	"The amount of damage caused by this quake could be great
because the quake itself was rather shallow," said
Dargush. "Earthquakes that are not from very deep under the surface
can cause more intense shaking on the surface."
	If the earthquake was approximately magnitude seven, as
preliminary reports indicate, Dargush says that would make it
comparable to the earthquake that struck San Francisco during the 1989
World Series. It still would pale in comparison to an earthquake that
struck Tokyo in 1923. That quake, which killed more than 100,000
people, was about 25 times more powerful.
	The Japanese government has been taking proactive steps to
improve building construction standards, to make buildings more
resistant to earthquakes, said Dargush. In fact, the Japanese
government supports ongoing research here at UB into state-of-the-art
means to make buildings more earthquake resistant.
	However, Dargush said the large number of wood frame
structures in the city of Kobe, which could weather the quake itself
well, are a significant fire hazard in a quake of this size. 
	Reports from Japan indicate that many fires were still burning
out of control more than a day after the earthquake.