My maternity leave was to start that morning

Ms. Tanaka left her hometown in the Kansai region for Nagano Prefecture, to start her career as a professional competition skier in a corporate team. In Nagano, she met her partner and got married. They did not have a baby for some time after getting married, but their first daughter was born soon after they returned to Kansai, where they bought a new apartment in Nada Ward. Their second child came four years later. Ms. Tanaka enjoyed a good life, both as a wife and a mother.

As I recall, it was the first day of the week. With the due date of my second child four weeks away, I was going to take maternity leave from that day on. But the earthquake struck early in the morning. While I was busy doing what I had to do, like collecting water from the ground floor of the apartment building, because the water was cut off, I felt weird, which I realized in the afternoon was a sign of the onset of labor. Since my husband had a slightly injured foot and he also had to take care of our daughter, I got behind the wheel of my car and headed alone to the hospital where I was to give birth. I had no information about what was going on, because there was no TV reception and we didn’t have a radio.

While driving to the hospital, Ms. Tanaka still could not grasp the scale of the situation, but understood at least that something very serious had happened. She also heard from someone about the staggering damage caused by the quake, such as that there was a fire somewhere ahead of her, and that the elevated National Route 43 had collapsed and was impassable. Therefore, she gave up going south to the hospital and turned east instead.

I headed east on the National Route 2, but got stuck in traffic. It took me as long as three hours to reach the Higashinada Ward Office. It usually takes only 15 minutes or so. I finally found a hospital, but it was inundated with injured people and corpses. Moreover, it didn’t have an obstetrics department. But, luckily, the chief nurse had experience of working at the gynecology department and examined me. “Your baby is coming soon! Don’t go further to the east. Anyway, go north! I’ll give you bath towels. You can take a lot.” She gave me such sound advice. I was very anxious, but had no time to hesitate. I got back in the car, and headed for Kita Ward, but my contractions started on the way, when I was near the Takaha intersection in the Rokko area.

Feeling like she would faint from the pain, Ms. Tanaka abandoned her car and hitchhiked. Although the car in which she got a ride was only able to move slower than normal walking speed, she managed to cope with the pain and fear during the drive to a hospital in Arinodai, Kita Ward. Once there, she was given a bed and gave birth to a baby boy.

I gave birth only 15 minutes after arriving at the hospital. Nearly 12 hours had passed since the appearance of my physical symptoms, and I was almost at my limit, both physically and mentally. I felt lonely, giving birth without being accompanied by my family members. The hospital was packed with the injured who had been transported from a heliport in Arima, and also those who had lost their lives. I couldn’t even get through to my family on the phone. However, a family member of a person who shared the same room with me couldn’t stand watching me sobbing, and kindly took the trouble to reach my parents. So, I finally got through to my family.

Above all, the biggest helping hand extended to Ms. Tanaka was the couple who gave the pregnant woman a ride from the Takaha intersection to the hospital. Ms. Tanaka, however, doesn’t even know their names.

I asked them for their names over and over, but they refused and said, “You don’t have to thank us, but raise your child properly, instead.” Their words are inscribed forever on my heart.

Photo: Ms. Narumi Tanaka, who gave birth the morning after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake


After the life-changing event, her turn comes to give back

Born with so much help from many people, this precious baby was named Daichi, and he has grown up in good health. Meanwhile, the earthquake has drastically changed Ms. Tanaka’s life and sense of values. She began living apart from her husband and switched from being employed by a major company to being self-employed, after suffering a serious illness.

For some years, I had been supported by my parents in raising my children. When my son was in the third year of elementary school, we moved from my parents’ house to Okamoto where we live now. I chose Okamoto because I had already been familiar with this town since I used to live by myself in a dormitory in front of Hankyu Okamoto Station, after graduating from college. The experience of the earthquake has changed my sense of values so drastically that I made up my mind to do what I wanted to do, and thus I started my own company six years ago.

After starting her web design company, Ms. Tanaka became involved in Okamoto Shopping Street as an instructor of a computer class. She was in a meeting of the shopping street association when a massive earthquake hit the Tohoku region.

I heard that Kobe had received great support from people in Miyagi Prefecture when the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake struck. So I had a lot of sympathy for the suggestion of directors of the shopping street association, which was: “Merchants can support merchants!” We visited Miyagi once a month to build relationships with local people and in February 2012, we opened “Kesennuma Matadain” at Okamoto Shopping Street, a store that specializes in local products from Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture. I have been acting as a liaison with business operators in Kesennuma since the beginning of this project. My two children will soon be independent. So I think, now is the time for me to do something in return for the help I had received. That’s why I have supported the revitalization of the quake-hit Tohoku region.

In the aftermath of an earthquake, people are generally in need of blankets and water, but for no more than a year. What people need three years after the disaster is also different from what was in demand a year after the event. For example, around two years after such a disaster, one may unexpectedly find oneself in tears while watching TV or riding in a train, even though there is nothing, at that time, to suffer for or be sad about. According to Ms. Tanaka, people in Kobe, who have had that experience themselves, believe they can make their own unique contribution to the quake-affected Tohoku.

Some women in Kesennuma saw us doing volunteer work in cooperation with various organizations in Kobe City and said, “You look so cheerful. How enviable!” So we launched the “Tohoku & Kobe Women-Only Gathering” as an opportunity for us to talk about our experience of the disasters over tea and snacks. There are certain kinds of worries you can only tell someone you don’t know well, aren’t there? It is now important for women in the Tohoku region to let off steam by chatting with other women. I hope we can keep on holding this gathering for ten more years to come.

Photo: “Tohoku & Kobe Women-Only Gathering” launched in Kesennuma. Sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, women enjoy friendly chats

Photo: Women at the second Tohoku & Kobe Women-Only Gathering held in November last year

Photo: Ms. Tanaka is in charge of buying products to sell at “Kesennuma Matadain,” a store opened in Okamoto Shopping Street with the purpose of supporting people in the quake-affected Tohoku region


2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the earthquake as well as the end of her parenting era

Ms. Tanaka’s son Daichi will reach his 20th birthday in the year of the 20th anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. Ms. Tanaka is also getting over the busiest part of bringing children up, during which she has struggled as a single mother, with help and support from many people. What does her grown-up son Daichi think about his mother?

She was always nagging me even when I was just a little boy. But now, as an adult, I fully know how much I owe to her. For example, she taught me how to hold chopsticks properly, and that you should say “itadaki masu” and “gochiso sama”, or words of thanks, before and after a meal, and that you should leave your shoes tidy after you take them off at the entrance. People who see me with good manners think me to be a decent person, so I’m really thankful for her strict discipline. My mom looks happy to support the revitalization of the Tohoku region. So I hope she can keep on with it.

Daichi has never been to the Tohoku region. He says he has no special emotions about the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake.

I think many in my generation feel the same as I do because we didn’t witness the disaster, and so have no memory of it; and we haven’t developed an emotional attachment to Kobe either, because we are still young. It would be easy for you to remember that I was born on the following day of the earthquake and this can also serve as a conversation starter, but I wouldn’t mention it myself. The Great East Japan Earthquake in the Tohoku region reminded me that I hadn’t survived the earthquake in Kobe on my own, but it was those who had helped my mother that day that had saved my life. The earthquake comes across as more real when I see people in my immediate surroundings, like my mother and other volunteers, providing support for the Tohoku region than when I see it on the news or learn about it in school.

Photo: Mr. Daichi Tanaka “I didn’t survive the earthquake in Kobe on my own, but it was those who had helped my mother that day who had saved my life.”

“Now he can do whatever he likes,” Ms. Tanaka says, referring to Daichi, who wants to get a job that facilitates communication between people. However, she still often finds herself interfering in her son’s life. Be that as it may, this year marks a new stage in her life after the earthquake, as well as her life as a mother. “My goal for the next decade,” she says, “is to love Kobe even more.”

I have no intention to living elsewhere, for the rest of my life, since I like Kobe so much. But now, while I am still young enough, I’ m going to travel, and see the world outside Kobe. I want to visit not just Tohoku, but also other countries. Kobe is known for its international education and culture, because many things have been brought from the world to the port of Kobe, over the years. That’s why I want to see the city through the prism of my own experience that I will gain outside Kobe, and thus I will develop even more love for Kobe, which has come through hard times in the last 20 years.

Photo: “To my dear mom—Keep smiling!! Your son Daichi”　A message from Daichi to his mother


(Photographed by Takuya Oshima, interviewed and written by Maki Takahashi)