'2011' 2011-2012

Although I experienced the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, when I was 14, I don’t remember much about that time. The only things that I remember are the morning of the earthquake itself and the two weeks that we spent living without gas or running water. As well as the terrifying aftershocks, just the sight of our neighborhood in ruins reminded me of the danger, so I hardly left the house at all.
The electricity came back a few days after the earthquake and when I saw footage of Kobe on the television, I was shocked to discover the extent of the damage for the first time. However, I wasn’t yet at an age when I could suppress this astonishment and calmly judge the reality before my eyes.
Because of this confusion, my information about and memories of that time remain indistinct, even now. Perhaps that’s just how life is for a disaster victim, but precisely because of that vagueness, my experiences of that bygone age continued to be a black box in my mind long after I reached adulthood.

When the Great East Japan Earthquake struck in 2011, although the nature of the damage differed, I felt that I might be able to shed some light on my own black box by getting involved there.

Chaos flows into our societies in some kind of cycle. It’s like the air leaking out of a pinhole in an overinflated balloon.