Photo/Illutration Workers repair a gas pipe all through the night in Kobe’s Hyogo Ward in the reconstruction efforts of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in February 1995. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

In the spring of 1995, not long after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of Jan. 17 that year, I wrote a story for The Asahi Shimbun.

It was about people who had survived the catastrophe and suffered terrible hardship, but still devoted themselves to post-disaster reconstruction work.

“How could they be so strong?” I wondered and interviewed those people. I was still in my 20s at the time.

Masato Samejima, then 36, was an engineer at Osaka Gas Co. His home in Kobe was completely destroyed, and his wife and three young children had to stay with a relative.

Samejima camped out at the company’s Kobe office for many nights, sleeping on a blanket in the lobby and working nonstop.

I vividly remember him telling me serenely that “this can't be helped” because he is working for a gas company.

“Until the service is restored, people won’t be able to have hot meals,” he explained and then reiterated, “When I think of the people who died, I consider myself truly fortunate.”

That was 29 years ago. Wondering how he was doing, I did some digging. I learned he had retired from Osaka Gas at the mandatory retirement age, and has been living in Akashi in Hyogo Prefecture. I went to see him there in late December.

At 65, his hair was graying, but he looked well.

I asked him questions I couldn’t ask in 1995. One was, if he and others like him were driven by some sense of mission, mixed with what is now called survivor’s guilt.

Samejima did not immediately reply. But he said quietly, as if to himself, “It was painful not being able to stay with my kids when things were most difficult.”

Side by side, we walked on the sandy beach of Akashi. Before us spread the calm waters of the Seto Inland Sea.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 17

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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