Hi EQF. True. Fires caused most of the damage in the long term, but the fires were started when the houses collapsed. The fire trucks could not get into most of the areas was not due to people, but was due to the damage buildings covering most of the streets. Some streets are just wide enough for two small vehicles to pass one another and in some areas there is no way to get a vehicle in. My brother-in-law lives on just such a street. In reality it’s more of a pathway with just enough room for people to walk their bicycles out to the main street, which is a two lane road with one lane for each direction. If a car parks on the street it will block that one lane.

Japan is a very crowed country and homes are built one right next to the other. Once a fire gets going it could be an insurmountable task to put it out even under the best of conditions.

“Earthquakes can’t be predicted” as an excuse to justify their irresponsible behavior. If the person making that statement believes it to be true then how irresponsible is it? It is no more irresponsible then the statement you make about predicting earthquakes. The people in Kobe made the mistake in believing the government could predict an earthquake. They will not make that mistake again. I take anything and everything you say with a grain of salt about how good your program is and all of these so-called contacts you are supposed to have until as such as you make a public prediction. If indeed you are trying to save the lives of many people as you say you are then why all the secrecy? Take Care…Don the skeptic one