TEN years ago yesterday, at 5.46am, Tsuyoshi Uegaki was asleep in his parents’ room in a tiny home on the outskirts of Kobe when the roof caved in. He heard his mother groan as she was crushed to death by a falling wooden beam.

At exactly the same moment yesterday the Japanese Emperor and Empress watched as 6,400 candles were lit at a memorial service in the centre of the city, one for every victim of the Great Hanshin earthquake, Japan’s worst disaster since the Second World War.

Tsuyoshi, 14, still struggles to describe the events of that day and could barely steel himself to attend the commemoration. “I wasn’t sure I could make it; it’s still too emotional,” he said.

As the world focuses on the devastation of the Indian Ocean tsunami, the lessons of Kobe are that even the best-prepared nations cannot protect themselves against nature’s onslaughts and even the wealthiest take years to recover.

A four-day world conference on disaster prevention opens in Kobe today. Its agenda, previously of only specialist interest, has become of international concern as ministers from around the world discuss the multibillion-pound creation of a global warning system.

For countries afflicted by the tsunami last month, a report on Kobe makes grim reading: more than £15 billion has been spent on rebuilding the city and more than one million people have assistedwith the task. To complete the job and return Kobe to normal, however, could take another ten years and as much money again.

Physically, at least, most of Kobe has been rebuilt. The 300,000 left homeless by the 7.2-magnitude earthquake are living in new apartments. But scars lie beneath the surface. The conference delegates will probably use taxis driven by former office workers whose companies did not reopen after Hanshin. Many elderly people are paying mortgages on houses that no longer exist and they can no longer afford to build on their land.

Everyone knows someone who died. A monument in the city centre showing the victims’ names receives a stream of visitors, all moved to tears.

Hiroshi Kato, director of the Hyogo Institute for Traumatic Stress, has helped thousands of survivors to come to terms with the emotional wreckage of the earthquake and sees a range of problems. One is survivor’s guilt. Another is the destruction of communities and the inhabitants’ relocation into soulless blocks of flats.

“Most survivors never dared say that they were scared or that they were in emotional pain or having terrible dreams,” Dr Kato said. “It meant we couldn’t just wait for people to come to us; we had to go out and reach them. In Japanese culture, there is a certain feeling that natural disasters are something you have to put up with on your own. People think it’s shameful to talk about pain in front of others. It’s taken years to persuade people to accept our support.”

Makoto Tomioka, director of Kobe Rainbow House, said that many of the orphaned children in his care were still “tortured” and that time had done little to reduce their trauma. He tries to get the orphans to talk to each other about their experiences, knowing that they will not talk to others.

Masaki Nishiyama, now 17, said: “My parents and great-grandfather were crushed and I was trapped in the same room as them. When people ask me when I think I’ll be strong enough to stop coming here to talk with other people, I have to tell them that I don’t know.

“When I see what happened in Sumatra, I want to be there to help those children.”

Could there ever be a repeat of the Kobe disaster? From his untidy planning office in the Kobe city hall, Yuichi Honjo recalls the chaotic aftermath — the lack of communications, the sluggishness of the Government’s response, the failure of the Armed Forces to provide immediate aid — and admits that progress has been slow.

Some key changes have been made, but the tsunami reminds Japan that Tokyo is, tectonically speaking, in danger.

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