Review and Recommendations for Lifeline Recovery and Reconstruction

In the Great Hanshin Earthquake, the severing of lifelines - utilities and infrastructures systems heavily inconvenienced victims and caused serious rifts in emergency activities and medical and firefighting operations right after the earthquake, all of which are critical to life. We review lifelines in terms of damage, recovery that took almost three months, and reconstruction taking 10 years, and recommend ordinary and emergency actions, including reinforcement of frameworks for emergencies, structural damage prediction, and the preparation of improvement guidelines.