Residents of Kobe yesterday commemorated the fourth anniversary of an earthquake that devastated their city and left it more vulnerable to Japan's present recession than any other part of the country.
Thousands of people braved the western port city's chilly weather to gather at parks and other sites for a minute's silence to mark the moment at 5.46 a.m. when the earthquake, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, ripped through their lives. In one park, people paid homage at a 10 metre by 20 metre Japanese language character formed of 3,000 candles spelling out "1.17" - the date of the catastrophe that killed 6,500 people, and injured and left homeless tens of thousands.