Considering the stricken areas affected by the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake and the numerous typhoons and floods that hit Japan this year, I feel that the lessons of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake are finally starting to take shape in Japanese volunteer activities.

However, there is still much room for improvement.

In Niigata, earthquake victims have begun leading their life at temporary housing units. Although the situation is different from the Great Hanshin Earthquake in some ways, people providing support should understand that relief activities could extend over a long period. I urge them to work out a long-term strategy.

In the Hanshin earthquake, it was at least five years before temporary housing was no longer needed and could be torn down. However, even after residents moved out and settled in new public housing, people needed follow-up care. The elderly especially tend to become isolated.

Disasters can deprive people of their homes, jobs and other belongings. Natural upheavals can also disrupt social ties, and people can become separated from the local community with which they had strong ties. It is very difficult for displaced people to recover their independence and stability.

After the Hanshin earthquake, more than 1 million volunteers rushed to the stricken area. That is why 1995 came to be called ``the first year of volunteerism.''

However, six months after the earthquake, just as I thought we were about to face the moment of truth, I looked around and found few supporters still in Kobe. Most volunteers had left, and the media had shifted their attention to the Aum Shinrikyo incidents. I felt as though the media had given up on the quake survivors.

As time goes by, the same thing will likely happen in Niigata and in other places struck by calamities. Financial support from companies will lessen over time. Can volunteers and nongovernmental organizations put up with such adversity? Can they build a long-term support system in cooperation with the administration and local communities? This is how they can prove their real worth.

Immediately after the Hanshin earthquake, I quit my job as a hospital nurse and moved into a temporary housing project in Kobe's Nishi Ward. I devoted the next four years to caring for alcoholics and preventing ``solitary deaths''-cases in which deaths, including suicides, go unnoticed for days or even weeks.

In the process of this care, we also built up a community of people whose ties with the local community had been severed.

Administrative authorities were unable to provide all the needed support on their own because they must not violate residents' privacy and they cannot assume total responsibility for residents. So, to prevent solitary deaths, volunteers were needed to painstakingly build a relationship of trust with quake survivors and provide round-the-clock support.

Administrative authorities that initially were averse to meeting volunteers and nongovernmental organizations gradually came to share information with us and eventually delegated us to provide support.

Neither the administration nor volunteers can meet all the needs of victims on their own, however.

In particular, when major disasters strike one after another, I doubt whether the government can effectively deal with the situation on its own to provide good care.

I went to the Niigata area and worked as a volunteer together with a Kobe doctor who has worked at a shelter. I wanted to repay the kindness we received after the Kobe quake and hope to work at a shelter that is shorthanded.

Even if they only have a single blanket, people can get much warmer if they know how to use newspapers and cardboard boxes. Gargles and masks help to reduce illnesses that can lead to deaths from pneumonia. Stress among survivors can be eased by re-examining the layout of shelters. When assigning temporary housing, it is desirable to keep together members of the same community as much as possible.

I believe it is significant for experienced volunteers across the nation to offer their accumulated know-how to help people in disaster-stricken areas. In particular, since support will be needed over a long period, it is important that they pass on their experience to local staff who are firmly rooted in the local community.

I urge local governments to hold dialogues with volunteers. Good communication is indispensable in building a relationship of trust.

I also ask that they treat volunteers with respect and not as disposable items they can dump once they are no longer needed. If possible, they should pay for the services these people perform, so that their activities can win social recognition.

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Yuko Kuroda represents the Hanshin Support Network for the Elderly and Disabled. Before the Great Hanshin Earthquake, she worked as a nurse in a hospital for 25 years. She is based in Kobe and continues to work as a volunteer to help the survivors of the quake.(IHT/Asahi: December 4,2004)