Taisuke Matsuzaki records the damage in Kobe’s Suma Ward on Jan. 18, 1995, a day after the Great Hanshin Earthquake hit the region. (Provided by Taisuke Matsuzaki)

KOBE--Taisuke Matsuzaki may never erase the memories of the carnage he witnessed after being shaken out bed in total confusion a quarter-century ago.

For days, Matsuzaki traveled by bicycle to film the destruction wrought by the Great Hanshin Earthquake. He fought through emotions as he watched sections of his beloved hometown burn to the ground and rescue workers trying frantically to save victims trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

The footage taken by the now-retiring Kobe city official represent perhaps the most-instrumental visuals in preserving memories of the disaster.

But he fears his work might not be enough.

“The city has been restored but hardly any memories of the disaster are left here,” Matsuzaki, 60, said. “The memories will not be passed along once generations change.”

Matsuzaki was 35 years old when the rocking movement and roaring sound woke him up at 5:46 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1995.

The earthquake had cut off power to his apartment in Kobe’s Suma Ward. In the dark, he turned on a radio but could only receive fragmented information.

“What is going on outside?” he asked himself.

Matsuzaki, who worked at the city government’s public relations division in charge of producing promotional programs, grabbed an 8-mm video camera and rushed outdoors.

The Great Hanshin Earthquake destroyed much of Kobe and its surrounding areas. The death toll reached 6,434.

Matsuzaki rode his bicycle and kept rolling the video camera that day.

Just after 8 a.m., he pointed the camera at an eastern area of the city from a neighboring hill. Orange flames and black smoke whirled aloft in the sky far away.

Using his work phone, he called the head of the PR division.

“Shoot a lot of video,” his boss urged.

That cemented his determination to “just record what is going on in Kobe right now.”

Matsuzaki arrived in the city’s Nagata Ward, about 4 kilometers from his home. In the Nishidai-dori area, he dashed up a pedestrian overpass, and what he saw threw him off-balance.

“What the heck is this?” Matsuzaki screamed. “Suma and Nagata are like crazy.”

Many buildings were in flames. A chimney at a public bathhouse had toppled over.

Matsuzaki was born and raised in Nagata Ward. His friends still lived there. He tried to remain calm and aware that he was shooting archival footage for work, but he couldn’t help but scream.

Around noon, Matsuzaki arrived at city hall to report on his recordings. He replaced the batteries and tapes in his camera, and then headed east.

Just past 2 p.m., Matsuzaki reached a residential area in Shinohara-Minamimachi in Nada Ward. Rescue operations were being conducted at various collapsed houses in an area that was still smoldering.

As he walked over a heap of debris, an image that he had seen a long time ago crossed Matsuzaki’s mind. It was U.S. archival footage recorded in Kobe after an air raid during World War II.

In a dejected voice, Matsuzaki provided live commentary to his recordings: “I don’t have firsthand knowledge of war. I hadn’t even imagined walking in wrecked Kobe like this. A disaster occurred just out of nowhere and turned Kobe into a place that looks like it was bombed in an air raid.”

Matsuzaki continued shooting as much as possible, including a fallen overpass in Nada Ward, the collapsed JR Rokkomichi Station, a bank building that was tilting precariously, and residents who took shelter in a lobby of city hall.

Toward sunset, he saw the red and bright sky westward from the Sannomiya district. He then headed back to Nagata and Suma wards.

Firefighters battled the blaze in the darkness, but there were no signs of the fire dying down. Matsuzaki could only stand there and watch.

He lodged at city hall for a while after the earthquake. But he continued to record scenes of the destruction and recovery efforts in the city until spring 1996.

He edited and created a video of only a few minutes from around 43 hours of his recordings. The video has been released on the websites of the city government and other entities.

Matsuzaki also documented scenes of cracked quays at Kobe Port and a collapsed sake brewery in eastern Kobe.

“I wanted to report the situation of damage in Kobe and filmed feverishly at the time,” said Matsuzaki, who now works in the city’s planning and coordination division.

Immediately after the earthquake, news media mainly shot scenes of the destruction from their helicopters.

Matsuzaki, who knew the city, used his bicycle to provide a worm’s-eye view of the disaster.

In recent years, Matsuzaki has been concerned that memories and lessons from the earthquake are disappearing.

He recalled a teacher’s words when he was in high school: “Kobe won’t have an earthquake because of the firm granite under Mount Rokkosan.”

That was one reason he could not believe what had happened in the immediate aftermath of the 1995 earthquake.

Matsuzaki later learned that Kobe was hit by a devastating earthquake about 400 years ago, and he realized that people forget what happened before even written accounts were kept.

He has developed a sense of responsibility to keep memories of the Great Hanshin Earthquake alive and pass them to the future generations.

“They have to be passed down from people who don’t have direct experience of the earthquake to people who have no memory of the disaster,” he said.

Using his footage, Matsuzaki hopes young people will “have a simulated experience” of the earthquake and think about it “as their own experience.”

Matsuzaki’s videos have been used in disaster response training at public schools in Kobe and disaster prevention education programs abroad.

He also helped to develop an app so that people can see the footage on their mobile devices.

Matsuzaki will retire in spring. The Jan. 17 events in memory of the disaster victims will be his last as a city employee.

When asked what the theme would be for the rest of his life, he replied: “Not only record but keep the memories alive.”