KOBE--Residents started gathering before dawn at a local park to pray and renew their determination to never forget the tragedy that struck this port city and surrounding areas 27 years ago.

This mid-sized port gets overlooked ... and you’ll have fun. Meriken Park on the waterfront has a memorial and information panels for the 1995 Kobe earthquake that destroyed 240,000 buildings.

Near the Be Kobe Monument, the Earthquake Memorial Park preserves some 60 meters of ... of the scale of the disaster’s impact on the port and the efforts toward recovery. The Great Hanshin ...