The Kobe Earthquake

by Rumi Koizumi

This is a true story about something that happened during the massive Kobe, Japan earthquake in 1995. You may recall that 5100 innocent souls died that day - but 30 who should have didn't. This is why... Early Tuesday morning, January 17, around 5am, a class school bus left for a field trip. Shortly into the trip one of the boys on the bus started asking the teacher to stop because he had to pee. Of course the teacher said no, but the boy kept getting more and more insistent. He was getting ready to pee in his pants. At this point there really was no option so the teacher told the driver to pull over. She took the boy over to the side of the bus and let him do his business.

As soon as they started to depart the earthquake hit. In front of the bus they watched a freeway collapse - had they not stopped the authorities said that they would have been under the freeway at the time. Everyone would have died.

No one has ever understood this strange coincidence but it goes further... The teacher was trying to understand how this happened, why she and the students were alive. She went to the home of the little boy and spoke to the parents about it.

They were in dead shock, they told the teacher that their son was not on the bus for that field trip. He had a terrible cold and was in bed when the earthquake happened. They called their son out and he confirmed that he didn't make the trip because he was too sick. Later interviewing all of the other children and the driver - no one recalls seeing that boy. When the driver was questioned he said that the teacher was yelling and demanded that he stop, she got out - alone - and walked about and then returned to the bus. No one knew why.

Who was that boy she was talking to? Did she just imagine the boy? If so why was she screaming for the bus to stop just moments before they were all going to die? Really nobody knows, the survivors don't know, the authorities don't know, the teacher doesn't know, and the "real little boy" doesn't know. Do you have a clue??????????????