FEMA Chief Warns of Kobe-Like Quake in U.S. : Asia: Visiting disaster area, James Lee Witt says chances of temblor in Midwest are growing. He declines to criticize Japan’s emergency response.

Evading questions about the Japanese government’s handling of the Kobe earthquake, the head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency ended a tour of the devastated area Saturday with a warning that the same kind of unexpected jolt could strike the middle of the United States.

“In 1811 and 1812, there was an 8.1-magnitude earthquake on the New Madrid fault that ran the Mississippi River backwards for three days,” James Lee Witt said in an interview with The Times.

Between December, 1811, and February, 1812, four quakes measuring greater than 8 struck along the New Madrid, which runs from Arkansas to Illinois, killing dozens of people, snapping trees and reportedly ringing church bells as far away as Boston.

Liquefaction on the New Madrid fault was “very similar to what you had here,” where soil turned into “a bowl of jellylike quicksand,” Witt said. With no major earthquakes recorded in recent history, the Kobe area had been considered relatively free of seismic threats.

If a quake the size of the Kobe temblor struck along the New Madrid, the eastern part of the United States could be deprived of much of its petroleum supplies, Witt said.

“We have five major pipelines that come through that fault that go to the East Coast. And if (an earthquake) hits in the wintertime, we’re in big-time trouble,” Witt said.

Witt said his agency has been trying to persuade operators of the pipelines to install safety shut-off valves.

“The percentages get higher and higher every year for a major earthquake on the New Madrid. By the year 2000, it’s more than a 50-50 chance that you could have a major earthquake,” he said.

A study of the New Madrid that the Arkansas State Office of Emergency Services conducted when Witt was its director indicated that 14,000 people could be killed and 240,000 made homeless if a 7.0 earthquake struck along the fault at 9:30 a.m., he said.

Studying the liquefaction that occurred in Kobe will help the United States better prepare for an earthquake along the New Madrid, he said.

And a study of damage to steel-frame buildings in Kobe may help both the United States and Japan devise new construction standards, said Witt, who headed FEMA’s rescue operations after the 6.7-magnitude quake that struck Northridge on Jan. 17, 1994.

Both in his interview with The Times and at a Saturday news conference, Witt repeatedly evaded questions about the Japanese government’s initial response to the Kobe quake.

Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama has faced heavy criticism for his handling of the disaster and has admitted publicly that he was slow to realize the extent of the damage.

When asked what single point he would most like to stress to Japanese officials, Witt responded that “the first 72 hours is the most critical time.”

In the first 72 hours after the Kobe quake, Murayama’s government dispatched 13,500 troops and 30,000 police officers from other areas of Japan to the disaster area. But after three days, rescue efforts had not even begun in some residential sections of Nishinomiya, Ashiya and Kobe, according to the Asahi newspaper.

In his interview, Witt said that “it probably would have been very easy to have been critical before going” to Kobe. But he added that his team saw great strides during its tour last week.

“They already have cleaned up the freeways that collapsed. They already are cleaning up the buildings that collapsed. They have opened up the roadways to get emergency supplies in. . . . I was impressed with how fast they did that,” he said.

The 6.8 quake’s death toll is now 5,250, with six people still listed as missing and 26,804 as injured. More than 100,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Ongoing calculations of the losses in Hyogo prefecture, in which Kobe is located, have reached $96.3 billion.

About 250,000 refugees are still living in parks or government-managed evacuation centers in unheated gymnasiums. The Kyodo news agency said a survey it took of only part of the disaster area found that 24 elderly survivors of the quake had died of illnesses they contracted while staying in the evacuation centers.

About half of Kobe’s homes still have no water, and the Osaka Gas Co., which serves the quake-devastated area, said Saturday that gas will not be restored to all 748,000 households until the middle of March.

Witt said that a team of U.S. government experts will come to Japan on Feb. 13 for detailed studies of the earthquake. A Japanese team will participate in a FEMA hurricane drill with state and local government officials in Louisiana and Mississippi in May, he added.

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