Bambang Rudyanto, Yujiro Ogawa, Hitoshi Taniguchi & Eiichi Itoigawa 

(UN Researcher UNCRD, 1-47-1 Nagono Nakamuraku, Nagoya 450 Japan )

The Great Hanshin Earthquake with 7.2 on the Richer Scale abruptly occurred breaking the silence of the early morning of 17 January 1995. More than 5,000 people living in Kobe were crushed to death. Considering that this huge disaster struck Japan, which considers itself to be a "Developed Country", reminds us that the need for disaster management is not only in developing countries but also in every place in the world. At the moment, disaster management system can not be separated without using techniques and tools for mapping, referred to as Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing. The analysis revealed that nearly 200,000 buildings had been damaged by the direct effect of the earthquake. From this results, we overlaid the digital map and SPOT satellite images in such a way that at the end, the images before and after damages could be compared easily. By using this kind of GIS and Remote Sensing techniques, natural hazards in wide areas can be observed quickly and the method can be standardized. Also data stored can be retrieved at anytime because of the advantage of using computers.