The impact of the 1995 Kobe earthquake was examined. In this study, mental and physical stress disorders among 748 disaster victims (aged 4-88 years) in the first month after the earthquake were investigated and analyzed according to refuge conditions, gender, generation and damage degrees of house. The results showed that: 1) people sheltered in public or private shelters felt more severe stress than people sheltered in other places, 2) women in their sixties felt more severe mental and physical stress than other people, 3) the groups of completely collapsed and partially collapsed had higher stress degrees than the group of needing repairs, meaning that losing a house is a great mental burden.

Key words: disaster, stress, Kobe earthquake, shelter, victims