Disaster Relief

Seven months after a killer earthquake ravaged this city, Kobe's government said Sunday that it is closing all 260 of its remaining refugee centers and cutting off free food for residents made homeless by January's temblor. About 7,600 people who still have not found housing were asked to vacate the centers, particularly at schools, where they have been living since the Jan. 17 quake.

The San Fernando Valley, long known for its suburbs and movie studios, is gaining international fame for its latest attraction: earthquake experts. Since the Northridge temblor, firefighters, engineers and college professors from Japan to New Zealand have begun turning to their counterparts in the Valley for firsthand lessons on how to deal with disaster.

Earthquake repair costs at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will reach $99.5 million, and the Coliseum Commission may have to sue the Federal Emergency Management Agency to recover some of that money, stadium officials said Wednesday. The panel went into closed session to discuss the possible suit after its repair project director, Don C.

Members of a Japanese think tank team seeking ways to improve disaster relief efforts in their country visited a Northridge organization Wednesday formed to help victims of the Northridge earthquake. The nine-member group met with leaders of Community Assisting Recovery with the hope of using the private, nonprofit organization as a model for developing a similar organization in Japan.

Members of a Japanese think tank team seeking ways to improve disaster relief efforts in their country on Wednesday visited a Northridge organization formed to help victims of the Northridge earthquake. The nine members of the group met with leaders of Community Assisting Recovery Inc. with the hope of using the private, nonprofit organization as a model for developing a similar organization in their homeland.

As part of a broad probe into potential wrongdoing in the Northridge earthquake recovery effort, federal authorities are investigating whether the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services improperly tried to get more than $1 million in quake repair money for medical equipment and furniture at a health center that has since been demolished, The Times has learned.

Faced with thousands of classrooms that are potentially unsafe in earthquakes, the Los Angeles Board of Education pledged for the first time Monday to pay a portion of the costs to fortify schools throughout the city, if it can get the federal government to pay the rest. The school board agreed unanimously to pay 25% of the costs to replace hazardous lighting, ceiling tiles and to secure large equipment, such as boilers, on all campuses.

Federal officials are likely to award the city of Los Angeles a $2.6-million grant to build a community theater on the former site of an X-rated movie house in Canoga Park that was severely damaged by the Northridge earthquake, city officials said Monday. The city's Community Redevelopment Agency on Thursday will formally submit an application to the U. S.

At least $2 billion in Northridge earthquake repairs to schools, hospitals and public buildings is at stake in a developing dispute between state and federal disaster officials over what the U.S. government should pay, and presidential politics is playing a role.

Nineteen months after the Northridge earthquake, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to establish a quake service center in hard-hit Sherman Oaks to help quake victims take advantage of governmental assistance programs. The center will begin operating next month out of the Ventura Boulevard office of Councilman Mike Feuer and be staffed for two years by two full-time workers. The salaries and expenses, totaling about $110,000, will be paid through a federal grant.