WAJIMA, ISHIKAWA PREF. ¨C Over 18,000 people are still living in temporary housing two years after a massive earthquake hit the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture and left about 700 people dead or unaccounted for.
While infrastructure restoration is progressing in areas hit by the Jan. 1, 2024, earthquake, the road to reconstruction remains bumpy due to issues such as population outflow and aging.
The number of people who died as a direct result of the earthquake and the number of missing people remained unchanged from a year earlier at 228 and two, respectively.
The number of deaths from indirect causes, such as deterioration of physical condition during evacuation, rose by 194 over the past year to 470, including people who died in Niigata and Toyama prefectures, which were severely affected by the earthquake as well.
In Ishikawa Prefecture¡¯s Okunoto coastal area, which was also damaged by heavy rain in September 2024, emergency road repairs have almost been completed. Evacuation centers have been closed, and the publicly funded demolition of houses severely damaged in the disasters has been completed for 98% of applications made in Ishikawa Prefecture as a whole.
However, many people in the disaster-hit areas have not been able to return to normalcy. As of Dec. 1, the number of people living in temporary housing, such as prefabricated units and emergency temporary housing rented from the owners of private apartment buildings, stood at 18,586, not much lower than the peak of about 22,000 a year earlier.
Construction of public housing provided to disaster victims at low rent has only just begun in some cities and towns.
As of Nov. 1, the population of four cities and towns in the Okunoto coastal area had fallen by about 13% since the earthquake struck. In particular, the number of young people has declined significantly, raising concerns about whether attractive industries and jobs can be revived.
On Thursday, a memorial ceremony hosted by the Ishikawa Prefectural Government will be held in the city of Wajima to mark the second anniversary of the earthquake. A moment of silence will be observed at 4:10 p.m., the time the earthquake occurred, to pray for the souls of the victims.
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