Kumamoto railways restored as infrastructure recovery continues
With 1,073 people still in shelters on October 27, Kumamoto has unveiled draft plans to rebuild residents’ lives and improve disaster resilience.
- The restoration of Kumamoto Prefecture’s earthquake-damaged railways is now complete.
- Despite the railway repairs, half of the wider infrastructure recovery in the region remains incomplete.
- Ongoing recovery efforts include addressing over 11,000 destroyed or damaged homes and restoring essential services like running water.
- Three months after the disaster, over 1,000 people remain in shelters, with thousands more in temporary accommodation.
The restoration of Kumamoto Prefecture’s earthquake-damaged railways is complete, but half of the wider infrastructure recovery remains outstanding.
July’s powerful earthquake in southwestern Japan caused 38 deaths, including indirect fatalities, and produced the maximum reading of 7 on Japan’s seismic intensity scale.
Shelters were housing 1,073 people on Tuesday (October 27), with Wednesday marking three months since the disaster.
The evacuee total is now about a tenth of the brief high of more than 10,000.
Friday’s figures showed 2,685 people had relocated to temporary accommodation.
The publicly funded demolition effort, begun last month, had cleared a single house by October 21.
The prefectural government reported partial or total destruction at 11,429 of the 82,223 homes affected.
Among 3,690 consultations received by Yatsushiro’s city government as of October 13 were those concerning the lack of running water.
The city is short of plumbers, and restoration of its wells is still not in sight.
Employment assistance is being provided by the prefectural government and other bodies.
Around 4,200 consultations had reached the Kumamoto Labour Bureau by Friday; the bureau reported the disaster had led about 380 people to leave their jobs as of October 16.
Restoring daily life for affected residents and improving communities’ resilience to disasters are the aims of draft plans unveiled by the prefectural government on Tuesday.
“We want to steadily advance new, creative reconstruction that is full of hope for the disaster-stricken areas,” Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
