WAJIMA: Survivors of the powerful earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula in central Japan eleven months ago are struggling to build new communities, as many of them are elderly and must live among strangers in temporary housing.

About 55 percent of temporary housing complexes in the cities of Wajima and Suzu in Ishikawa Prefecture, which were hit especially hard by the Jan. 1 temblor, lacked community leaders such as neighborhood association chiefs as of Friday. Specifically, 31 of the 46 complexes in Wajima did not have such figures, as was the case for 18 of the 42 complexes in Suzu.

“It’s difficult to find people willing (to take on the role) in large blocks comprising residents from multiple districts,” a Wajima city official said.

“Some people are rarely around, and everyone is busy with their own lives,” said a 71-year-old woman living in the No. 2 complex of the Yamagishimachi district of Wajima. “I don’t have anyone to talk to, and I think I’ll be stuck inside home all the more when it gets cold.”

A 74-year-old woman living in a complex built in Wajima’s Marine Town district said that without community managers, some people are not following rules.

“There are people who do not sort their garbage and those who take out flammable trash on noncollection days,” she said. “Stray cats make a mess out of them, so we have to voluntarily clean them up.”

Meanwhile, community leaders have been selected in 12 of the 13 complexes in the town of Noto and 15 of the 16 complexes in the town of Anamizu.

Both towns have fewer temporary housing complexes than Wajima and Suzu, and their respective town officials visited each complex to ask residents to become community leaders.

According to the Ishikawa prefectural government, people in their 70s or higher make up around 46 percent of all residents in temporary housing at disaster sites where the aging of the population has progressed.

The prefectural government thinks that mutual support among residents is necessary to prevent unattended deaths. It plans to support the establishment of community associations by paying subsidies for activity expenses.

JIJI Press