Little Recovery For Areas Hit By 2020 Record Rain
Sunday marks exactly one year since a deadly record rain hit Kumamoto Prefecture in southwestern Japan. Recovery and reconstruction of disaster-hit areas are slow in coming.
The disaster killed 67 people, including those who died in the aftermath. Two people remain unaccounted for.
As of the end of last month, 3,675 residents of 1,611 households were still living away from their homes. They live in temporary housing and private homes the government rents on their behalf.
About half of the inns and hotels that supported the prefecture's mainstay tourism industry in the affected areas are yet to reopen.
Seventy percent of them sustained damage from the record downpour and flooding of the Kuma River in the prefecture.
The flooding washed away two railway bridges on JR Hisatsu Line over the Kuma River. Seventy percent of the entire route, or an 87-kilometer section, remains inoperable. The operator has yet to start drawing up a recovery plan.
The central and prefectural governments together plan to provide a dam and an anti-flood basin in upstream areas of the Kuma River over the next five to ten years as part of an integrated flood control program.
Even one year afterward, survivors are concerned when another disaster might strike. Some residents are so cash-strapped that they are thinking twice about returning to their hometowns and rebuilding their homes.