Securing housing remains a major challenge in Ishikawa Prefecture and nearby areas of central Japan as Sunday marks eight months since a major earthquake.
The quake on New Year’s Day left 341 people dead, including those who died after falling ill due to post-disaster causes. Three others remain missing.
The number of deaths from post-disaster causes stands at 112, including two deaths in Niigata Prefecture.
The total number of fatalities from the quake is expected to rise to 362, after a panel of experts in Ishikawa Prefecture recommended last week that 21 more deaths be recognized as quake-related.
In Ishikawa, the number of people staying at evacuation shelters has decreased as construction of temporary houses progresses. Still, the prefecture faces a shortage of housing, as the number of buildings to be demolished is significantly larger than initially expected.
As of August 27, the number of people staying at evacuation shelters in Ishikawa was 775, about half the figure from a month earlier. The number of buildings expected to be demolished is likely to increase to more than 32,000, up by around 10,000 from the initial estimate.
The neighboring prefecture of Toyama says that while 1,635 structures are expected to be subject to publicly-funded demolition, shouldered by local governments, applications have been made for only around 40 percent, or 703 of them.
Demolition work has been completed for only 18 percent, including cases in which quake-affected owners have chosen a demolition contractor on their own and made advance payments.
The prefecture says the small number is due to many people having yet to decide whether to demolish or repair their houses, as well as a shortage of workers.