The damage caused by the recent heavy rains was the worst since the start of the Heisei era in 1989. The central government and relevant local governments are called on to make all-out efforts to provide support for disaster victims.
The number of those killed in the torrential rains that hit western Japan has come to around 200 mainly in Hiroshima and Okayama prefectures. Searches continue for those who went missing in mudslides and other disasters.
Nearly 6,000 people are still forced to live in evacuation centers. Amid intense summer heat, many evacuees complain about poor health. Top priority must be given to measures to prevent people from dying of disaster-related causes while living in shelters.
Water shortages are adding to the hardship of disaster victims. A total of 200,000 households in Hiroshima, Okayama and Ehime prefectures remain without running water.
Pathogens lurk in the muddy water, earth and sand that flowed into houses and other facilities. Sanitary conditions are a matter of concern. Infection control measures are indispensable for the people, including volunteers engaging in clean-up operations.
A disaster health emergency assistance team (DHEAT), which was established based on lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake, has been engaged in activities for the first time in a disaster-stricken area. A medical team will be sent to the disaster-hit area after a doctor and a health nurse, among other experts, collect and analyze information using a public health center as the base for its activities.
If evacuation is prolonged, risks will increase accordingly. Care must be taken to monitor health conditions of the disaster victims by making the rounds of evacuation centers and other facilities.
After the occurrence of the recent disaster, shipments of government relief goods have been delivered one after another to the disaster-hit areas. It can be said that a push-type support in which the government delivers water and food without awaiting specific requests from local governments has proved successful to a certain extent.
Beware collateral disasters
From this point on, it is necessary to switch to a pull-type support in which necessities are sent to the disaster-affected areas after assessing the requests of local governments, thus delivering relief goods adequately.
Roads have been cut off in the disaster. Many people remain isolated. The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry is trying to assess the current situation by doing such things as flying drones.
The government will advance the provision of 34.6 billion yen in ordinary tax allocation to disaster-affected prefectural governments. To realize quick restoration from the disaster, local governments should prioritize their spending of the allocated money.
The recent disaster has revealed the difficulty of evacuating people vulnerable to disasters anew.
In the Mabicho district in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, where riverbanks collapsed, most of the victims were people aged 60 or older who drowned. As a large-scale flood happened in the district in the past, the areas that were flooded this time overlapped with those where flooding was a possibility shown on a water disaster hazard map.
The Kurashiki municipal government called for evacuation via mobile phones and radio communication for disaster prevention. But there is a possibility that its calls could not be conveyed to local residents sufficiently. Many elderly people might not be able to act quickly, even if they could obtain warning information.
In the city of Seiyo, Ehime Prefecture, multiple people died downstream after water was discharged from a dam. There is criticism among local residents that the city's issuance of an evacuation order was too late.
In the days to come, too, there is concern that unexpected collateral disasters such as reservoir collapses could occur. It is imperative to stay vigilant.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, July 14, 2018)
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