Many volunteers were assisting in areas affected by Typhoon No. 19 on Sunday, two weeks after the disaster struck.
Among them were foreign residents eager to lend a hand in areas to which they have some kind of connection and others who had experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.
In Nagano, where the Chikumagawa river banks collapsed, American volunteer Tyler Lynch, 49, and British volunteer James Corbyn, 26, were helping to clear debris.
Since 2005, Lynch has run his wife's family's hot-spring inn in Chikuma, Nagano Prefecture. Though he was initially anxious about inheriting the business, he said he was grateful that locals treated him as a friend and that he wanted to help people who were also facing difficulties.
Corbyn taught English at high schools in the prefecture three years ago. Though he currently works in Tokyo, he said he had taken days off until Monday to help with recovery efforts.
In Marumori, Miyagi Prefecture, where some areas are still without water, student Airi Fujiwara, 19, was carrying furniture out of flood-hit homes.
In the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture-native Fujiwara's home had no water supply. At the time of the disaster, she was in the fourth grade of elementary school and remembered that she could not flush the toilet and also had to wait in a long line at a supermarket for drinking water.
"I was happy when the water supply was restored. I heard that many people were involved in restoring it, so I thought, 'Someday I'll show my gratitude,'" she said.
Meanwhile, in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, where more than 4,400 houses were flooded, there was a shortage of volunteers. On Sunday, about 133 people applied to volunteer, which is about one-third of the number that had registered on Oct. 20.
"Many people [whose homes were inundated] haven't finished clearing up yet. We still need assistance," an official of the city's disaster volunteer center said.
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