Four weeks have passed since the Niigata-Chuetsu Earthquake struck. The good news is that reconstruction is making progress. Schools in the disaster zone have resumed classes, the Kan-etsu Expressway has reopened to traffic, and the region's well-known sake breweries have started shipping again. The bad news is that, amid the continuing aftershocks, there are still more than 10,000 people living in evacuation shelters.
According to the Niigata Local Meteorological Observatory, the first of Niigata's heavy snowfalls usually comes in late November. Indeed, winter is just around the corner. But construction work for temporary housing reportedly is not progressing as fast as expected.
In addition to building temporary housing, local governments have decided to provide adjacent day-care facilities so that elderly people can have access to bathing and meal services. They are also taking steps to maintain predisaster communities by having villagers close together in the temporary housing. In this respect, they are learning from the experience of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, when there were cases of elderly people suffering lonely deaths in the temporary housing because they were isolated from their communities.