It was three months after a dozen people were killed last July in mudslides triggered heavy rains in the town of Kumano, Hiroshima Prefecture, that five local residents formed a group aimed at reconstructing the area.
The five didn’t really know each other before the mudslides swallowed up the area, dubbed Ohara Heights, damaging 41 houses and forcing residents to evacuate. But they shared a sense of crisis — that they couldn’t get the information they needed. They also felt compelled to unite in order to better convey the opinions of local residents to the municipality officials spearheading the reconstruction effort. The group’s effort gradually paid off, gaining it trust and support from local residents as well as from the municipality.
A year after the disaster, the group’s story exemplifies the challenges residents of Ohara Heights faced in trying to pick up the pieces of lives destroyed by the disaster.
In November, a month after the association was launched, the group’s efforts bore fruit when Kumano extended the period of time victims were allowed to stay in temporary housing.
Enhancing disaster prevention was also a key mission of the group, such as creating evacuation route maps to raise awareness about disaster prevention.
Since the founding members also lacked disaster-prevention knowledge, they asked lawyers and engineers they knew for help. In addition, they learned what similar residential groups in other disaster-hit areas had done in the past.
The association slowly deepened ties with a neighborhood association and the municipality. Once a month, the association organized a seminar on disaster prevention to raise awareness among the residents of the housing compound.
The association and the local government jointly carried out an evacuation drill last month in which about 80 people took part.
The residents’ association also conducted activities aimed at strengthening ties in the community. In times of disaster, a lack of social cohesion can hamper evacuations.
The group holds regularly events, such as the planting of flowers to spruce up the area, so residents can get to know each other. To commemorate the victims, the group sets up a table where it provides flowers on the sixth day of the month.
For Yukie Kirioka, 71, who lost her husband and their home in the mudslide, the residential group is one of her sources of support. She actively participates in the group’s events.
“The group’s activities were really comforting,” Kirioka said. “I want to be part of the Ohara Heights recovery efforts.”
Not everyone has returned to the housing compound, though. At present, there are only about 70 households living in Ohara Heights, about 60 percent of the pre-disaster level.
Some are not sure whether the area is safe. About 15,000 cu. meters of sediment has piled up on unstable parts of Mount Mitsuiwa where the mudslides occurred last year. The prefecture, as an emergency measure, is planning to install three dams to prevent future mudslides.
Two of them will be completed in early December.
In addition, parts of Ohara Heights, which was built in the 1970s, were not designated mudslide zones while others were simply not affected, creating varying degrees of understanding toward the association’s activities. Increasing its membership is a pressing issue.
“New issues will emerge when the dam is completed and more people return to the area,” said Satoshi Noda, 60, who is one of the founding members of the group. “We want to make sure residents’ needs are met.”
This monthly feature focuses on topics and issues covered by the Chugoku Shimbun, the largest newspaper in the Chugoku region. The original article was published on June 17.
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