KUMAMOTO The town of Mashiki in Kumamoto Prefecture, one of the communities hit hardest by the devastating earthquakes in April, began relocating people staying in a tent village to other evacuation centers on Tuesday to protect them from possible heatstroke due to scorching weather.
The local government, located on the southwestern main island of Kyushu, plans to close the open-air evacuation center in the town’s central park by the end of May, moving around 600 people currently taking a refuge there.
The town has been calling on evacuees to move to other facilities to protect them from possible heatstroke and flooding of nearby rivers as Japan’s rainy season nears. But some residents are wary about staying in buildings for fear of possible aftershocks.
Katsuko Tomita, 75, who is evacuating with a family of seven including three grandchildren aged between 2 and 11 said, “I do not want to make trouble to others around.”
The tent village was set up in late April by a group of volunteers including Japanese alpinist Ken Noguchi and the Association of Medical Doctors of Asia, Okayama-based non-governmental organization which provides emergency reliefs, so that evacuees sleeping in cars can have space to take shelter in tents.
Noguchi said he is now looking for an alternative site to open a new tent village, noting, “I believe we can take measures to prevent heatstroke in tents but I am taking the issue of river (flooding) seriously.”
Following a magnitude 6.5 quake on April 14 and a M7.3 quake two days later, many people are still unable to return home. In the tent village, 602 people are staying in 165 tents as of Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment