News in Pictures / 1 Year After Heavy Rains, Residents Mark Disaster with Flowers, Prayers

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:25 JST, September 25, 2025

A concert was held in Suzu and people offered flowers there and in surrounding municipalities in Ishikawa Prefecture on Sunday, marking one year since torrential rains devastated the lives of residents who had already suffered through the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake.

At 9:30 a.m., about 15 residents observed a moment of silence at the community center in Otanimachi in Suzu, where heavy rainfall left districts temporarily cut off and claimed one life.

“Amid the hardships of the earthquake and heavy rains, we’ve made it this far thanks to the support of many people,” said Nobuko Jinabo, 86, whose home was destroyed in the earthquake and who was forced to evacuate due to the torrential rains.

Singer Shigeru Izumiya, 77, visited Suzu on Sunday and gave a free live performance, which had been planned for a year earlier but was canceled due to the rains. He played the guitar and sang five songs, telling the about 500 audience members, “My mission is to energize you all.”

On Sept. 21 last year, Izumiya was in a car on his way to the venue in the rain but had to turn back after receiving an evacuation advisory.

In Wajima on Sunday, a special radio broadcast was aired marking the disaster’s one-year anniversary. Host Shin Nakayama, 29, read out loud a letter he wrote to his sister, who died in the floods. “Watch over us from above,” he read.

Elsewhere in the city on the same day, calligrapher Hoju Abe, 46, wrote a kanji character at a supermarket that suffered flood damage in the rains. The character expressed his condolences and determination to rebuild.