To use this site, please disable the ad blocking feature and reload the page.
This website uses cookies to collect information about your visit for purposes such as showing you personalized ads and content, and analyzing our website traffic. By clicking “Accept all,” you will allow the use of these cookies.
Users accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
The Yomiuri Shimbun The assembly hall, the single-story building in the center of a post-disaster public housing complex in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, has been closed.
The Yomiuri Shimbun
17:12 JST, January 17, 2025
While Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake that killed 6,434 people, there are concerns that the sense of community among some victims of the disaster could be fading.
The proportion of public housing units in Hyogo Prefecture constructed for people affected by the disaster that are now occupied by such people has dropped to about 35%, The Yomiuri Shimbun has found.
As those quake victims age, a growing number of residents in these units have no direct connection to the disaster, weakening the community bonds that had been forged in the housing complexes.
Based on the Public Housing Law, local governments built units that were rented out at low prices to those who lost their homes in the disaster. Other people who were not affected by the disaster were also allowed to move in after a certain amount of time had passed.
The Yomiuri Shimbun collected data from the Hyogo prefectural government and 11 cities in the prefecture, including Kobe, that manage 19,241 of the housing units. Of the 16,325 households currently living in these units as of December, 5,673, or 34.8%, had moved in after being affected by the earthquake.
An analysis of the data for the prefectural and Kobe governments revealed that the proportion of units being lived in by quake-affected households 10 years after the Great Hanshin Earthquake was at least 80% for both the prefecture and the city. Twenty years after the disaster, the figure had dropped to about 40% for prefecture-run units and about 60% for units managed by the Kobe municipal government. And now, 30 years after that catastrophe, the percentage is in the 30s for the units run by the prefecture as well as the city.
The Yomiuri Shimbun Lanterns to remember the victims of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake are lit in Kobe East Park in Chuo Ward, Kobe, on Thursday.
The proportion of residents defined as elderly — those 65 and older — in these post-disaster housing units has climbed to 54.3%, an increase of about 10 percentage points over the past 20 years. This is almost 10 percentage points higher than the proportion of elderly residents in regular public housing units in the prefecture, which stands at 44.8%.
In the past, residents who had been affected by the disaster would get together at assembly halls to hold seasonal events and other activities. However, use of these halls decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents have even returned the keys for one such hall back to the local government.
Local governments are facing challenges regarding their public housing units in various disaster-hit regions as their residents continue to age.
About 30,000 housing units were built for people affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. A compilation of data for 2023 and 2024 provided by 58 municipalities that manage these units revealed that 80.9% of residents in the housing had been directly affected by the 2011 disaster, and the proportion of elderly residents was trending upward and had reached 47.9%.
About 1,700 housing units for disaster victims have been built in 12 municipalities in Kumamoto Prefecture since the April 2016 earthquakes there. As of December, 77.1% of these units were occupied by people who had been affected by the disaster, and 53.9% of the units’ residents were elderly.
Priority access a factor
The proportion of elderly residents in units built after the Great Hanshin Earthquake topped 50% for the first time shortly before the disaster’s 20th anniversary, and now stands at 54.3%. This figure remains high, even though at least 60% of residents have been replaced by others over the years.
One factor behind this situation is that priority has been given to households that are unable to afford to rebuild their homes following the disaster. This includes many elderly households.
“The aging of residents and weakening sense of community are also serious issues at regular public housing complexes, but the problem is more acute at the housing complexes for disaster victims,” an official of a local government in Hyogo Prefecture said. “Welfare measures will be needed in the years ahead.”
Similar problems in Tohoku
Efforts to build community ties also have floundered in the housing complexes built in areas hit hard by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Three such complexes in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, where about 50% of the residents are elderly, do not have a neighborhood association. After the disaster, the Kesennuma government dispatched “community support workers” to hold activities designed to deepen ties among residents and encouraged the creation of such associations.
However, now, there is no one willing to keep some of these associations afloat. It apparently has been difficult to find someone who is willing to take a leadership role as the residents are from different communities.
Tadaei Kikuta, representative of a volunteer group that operates in Kesennuma, called for ongoing support for these residents.
“If official public support dries up, the residents could lose their sense of community,” said Kikuta, 74. “Now is the time to learn lessons from what happened in Kobe and devise countermeasures.”
