News in Pictures: Three Months On, Spring Arrives in Quake-Hit Noto

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:05 JST, April 2, 2024

Monday marked three months since the Noto Peninsula Earthquake, which devastated Ishikawa Prefecture on New Year’s Day. Though many areas are still in ruins, with buildings collapsed and water cut off, spring has brought hope to some residents that they will someday regain their peaceful lives. Despite their experience of loss and loneliness, residents are moving forward one step at a time to rebuild their lives.

One 55-year-old Wajima resident found daffodils on Wednesday by her wrecked home near the Wajima Morning Market, which burnt down in a fire that followed the quake. The daffodils were once grown by her mother-in-law, who died after being evacuated from their home due to the disaster. Plucking one of the flowers from where it grew in the burnt earth, the woman said, “I never thought I would be so encouraged and cheered up by a flower.” She took a flower back to the temporary housing she had just moved into.

In Suzu, a 74-year-old man on Saturday walked on a seabed pushed up by the quake to gather wakame seaweed, having lost both his fishing boats in the tsunami. Then, together with his 68-year-old wife, he dried his crop under the sun. Though they have only gathered about one-third as much seaweed as in a normal year, they plan to send it to friends and relatives who supported them after the disaster. “We have to move toward recovery, little by little,” the wife said. “All we can do is do our best, with a smile on our face.”