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The Yomiuri Shimbun An ama diver surveys the damage to turban shells and abalone as she walks along a coast uplifted by the earthquake, in Wajima on Saturday.
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.
Yomiuri Shimbun photos Top: A person carries bedding and other items from a damaged home to a temporary dump site for disaster waste, in Suzu on Sunday. Center: A 6-year-old boy plays on the debris of a collapsed building that was once his home and a family-owned sake brewery in Wajima on Saturday. Bottom: Cherry blossoms bloom in the garden of a damaged house in Suzu on Saturday. Yomiuri Shimbun photos Top: A 94-year-old woman works in a field next to her collapsed house in Suzu on Friday. Down: A man works on a display at Iroha Bookstore, which has reopened in a temporary venue, in Suzu on Thursday. The Yomiuri Shimbun Disaster waste is sorted at a temporary dump site at a port in Suzu on Wednesday.
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.
The Yomiuri Shimbun A woman plucks a daffodil by the ruins of her house near the burnt-down Wajima Morning Market, in Wajima on Wednesday.
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.”
The Yomiuri Shimbun A couple dries wakame seaweed in the sun in Suzu on Saturday.
