Yomiuri Survey: 935 Care Facility Residents Evacuated After Noto Peninsula Earthquake, 150 Have Died Without Returning

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:12 JST, December 28, 2025

A total of 935 residents at 29 care facilities, including special nursing homes for the elderly, affected by a massive quake that hit the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture on New Year’s Day last year, were evacuated to other locations inside and outside of the prefecture, a Yomiuri Shimbun survey found.

Many of the facilities cited reasons such as hygiene deterioration due to water supply cutoff and power outages, as well as a lack of workers. Some residents of the facilities were taken as far away as Yamagata and Ibaraki prefectures.

Among those who were evacuated, 150 people have died without returning from their place of refuge, though potential links between evacuation and their deaths remain unknown.

The survey was conducted from November to December on 88 facilities in six cities and towns in the Noto region. Of those, 74 facilities, or 84%, responded. Twenty-nine facilities, accounting for about 40% of respondents, answered that residents had been evacuated following the disaster.

As for the timing of evacuations, 137 people were relocated to facilities inside and outside of the prefecture by the fifth day after the earthquake, when demand for emergency medical care for the facility residents had increased in the area. Between six and 18 days after the quake, 554 people were evacuated, with facilities making repeated requests for evacuation transportation.

The survey also found that 369 people managed to return to their original facilities after a certain period of evacuation. This figure accounts for less than 40% of the total number of evacuees. On the other hand, 243 people have permanently moved into facilities such as hospitals at their evacuation site. This includes wheelchair users, those with dementia and people who are bedridden.

Facilities that opted to evacuate residents said they had to do so because “they were unable to use toilets and baths due to water supply cutoff, leaving them incapable of maintaining appropriate hygiene levels” and “facility operations were limited because facility workers were also affected by the disaster.”

One facility voiced regret, saying, “We don’t know whether it was really for the best to evacuate all the residents.”

“Facilities must have made difficult decisions in an effort to protect the lives of their residents,” said Prof. Toshifumi Suzuki of the University of Shizuoka, an expert on disaster welfare. He went on to say that, in an emergency, facilities tend to make the choice between just two options — total evacuation or keeping all residents at the facility.

“Considering such issues as individual residents’ physical condition and preexisting illnesses, it is necessary [for facility operators] to plan out ‘evacuation triage’ [with set priorities],” he said.