Photo/Illutration Wajima city employees work at Wajima Junior High School, a designated evacuation center, in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 12. (Juntaro Oka)

WAJIMA, Ishikawa Prefecture—Labor shortages exacerbated by the Jan. 1 earthquake have impeded efforts to provide relief services for survivors and evacuees in disaster zones.

The Ishikawa prefectural government has continued to discourage would-be volunteers from entering the areas, citing the need to give priority to vehicles of the Self-Defense Forces and firefighters.

But even with the professional help arriving, relief work is slow going partly because government officials apparently underestimated the extent of the damage in the early stages, according to one expert.

The Wajima city government’s branch office in the Monzen district is distributing relief supplies to 44 locations with support from SDF personnel.

Many of these facilities, often lacking even temporary toilets, are occupied by residents who have voluntarily stayed away from designated evacuation centers mainly because of overcrowding.

A city official said both delivery staff and relief goods, such as food, are in critically short supply.

“If the SDF leaves in the future, it will be impossible for us to keep going,” the official said.

At a designated evacuation center in Wajima, four employees are in charge of operations.

But two of them, a public health nurse and a public nursery worker, spend much of the time cleaning temporary toilets every day.

“If we had more people, we could return to our original duties,” one employee said.

The disaster has also affected many local government employees.

Many of them have been unable to return to their duties in Suzu, another hard-hit city at the northern tip of the Noto Peninsula.

“Even in ordinary times, it becomes difficult to get by if we are short of one employee,” a senior city official said. “All operations have fallen behind.”

Two weeks after the earthquake, nearly 20,000 people in Ishikawa Prefecture were staying at school gymnasiums, community centers and other facilities that have been turned into evacuation centers.

Ishikawa Governor Hiroshi Hase said Jan. 14 he will monitor the situation before deciding when to ask for support from the general public.

Local governments around the country are dispatching employees to disaster-hit municipalities to assist in the operation of evacuation centers.

About 670 local civil servants had arrived in 14 cities and towns in Ishikawa Prefecture by Jan. 13. The number is expected to increase to about 930, according to the prefectural government.

“With the arrival of employees of other local governments, the manpower shortage is gradually being resolved,” said Kazuyo Omori, mayor of Noto town. “Without their support, our town would have died.”

But more people will be needed in the weeks ahead to assess damage to buildings, a process required for issuing disaster victim certificates, and restore water supplies.

“We will not have enough manpower if the number of employees stays the same,” Omori said. “We hope to work on restoration activities over a long term, while receiving outside support and giving our staff a break.”

Yoshiteru Morisaki, who serves as an adviser on disaster crisis management for the prefectural government, said he regrets the slow initial response to the earthquake, such as in delivering water, food and other supplies to evacuation centers.

He said top officials at the central and prefectural government apparently failed to grasp developments in disaster areas and underestimated the gravity of the situation.

“My impression is that the lessons accumulated and passed down from the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake have been reduced to zero,” said Morisaki, professor emeritus at Kobe University, who inspected disaster areas five days after the Jan. 1 earthquake.

He said an atmosphere developed that made even experienced volunteers and researchers hesitate to rush to the scene for fear of getting in the way of the SDF, police and fire departments.

“Authorities have only taken a reactive approach due to the lack of manpower and professional know-how,” Morisaki said.

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