A long-term commitment is needed to assist survivors of the Noto Peninsula earthquake.

In addition to national and local government reconstruction measures, diverse undertakings by the private sector are also indispensable, particularly those by private citizens.

Twenty-nine years have elapsed since the Great Hanshin Earthquake of Jan. 17, 1995. For the spontaneity and enthusiasm with which private citizens offered to volunteer their time and services to help survivors, that year came to be known in Japan as "borantia gannen," which translates as "the first year of the volunteer era."

We would like to think, again, about how best to proceed with disaster relief activities by nonprofit organizations and citizens.

In Ishikawa Prefecture, which suffered the heaviest concentration of quake damage, disaster aid organizations and volunteers who have worked in various parts of the nation are helping to manage the transportation of relief supplies, run evacuation shelters, and prepare and serve hot meals.

The Japan Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (JVOAD), which coordinates the activities of its supporters, held an online video conference on Jan. 4 after its staffers had arrived in the disaster area to share and exchange information.

About 450 people participated, including central and prefectural government officials, to determine exactly what sort of relief work needed to be done and where.

Japan Platform (JPF), a public-private partnership organization that provides humanitarian assistance in response to conflicts and natural disasters in and outside Japan, supports JVOAD financially as well by hosting briefings by its member organizations that are engaged in local aid activities.

Including JPF and JVOAD, most disaster relief organizations are nonprofits, which have supported diverse citizens' activities since the Law to Promote Specified Nonprofit Activities--or the NPO Law for short--entered into effect three years after the 1995 Hanshin quake.

Unlike members of those groups, many people who want to help in whatever capacity they can may not have the necessary experience. But there must be ways to enlist their help for the benefit of survivors of the Noto Peninsula earthquake.

At the time of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, it proved effective to have volunteers register so they could be paired up with the parties needing help.

As a result, a system in which municipalities' social welfare councils serve as secretariats for the registration has taken root. Some municipalities in the Noto region have also opened coordination centers that become windows for that purpose. 

However, the Ishikawa prefectural government initially discouraged the public from traveling to the prefecture as volunteers. Instead, the Ishikawa government asked them to just register on its official website.

The reason was that the roads leading to Okunoto in the northernmost part of Noto Peninsula had been severely damaged by the quake, causing massive traffic snarls.

As of the present time, the prefecture has just started announcing planned relief activities in the city of Kanazawa.

Although the prefecture was reluctant to take those tough measures, they were necessary for prioritizing travel by vehicles of the Self-Defense Forces, fire and police departments and also for protecting the safety of volunteers.

We hope they did not have the effect of offending many people of goodwill whose help could perhaps have been used by the prefecture at the time.

The prefecture needs to examine what occurred to see if there are improvements to be made for the future.

In any disaster area, the situation varies from district to district. In Ishikawa Prefecture, some communities welcomed volunteers in the immediate aftermath of the quake.

The city of Nanao has already started collecting and removing disaster debris. We hope the prefectural government will swiftly coordinate plans with municipalities that are now ready to accept volunteers.

And there must be various things that can be done to improve existing plans, such as to reduce the traffic volume by chartering buses to carry volunteers, or get NPOs to temporarily oversee the management of coordination centers instead of social welfare councils that have been damaged.

When the public sector is unable to function fully, that is exactly the time for the private sector to step in and lend a hand.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 17