Residents with mental and intellectual disabilities have faced difficulties finding and staying at evacuation centers in disaster-hit areas of Ishikawa Prefecture.

The shelters are not equipped to provide the special needs of these quake victims, and other evacuees have complained about their new disabled neighbors.

Despite supposed lessons learned in this quake-prone country, Japan still lacks specialized facilities that can accept disabled evacuees in emergencies.

“There is no safe place for people with disabilities to stay during a disaster,” said Hitomi Hanada, who heads Tomoe, a general incorporated association that operates group homes for mentally and intellectually disabled people.

Three disabled people and a care worker were living in a private room at Tomoe’s group home in Nanao, Ishikawa Prefecture, when the New Year’s Day quake struck.

The shaking caused the ceiling to collapse and led to other damage at the home, which had been renovated from an old private house.

Hanada arranged for the three residents and another disabled person whose home was damaged to relocate to a shared space at another group home that Tomoe operates in an apartment building.

Hanada went to convenience stores to buy drinking water, instant noodles and snacks for them.

However, the homes and families of Hanada and other certified caregivers were also affected by the disaster.

“We were at our limit in providing support (to the disabled residents) on our own,” said Hanada, looking back on the quake that damaged more than 10,000 houses in the city.

She took the four to a designated evacuation center on Jan. 9.

The operation of the shelter was centered on “self-help,” and evacuees there were responsible for meal preparation and cleaning.

The four disabled residents each require specific support, but Hanada was told that the evacuation center had no specialized staff, and that the four would not receive individual assistance.

The group home staff visited the center to check on the four every morning, noon and evening.

They found that things were not going well.

The four disabled residents were prone to arguing with others, and they were sometimes warned for using the toilet that had been shut down because of cuts in the water supply.

Other evacuees complained about them.

Realizing that it would be difficult for them to stay for a prolonged period at the shelter, Hanada decided to have two of the four leave the center and live together at another Tomoe group home.

She also found a group home in Kanazawa that agreed to take in another one of the disabled residents. But the remaining one continues to stay at the evacuation shelter.

According to Nanao city officials, there have been complaints about disabled people yelling in the middle of the night at other evacuation centers. The city government is looking for other places that can accept disabled people, including facilities outside of the prefecture.

The 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake showed the need for “welfare shelters” that can quickly receive disabled and elderly people in the event of a disaster.

Sites in various regions of Japan have been designated for such facilities.

However, the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 and the Kumamoto Earthquakes in 2016 damaged a number of the designated evacuation centers.

Progress on establishing other centers has been slow since then.

In areas of Ishikawa Prefecture hit by the Noto Peninsula earthquake, only 17 percent of the planned designated evacuation centers had been opened by Jan. 12 in Nanao, Wajima, Suzu, Shika, Anamizu and Noto, according to an Asahi Shimbun study.

Even if the welfare shelters are established, there is no guarantee they can quickly find staff members trained in caring for mentally or intellectually disabled individuals.

“Welfare shelters are a means to an end, but they are not the only way,” said Shigeo Tatsuki, a professor at Doshisha University who specializes in disaster studies.

He points out that it is important to “envision what is needed to protect people with disabilities” even in general evacuation centers, such as reserving spaces for them in advance.

Hanada also said, “It was necessary for group homes to decide in advance among themselves where to accept the residents in anticipation of a disaster.”