Photo/Illutration Mitsunobu Inoike, left, in a meeting with other residents at a community center in the Kanakura district of Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on March 20 (Jun Ueda)

WAJIMA, Ishikawa Prefecture—Mitsunobu Inoike is on a mission to keep his splintered community together after a powerful earthquake on the Noto Peninsula three months ago displaced most of its residents. 

Only 25 residents remain in the rural Kanakura district in eastern Wajima as 70 others evacuated elsewhere after the New Year’s Day temblor left all households without electricity and water.

Inoike, 68, a coordinator with the municipal government, initiated a daily free-to-attend gathering of residents at a local community center, which starts at 8:30 a.m., after the disaster.

While eating breakfast together, residents keep tabs on each other’s health and talk about the inconveniences of post-disaster lives and the challenges facing their community.

The purpose is to prevent residents from dying solitary deaths, in the worst-case scenario, from stress or illnesses aggravated by the disaster.

Inoike, whose home was damaged by the magnitude-7.6 temblor, has been staying in the community center with his wife, Yukiko, also 68.

At the morning assembly, residents choose representatives to take residents to and from a designated evacuation center where they can eat hot meals and take a bath.

In February, residents started driving those who need medical care to and from a hospital after many complained of poor health due to living in difficult circumstances for an extended period.

Inoike is putting in the time and effort not only to help residents who remain in Kanakura but also to bring back those who left the district.

In March, he submitted a request to the Wajima mayor to build temporary housing for disaster victims within the district.

“We want to prevent an outflow of the population while trying to ensure the quality of life by maintaining the community,” he wrote in the request.

For those evacuating outside Kanakura, a delay in restoring infrastructure and an aging of the local population remain a concern.

“I do not even know when water will be made available at my home,” said an elderly woman who is staying in the southern part of the prefecture. “I cannot go back even if I want to.”

Despite the difficulties, Inoike is tirelessly on the move, confirming the safety of residents, receiving food provisions and checking cracked roads.

Kanakura, a 3.5-hour drive north from the prefectural capital of Kanazawa, is known for sprawling terraced rice paddies surrounded by mountains.

“Kanakura’s beautiful scenery of terraced rice paddies was created by its past residents, including my father,” Inoike said about what motivates him. “I want to preserve that history and pass it on to the next generation.”

Many people affected by the earthquake face similar problems as Kanakura residents, according to an Asahi Shimbun survey of 100 disaster victims in Ishikawa Prefecture.

Eighty-four respondents said they want to continue to live in their municipalities. Asked about the most serious challenges in doing so, 37 people cited housing, 31 picked infrastructure development and 23 chose jobs and income.

Asked about the most serious concerns for local reconstruction, 54 people cited a population outflow (depopulation), followed by a delay in housing development, chosen by 25, and stagnation of local economy, selected by 23.

Multiple answers were allowed for both questions.

For the survey, Asahi Shimbun reporters interviewed disaster victims in their teens through their 90s in March. Some respondents were evacuating in or outside the prefecture.

(Daishiro Inagaki and Kengo Yamada contributed to this article.)

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