By YASUKAZU AKADA/ Staff Writer
July 25, 2024 at 18:00 JST
The central area of Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on April 26 (Tatsuya Shimada)
More than half of residents in areas most affected by the Noto Peninsula earthquake have yet to return home six months after the disaster, according to message app data.
As of the end of June, only 47.5 percent of residents in Wajima and Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, were at home, according to data released on July 24 by LY Corp.
The company operates Line, Japan's primary messaging app, and analyzed user location data collected with consent.
The data also showed that 22.9 percent returned but now live elsewhere in the cities compared to 24.4 percent who are in other municipalities within the prefecture and 5.2 percent outside it.
The figures suggest that residents have gradually returned home over the past six months as reconstruction efforts progressed.
Roughly 30 percent of residents were at home during the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 1 earthquake. More than 30 percent were elsewhere in the cities, while less than 30 percent were in other municipalities within Ishikawa and less than 10 percent were outside the prefecture.
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