As Abe touts reconstruction progress, Tohoku residents demand help for vulnerable

While on the campaign trail in the Tohoku region for the July 10 House of Councillors election, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been emphasizing that recovery from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake is moving forward. However, is this really the case? I set out in a rental car to drive down the coast of the disaster area in an effort to find out.

When I arrived at Yamada, Iwate Prefecture, following a long absence, I found that the town's central district had been elevated. At the time I visited the town one month after the disaster, it was covered in debris -- and also pervaded by a strange odor due to the fires that had been triggered by the tsunami.

While what lay before me now was a totally different scene from the one I had witnessed at that time, many of the buildings -- from the shopping streets and parking lots to the guard rails -- were set up as only temporary structures. And while Yamada Bay should have afforded a sweeping view of the blue ocean, this was blocked by a 9.7-meter-high coastal levee.

I interviewed local townsman Hiroshi Sato, 69, five years ago at an evacuation shelter. He had lost his home, which burned down in the disaster. Later, he moved into a temporary housing unit. Preferring to remain on the land that he had inherited from his father, however, he built a prefabricated house where his home had previously stood, traveling back and forth between the temporary residence and his prefab home.

He now lives with his eldest son in an inland area of the town, and when I went there and spoke with family members including his wife Mitoko, 68, I was told that he had been hospitalized two days earlier for a stroke.

"I think he suffered from exhaustion," Mitoko said.

Reconstruction work on the Sato's new home has not even gotten to the stage of raising the level of earth. While they were contacted by the Urban Renaissance Agency last summer and told that construction was set to begin, nothing has happened since then.

"They've done nothing yet at all," Hiroshi had apparently grumbled prior to his hospitalization.

Clenching her fist, Mitoko said dryly, "At this rate, by the time reconstruction takes place, all of the old people around here will be dead."

I went to see the Sato's prefab home the next morning. Hanging in front of it was a sign with disproportionately large lettering proclaiming the family's last name. I could practically hear Hiroshi's voice shouting, "This is where I want to live!"

Moving down along the Sanriku Coast, my next stop was the city of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, which had been almost completely destroyed in the disaster. Here, the land-raising construction projects that awaited were far more numerous than in any other region.

At a temporary shopping area that had been set up, I saw a man scooping up puddles of rainwater from the ground.

"Elections?" he said in response to my prompt. "Yeah, well, the only thing on my mind right now is how to get rid of this water."

Kazuaki Abe, 62, lost the building that doubled as his home and sushi restaurant in the disaster, and many locals who used to visit his restaurant lost their lives. He is presently attempting to restart his business in an elevated area, though how many customers he will be able to draw remains unclear.

The money that has been funneled into the budget for disaster reconstruction over the past five years totals some 26 trillion yen -- most of which has gone toward earth-raising and elevation-related construction projects.

On June 22, the day that official campaigning for the upper house election kicked off, Prime Minister Abe said triumphantly while visiting Fukushima Prefecture, "Around 80 percent of reconstruction-related projects are nearing completion." He added, "Recovery is most definitely moving forward."

On June 24, Democratic Party leader Katsuya Okada also said from Fukushima Prefecture, "We will strive to make sure that reconstruction is carried out."

"I have no idea which candidate in which party I am going to vote for," Kazuaki Abe noted. "First, I've got to worry about how I am going to pay back my debts."

Continuing southward, I next visited the coastal area of Miyagi Prefecture.

While summertime temperatures are forecast to be sizzling here, the home that I visited in the city of Ishinomaki, which belongs to Etsuichiro Sato, 71, was not equipped with air conditioning.

The first floor of his two-story home was flooded by the tsunami, and was assessed as having "large-scale damage" and being "half-destroyed."

Utilizing the funding assistance that he received, along with relief money and his own savings, he repaired his home and purchased home electrical appliances.

He explained, however, "I didn't have enough money left to purchase an air conditioner."

Sato's monthly pension totals just under 70,000 yen after insurance premiums for medical expenses and care-related costs are taken out. He lives alone, and even though he scrimps and scrapes on meals, he still finds that money is tight.

Both of his knees were injured when a dresser fell on top of him in the earthquake, and he was later diagnosed with cancer of the large intestine. Although he did not take any medicine prior to the disaster, he now takes 12 different kinds.

"Sometimes, I felt like I was not supposed to be living any longer," he says. "I wish that this government offered more help to the vulnerable." (By Shunsuke Sekiya, Tokyo City News Department)