Residents in typhoon-hit Iwaizumi get no gov't subsides to fix private bridges, roads

IWAIZUMI, Iwate -- Over 70 sections of roads and bridges providing everyday access to settlements here were destroyed by Typhoon Lionrock in August, but the government isn't subsidizing their repair because they are classified as "private property," it has been learned. The lack of subsidies means residents' road to recovery will likely be a long one.

The town has several settlements scattered along rivers. Many of the public roads run parallel to the rivers, but in order to get across the rivers to their homes and fields, locals use private roads and bridges.

When an area is designated as having been hit by a severe disaster, subsidies from the national government to restore public roads and agricultural land are raised to as high as 90 percent of the restoration cost. Areas hit by Typhoon Lionrock were given a severe disaster designation on Sept. 16, but the national government is not paying for the repair of the privately owned roads and bridges, on the grounds that it cannot use public money for privately owned property.

The municipal government in 1995 introduced its own support system for privately owned roads and bridges in low-population areas where many elderly people live alone, officials say. For these areas, the municipal government subsidizes around 90 percent of the maintenance cost, regardless of whether or not a natural disaster has struck, but caps the subsidy at 10 million yen per spot. In last fiscal year around 30 million yen in subsidies was paid to restore 11 locations.

"Just as with public roads, we want to restore the private roads without financially burdening the locals," an official of the municipal government says. But repairs are expected to cost hundreds of millions of yen and without national funds, a representative for the town's area maintenance department says, "We don't have any prospect of securing financial resources for reconstruction."

The Iwate Prefectural Government's stance is that if the Iwaizumi Municipal Government asks for help, it will see what it can do about offering support, but the central government's Cabinet Office is not straying beyond the existing support framework, only saying, "Under some circumstances, such as if a resident's house completely collapsed, we could offer aid under the Act on Support for Reconstructing Livelihoods of Disaster Victims."

The municipal government wants to finish initial recovery efforts before winter hits, but achieving that goal won't be easy.

In the Soiri district some 20 kilometers southwest of the town's center, Miya Otani, 77, looked across the Soiri River at her home as she murmured, "I never thought things would end up like this."

On the night of Aug. 30, when the typhoon hit, a mudslide struck the home where Otani and her son lived and the powerful flow of the river destroyed the handmade wooden bridge across the river that connected her home to a public road, leaving no trace of it. Over the course of half a day, Otani created a new makeshift bridge across the river, which is about 5 meters wide, by hauling in three logs from the base of a nearby mountain and tying them together with rope.

Public roads along the rivers were damaged by flooding, and up to around 430 homes were temporarily isolated because of this, but as of Sept. 19 repairs to public roads meant that no homes were entirely cut off any more. Still, with many private roads and bridges destroyed, residents remain inconvenienced.

Otani is currently living in an evacuation shelter in the town center, and travels back home in her son's car to clean up and to care for the Japanese radishes and adzuki beans she grows in a field. Using a stick as a cane, she crosses the makeshift bridge she made. The bridge is unsteady, though, so she is unable to carry things across it.

On Sept. 27 electricity was restored, and soon the harvesting season will arrive. In order to get back the life she had before the typhoon hit, she needs a bridge that can withstand the weight of vehicles to be built over the river again.

"I'll be a burden on the evacuation center, so I need to go home soon. Maybe I have to make a bridge myself," she says. For the time being, she is still unable to imagine living at her home again.