19,000 homes are still without water two months after the Noto earthquake

Two months after the powerful Noto Peninsula earthquake disrupted residents' daily lives, 19,000 families in Ishikawa Prefecture are still without water.

Severe damage to water pipes and road cuts caused by the January 1 earthquake are hampering water restoration work in the most affected areas.

According to the prefectural government, the earthquake cut off water to about 110,000 families in 16 cities and towns.

County officials prioritized restoring water service.

By early February, water had returned to nine cities and towns. However, work was slow in the hardest-hit municipalities, with Suzu 3.1 percent and Wajima 41.8 percent of water services restored.

Water shortages and inadequate temporary housing prolonged the evacuation period.

The earthquake, which reached a maximum magnitude of 7 on the Japanese earthquake intensity scale, destroyed 75,421 homes in Ishikawa Prefecture, with at least 23 percent destroyed either completely or partially.

Nearly 13,000 homes were damaged in Wajima and about 9,400 in Suzu, with half the homes in Wajima and about 60 percent in Suzu completely or partially destroyed.

There were 7,884 applications for temporary housing, but only 302 units were completed by the end of February.

Construction of 4,600 temporary emergency housing units in the governorate is expected to begin by late March, but this will only meet less than 60 percent of requests.

According to the prefectural government, 11,447 people are still being evacuated, many of whom are unable to return to their homes due to water outages.

Of these, 5,759 people are staying in primary evacuation centers such as school gymnasiums.

About 140 people are staying in their cars, raising concerns that their health condition may deteriorate.

The number of sections along Noto Satoyama Kaido Road open to one-way traffic has increased, allowing for more water and sewer system repair work.

The prefectural government expects water services to be mostly restored by the end of March.

Many factors have contributed to the slow progress in recovery from earthquake damage, such as widespread liquefaction and road conditions that have hampered transportation.

The January 1 earthquake caused widespread damage to water purification plants and distribution pipelines in the province.

The area is rich in groundwater, so ground liquefaction has caused numerous manholes to appear, resulting in severe damage to the sewage system.

Wajima City receives support from Tokyo and seven other cities in the Kyushu and Shikoku regions, but resuming water service is a challenge.

Another factor is collapsed houses. Debris on the roads prevented workers from entering the areas and therefore it was not possible to repair the water pipes under the houses.

Debris removal needs the homeowner's permission, but evacuees are unable to return to their homes due to water outages, delaying water restoration work.

Securing sufficient working hours also represents a major challenge. After the earthquake, many workers had to commute for several hours from other sites because local accommodation was not suitable due to water shortages.

Over the course of two months, 80 percent of water service was restored in the governorate, while the remaining 19,000 households remain affected.

Although conditions are different, this is slower compared to the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, where 90 percent of the water supply was restored within a week, and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, which saw a 57 percent recovery in a week.

Along the sewer system, about 65 percent of the 393 kilometers of pipes in the northern part of the Noto Peninsula were damaged.

“It will take one to two years for the city's sewerage system to be fully restored,” an official at the Wajima City Waterworks Office said.

It will take some time to restore vital water services in the region, so recovery remains elusive in the affected areas.

(This article was written by Yoshinori Doi, Eriko Nami, and Akina Nishi.)

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