Prefab shelters made in Cavite house Japan evacuees

(First of a series)

IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture —Filipinos may take comfort in the thought that aside from the material and financial aid they had sent to Japan, prefabricated units built in the Philippines are now housing thousands of families displaced by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters that hit the country earlier this year.

Eight months after 3/11 (March 11), some 52,000 families are staying in government prefab houses put up in the three worst affected prefectures—Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate—and four other prefectures. All evacuation centers have been closed.

Many of the prefab shelters were made by Filipinos at the sprawling manufacturing facility owned by Ichijo Koumuten Co. at the Cavite export processing zone.

Prefab houses made in the Philippines, which come in different models, for the general market in Japan have received several awards such as for energy conservation, good design and house of the year.

Prefab units for evacuees built by another Japanese firm, Daiwa House Industry Co., cost between 4.5 million yen and 5 million yen each. “This project is not aimed at making a profit,” said Katsunori Asai, director in charge of the company’s prefab project in the Hotoku region.

Among those living in the prefab shelters are Katsuko Aoki, 79, and her wheelchair-bound husband, Kazuyoshi. They are staying in a community of evacuees called Iwaki New Town, some 45 kilometers south of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The Aokis moved here because parts of their town, Hirono, lie within the 20-km exclusion zone the government imposed due to radiation from the nuclear facility.

Others just outside the exclusion zone were also told to “evacuate voluntarily,” said Yoshikatsu Terui, director of the Iwaki NPO Center, a nongovernment organization helping evacuees.

“People could not see the difference between 20 km and 30 km, so they also left,” Terui told a group of 10 journalists from Asian countries who were invited recently by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to look at recovery efforts after 3/11.

A total of 20,000 people moved to Iwaki from the neighboring towns of Hirono, Naraha, Tomioka and Ookuma, and the village of Kawauchi.

Close to 400,000 people were displaced from areas affected by the disasters, including the 30-km zone around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors, according to the Japanese Red Cross.

As of last month, some 1,000 evacuees, including the Aoki couple, were staying in rows of prefab shelters here.

Porch, appliances

As temporary housing goes, the Aokis’ 30-square-meter unit looks comfortable. It has two rooms, a bathroom, kitchen and a covered porch—a huge improvement over evacuation centers like school gymnasiums that offer no privacy.

The unit is furnished with a set of new appliances—a refrigerator, rice cooker, washing machine, microwave oven, hot water dispenser and flat-screen TV—courtesy of the Japanese Red Cross Society.

The Japanese Red Cross said it distributed to some 114,000 families this same set of appliances that it bought at huge discounts from Panasonic and Toshiba.

Katsuko’s unit also has air-conditioning, a bed with a control mechanism and a supply of cooking gas.

“When I arrived here (in July) it was difficult. Now it is less difficult,” said Katsuko, who has three children (two sons and a daughter) and two grandsons.

Jobs lost

Her children lost their jobs after the disasters and are scattered, she said in her kitchen, where vegetables had been chopped ready for cooking.

Coming from an area in the shadow of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the grandmother is ever vigilant about the origins of the food she buys.

“I try to pay attention where products come from. I don’t buy products from areas with high radiation levels,” Katsuko said. “We try to buy rice from Niigata prefecture.”

The government has assured consumers that it inspects radioactive materials in food every day. “We will not allow distribution of food that exceeds standards,” said Noriyuki Shikata, deputy Cabinet secretary for public relations and director of global communications.

But at the end of the day, it is still up to the consumer whether to buy food from Fukushima, Shikata said at the Office of the Prime Minister in Tokyo. “There are different consumer behaviors. Mothers with babies may be more careful.”

Tatami

One other thing that troubles Katsuko is the coming winter. Her unit has no heating. “I worry about the cold. The government plans to provide us with tatami (mats) though,” she said.

Despite the amenities offered by her temporary housing arrangement, Katsuko, a pensioner, longs to return to Hirono. “I have been a farmer all my life. I wish I could go back to farming,” she said.

Tulip

The nearest thing to farming that she has done here is planting a tulip in a pot placed beside her unit’s door.

She used to plant rice, potato and vegetables on a 300-sq. m lot in Hirono. “I just want to go home,” she said.

Katsuko noted that the prefab-housing community had no school and hospital.

Unlike Katsuko, two of her younger town mates—Chieko Iitaka and Kyoko Ueno—are not inclined to move back to Hirono.

Children

They remain concerned about the radiation and its possible effects on their children. Iitaka, 47, has three children and Ueno, 50, has two.

They feel secure in Iwaki but if they had their way they said they would move far away from this city for their children’s sake.

A number of residents of this city, including 60 doctors, have left, presumably because of concerns about radiation, according to Terui.

Community bond

Iitaka and Ueno are staff members at a support center helping to strengthen the community bonds of evacuees in Iwaki, a project entrusted to the Iwaki NPO Center by the Fukushima prefecture.

“Staying here (in these prefabricated houses) is not comfortable. We listen to problems of the elderly people living here and report them to the Iwaki NPO Center,” Iitaka said.

Monitoring the health of the evacuees, providing them with entertainment and encouraging them to take meals together are among the project activities.

“We’re trying to alleviate the sense of anxiety and solitude among the evacuees, especially the elderly,” Terui said.

Preventing suicide

He said the elderly, separated from friends in their hometowns and living alone in the prefab units, “often feel lonely” and might consider suicide.

A few suicides, mostly men in their 50s and 60s, were recorded in evacuation centers, according to the Nippon Foundation.

One of the things the Iwaki NPO Center did to prevent separation anxiety among evacuees was to house those from the same town near one another.

Walking together

This has allowed Aoki, Kimiko Sayto (77 years old), Emiko Chira (82), Tonii Nimoto (83) and Moyo Kanasawa (79)—all women from Hirono—to see each other regularly.

“We take a walk together. We meet and take coffee together because we knew each other in Hirono,” said Nimoto, who lives alone.

Her daughter and son-in-law live nearby and take care of her. “My daughter lives with her husband and parents-in-law. This is the first time for us to live in temporary housing,” she said.

Apartments

Others displaced by the disasters have not moved to the prefab shelters, preferring to stay in apartments paid for by the government or living on the second floor of their homes not damaged by the tsunami.

Marlene de Quiña Shoji, a Filipino married to a Japanese, is staying in an apartment in Sendai City because the tsunami destroyed her house near the coast.

The city pays the rent of 86,000 yen for a unit known here as 3DK (two bedrooms, a living and dining room and kitchen.)

Second floor

Hiroyuki Takeuchi, a journalist, has opted to remain on the second floor of his house in Ishinomaki City with his wife, three children and parents, who are in their 80s.

The city in Miyaki prefecture is one of the areas devastated by the tsunami. Vice Mayor Etsuro Kitamura said 70 percent of the houses in Ishinomaki suffered damage from the disaster.

Living on the second floor has its set of challenges, especially because water service has not been restored.

“The water issue is a major concern. I drive 20 minutes to a natural hot spring with my family for baths,” Takeuchi said at the two-story office of the Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun, an evening newspaper.

Takeuchi, 54, said he was making every effort to take a bath twice a week. In between trips to the hot spring, he goes to the drugstore for body wipes.

To cook rice and wash utensils, the family must get water from a communal source. The city water department brings water in a special vehicle.

“The water system is being repaired and recovery is on the way,” he said.

But the coming winter also concerns Takeuchi because what remains of his house lacks proper insulation. “I’m thinking we have no choice but to rely on heating equipment,” he said.

Repair work has just started in his house, but getting carpenters to fix it is a problem.

Hope

Despite the challenges posed by living on the second floor, Takeuchi vows to soldier on.

“For as long as we can, we should try to make it on our own,” he said. “I should have hope.”

People staying in the prefab shelters and subsidized apartments also need to have hope as they are living in their present houses on borrowed time.

A Japanese law mandates that evacuees may stay in temporary shelters, usually built in public open spaces not meant for residential housing, for only two years.

After that evacuees are on their own, a big challenge because many of them are elderly or unemployed.

By then, the government hopes its massive reconstruction project would provide new opportunities in the disaster-stricken areas.