By Chiaki Furukawa | Senior Managing Director
In the Noto region of Ishikawa Prefecture, which has been hit by record-breaking rainfall, private homes and temporary housing have been flooded, and many survivors are forced to live in evacuation centers. AAR Japan (Association for Aid and Relief, Japan) started a soup kitchen on September 22, and has been providing support in cooperation with a partner organization, NPO Peace Project (Representative: Kato, AAR Director) since September 24.
The evacuation center at the elementary school where the soup kitchen was provided is the same place where AAR and Peace Project provided continuous support after the Noto Peninsula earthquake in January. Many of the residents were living in the shelter for the second time this year, following the earthquake, and when they received the food, some of them said to us, “Nice to see you again” or “Thank you for coming.”
Survivors living in evacuation centers and neighborhood children volunteered to help prepare the soup kitchen, providing a total of 1,198 hot meals from September 24 to 30, including pork miso soup, curry rice, western-style tomato soup, mapo tofu rice bowl, pork rice bowl, and beef yakiniku rice bowl. When we served perfectly ripe Shine Muscat grapes provided by a volunteer who helped during the torrential rainstorm in western Japan (2018) as dessert, some people said, “We have never tasted such delicious grapes before.”
The soup kitchen, where hot meals are served, is also a place where people can calm down for a moment. A woman who was busy cleaning up her house all day said, “I am so grateful to have a meal when I return home tired in mind and body.” And, “I don’t know what to do now that this has happened to our house following the earthquake. I don’t want my children to see their parents in pain and in difficulty, so I can’t cry at home…,” she said with tears in her eyes.
Some of the survivors were spared damage from the January earthquake, but were unable to live in their homes due to the 1.5-meter-high muddy water from the recent floods. Some are lamenting the unprecedentedly severe “double disaster” situation, asking “Why Noto again?”
The areas affected by the earthquake and flooding need a great deal of support, and we ask again for your cooperation for Heavy Rain in Noto Peninsula.
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