14 Years On: Youth, Women Key to Combating Disaster Area Population Falls

   Tokyo, March 11 (Jiji Press)--Fourteen years after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, communities in northeastern Japan that are grappling with declining populations are focusing on young people and women to aid recovery.
   Meanwhile, one expert has highlighted the need for proactive planning, emphasizing the importance of preparing for disasters even in normal times and developing long-term reconstruction strategies.
   According to the internal affairs ministry, the number of people aged 20 to 39 in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima--the prefectures hardest hit by the March 2011 disaster--fell by about 20 pct to 30 pct between 2010 and 2024. A report released last year by a panel of mostly private-sector experts projected that the number of women in their 20s and 30s across 13 Pacific coastal municipalities in these prefectures will plummet by more than 60 pct between 2020 and 2050.
   In the Ogatsu district of Ishinomaki, a coastal city in Miyagi Prefecture, the population stood at around 4,300 at the end of February 2011, just before the disaster. Since then, it has fallen to a quarter of that number.
   The area in Ogatsu most affected by the tsunami has been designated as high risk, preventing residents from rebuilding their homes. Additionally, the district has little flat land, and developing residential areas by cutting through mountainous terrain has taken considerable time.

(2025/03/11-10:30)

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