8 years after the quake, many still need relief

On January 17 in Kobe City, which was the hardest hit by the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake 8 years ago that took 6,433 lives, citizens in various memorial events remembered their loved ones who fell victim to the major disaster.

The Natural Disaster Victims Relief Law, adopted soon after the quake, will be reviewed in the Diet this year although many quake victims are still left without relief.

According to Japanese Communist Party members of the Kobe City Assembly, 76 percent out of 30,000 households in emergency-restoration housing complexes say their living conditions are fragile; 16 percent of households say they have been in arrears with rent; 63 percent are pensioner households; and 14 percent depend on social welfare programs.

Most of the residents of the emergency-restoration housing complexes are low-income earners and elderly people. 198 people have died unattended so far.

Among small business owners who have borrowed money for rebuilding their businesses, 84 percent have difficulties paying back the loan: more than 4,000 owners have gone bankrupt or have become unable to repay.

Home loans also weigh heavily upon the quake survivors: 744 cases have been registered as repayment failures.

The JCP has, since the disaster hit the Hanshin area, consistently striven to realize the earnest demands of the quake sufferers, and helped produce many positive results such as improvement in the number of emergency-restoration housing complexes, reduction of rents, rent subsidies, and extensions of loan payment terms.

The JCP Hyogo Prefectural Committee on January 16 published an appeal calling for an urgent relief and a system to support the lives and housing reconstruction of the quake victims, who are still suffering from the aftermath.

JCP House of Representative member Fujiki Yoko stated, "I want to do everything I can to establish more expanded support in order to help the victims." (end)