Kumamoto Town Starts Accepting Disaster Waste after Earthquake

Hikawa, Kumamoto Pref., Aug. 3 (Jiji Press)–Authorities in Hikawa, a town in Kumamoto Prefecture, on Monday started accepting disaster waste, following a massive earthquake that struck the southwestern Japan prefecture on Tuesday. Residents formed a long line of cars to dispose of waste such as furniture and scrap materials at a designated sports ground. With cracks and bumps on roads in the area, residents were driving carefully. Akio Hatano, an 80-year-old Hikawa resident, arrived at the site at around 6:30 a.m., bringing “shoji” Japanese traditional doors and broken ceramics. “I’m happy that waste acceptance has started finally,” he said. “It’ll take more time to clean up my house,” he said, looking exhausted. A 71-year-old resident arrived with a wardrobe and shelf on a truck. “My house is a mess,” he said, unloading the furniture quietly. A 75-year-old man said that almost all the roof tiles of his house had fallen off. “I’m sad because the house was more than 100 years old,” he said. “It takes more than two hours to bring in each time, so I might be able to do this only once a day,” said a corporate worker in her 50s who came to dispose of “futon” Japanese-style bedding and others, with a hopelessness look. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]