Reconstruction Without People in Mind

Lessons from Noto Peninsula and the Politics of Disaster Recovery

I recently traveled around the Noto Peninsula in a counterclockwise direction. About five years ago, I once set out to capture the sunrise over the coastal scenery of Noto, but since then I had not returned until now. What I found this time was a completely different situation, for on January 1, 2024, the Noto Peninsula Earthquake struck.

As I looked at the transformed landscape of Noto, memories came back of visiting Sanriku after the catastrophic damage of the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. This experience once again prompted me to strongly question the meaning of “reconstruction” today.

To put it simply, Japan’s “reconstruction” is something decided and carried out arbitrarily by a handful of people, steered entirely by the political and economic interests of the time. Disaster victims themselves are excluded, with decisions made behind closed doors, ignoring their presence. What shocked me this time was that, although nearly two years have passed since the earthquake, the devastation looks as if the disaster had just struck. The Noto Peninsula is vast, and while Nanao City in the south has made some progress toward recovery, the northern areas remain devastated.

Driving through, I saw leaning utility poles and signs, houses left collapsed, countless shattered windows, roofs torn away, and entire communities reduced to ruins. In the northern mountains, landslides still affect whole areas, traffic remains restricted in many places, and many people continue to live in makeshift temporary housing.