YAKUSHIMA, Kagoshima – Residents of Kuchinoerabujima island woke up to an uncertain new reality Saturday, facing the prospect of a long evacuation after the eruption of Mt. Shindake the day before.
Residents, many of whom evacuated with only the clothes on their backs, worried over when things on the island in Yakushima, Kagoshima Prefecture, would return to normal.
Some residents already had decided to leave the island to stay with relatives or others.
“When we evacuated, I thought it would only be for a few days, but watching the news, I’m worried we can’t go home for months,” said a 43-year-old woman who works in a school lunch center. She had taken shelter at a facility for elderly people in the northern part of the island.
After Friday’s eruption, she returned home to hurriedly pack some things and found her garden covered with volcanic ash and pebbles a few centimeters in diameter.
“It took time to clean up after the eruption last August. How long is it going to take until I can live in my home again?” she said.
A 64-year-old man and his wife, also 64, evacuated to the Miyanoura community center. The couple already had decided to leave Saturday to stay for a while with the wife’s relatives in Ichikikushikino, Kagoshima Prefecture.
“If we knew it was only going to be another week, we’d stay at the evacuation center,” the husband said as the two boarded a vehicle provided by the town to take them to Miyanoura Port. “But we can’t stay for a long time in a place like that with everything all in a fog. It would wear us out.”
Meanwhile, Yakushima town Mayor Koji Araki met with Ryosei Akazawa, a state minister of the Cabinet Office, on Saturday after Araki arrived on Yakushima island as a government inspection team member, and Araki explained measures being taken in the wake of the volcanic eruption.
Araki called for cooperation from the central government, saying: “The evacuees came here almost empty-handed, and they are worried about when they will be able to return to the (Kuchinoerabujima) island. Various things could happen. If something should happen, we’ll need help” of the central government.
Akazawa later visited an evacuation center on the island. In response to a resident’s request that the government take measures to allow a temporary return to the island if a long-term evacuation is deemed necessary, Akazawa responded, “The government will offer as much help as possible.”
The Kanagadake Primary and Middle School had thoroughly conducted evacuation drills for its 16 students since the previous eruption last August.
The teachers and officials of the school park their cars in a direction that would enable them to drive away immediately should an eruption occur, while the students bring helmets with them as they go to and from school.
The schools reportedly conducted surprise drills repeatedly in which the pupils and students got into the cars of the school teachers and officials after hearing the sound of a drum beating that was used as the signal for a volcanic eruption.
A third-year middle school student said she also had been told by her parents to evacuate together with the people nearby and that her parents would meet her at an evacuation center.
“Since I thought an eruption could occur someday, I was able to evacuate swiftly this time,” she said as she recalled the latest eruption.
