Center for pregnant women and families with children opens in Kumamoto Prefecture
In the town of Hikawa in Kumamoto Prefecture, a specialized evacuation center for pregnant women and families with children opened after a powerful earthquake at the end of July. It is the only shelter of this kind in the prefecture, The Japan Times reports.
Support for families
The center began operating on August 6. Each household is provided with a separate tent for privacy. The shelter also collects and distributes childcare assistance, including powdered infant formula, baby food and diapers.
Nurses, midwives and childcare workers are employed at the center. According to Yoshimi Kamiyoshihara, a nurse with the secretariat of the disaster medical assistance group at the Japan Institute for Health Security, 59 people from 14 households were staying at the shelter. She is helping to launch and operate the center.
According to Kamiyoshihara, the number of people using the center is increasing. Some families moved from regular evacuation sites after being told that their children were too noisy. Others can no longer live in cars or their own homes. “Demand is higher than immediately after the disaster,” she said.
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The only center of its kind
The shelter in Hikawa is among the so-called evacuation centers for people requiring special care. Kamiyoshihara noted that such centers are increasingly being prepared for elderly people and people with disabilities, but only a small number of municipalities create separate facilities for mothers and children.
After the earthquake, five municipalities in Kumamoto opened such evacuation centers, but only Hikawa set up a shelter for mothers and children. In the city of Yatsushiro, which was also severely affected by the earthquake, several pregnant women are staying at regular evacuation sites.
Mothers often do not turn to such shelters because they are frequently located in nursing homes for elderly people, where there are no places for children to play or facilities for bathing infants. Kamiyoshihara previously helped open similar centers after the 2016 earthquakes in Kumamoto and in Ishikawa Prefecture in 2024.
