Lack of Media Coverage Concern for Some Quake-Hit Kumamoto Areas

Kumamoto, Sept. 2 (Jiji Press)--While a shopping mall explosion and areas struggling with water outages following a massive earthquake in Kumamoto Prefecture in late July have made major headlines, people in some quake-affected areas in the southwestern Japan prefecture are concerned about the lack of media coverage on their damage.

There have been differences among areas in the amount of donations collected under the "furusato nozei" tax program and in the number of disaster relief volunteers who came in, officials said.

Thirty-eight people have died in the July 28 earthquake, according to the Kumamoto prefectural government. Of them, nine were killed after a chimney collapsed at a paper plant in the city of Yatsushiro and seven in the shopping mall explosion in the town of Kashima.

The cities of Uki and Yatsushiro and the town of Hikawa went without running water for about a month.

In Misato, a town that neighbors Uki and Yatsushiro, about 30 pct of households suffered damage to their homes while there were no fatalities. Many homes in the Shimobaru district had red stickers indicating that it was dangerous for people to enter.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]