Powerful Typhoon Hagibis, which ripped through Japan on Oct. 12 and brought flooding and landslides to Fukushima Prefecture, has left at least 27 senior group homes and nursing homes in the area damaged or flooded.
As of Oct. 15, there were no reports of deaths or injuries at such facilities, but the widespread damage caused by the typhoon has exposed the difficulties that homes for elderly people have faced in responding to the disaster.
At about 1 a.m. on Oct. 13, firefighters knocked on the front door of La Soeur Date, a special nursing care home in the city of Date, which was home to 99 residents at the time of the typhoon, to warn that the nearby river had burst its banks.