More than two months after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, construction of temporary housing for disaster victims and the restoration of lifelines such as electricity, gas, city water and sewerage have become urgent tasks. Close attention also must be paid to employment of disaster survivors.
Before March 11, more than 840,000 people were working in the coastal areas of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. Jobs included processing of fishery products, tourism, construction and electronic appliances and machinery manufacturing. It is reasonable to assume that many people, including farmers and fishermen, were put out out of work although an accurate number is hard to ascertain.
In areas around the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, a town office moved to another prefecture and a large number of people have had to leave their homes. Several tens of thousands of people in the areas may have been forced to close down their businesses or have lost their jobs at least temporarily.