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DATE, Japan-When a river in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture burst its banks Sunday at the height of Typhoon Hagibis, 700 homes were flooded, many belonging to elderly residents too frail to clean and repair their waterlogged homes.

Fukushima is no stranger to disaster. In 2011, the area was hit by an earthquake that unleashed a tsunami on the coast and destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

However, as the aging of Japan’s population, the resistance of the inhabitants to fight with difficulties in a country prone to natural disasters appear to be waning.

“The older people told me they were ready to give up,” says Kenichi Bamba, head of Fukushima Bridge, a volunteer group that came to help with the cleanup.

“As Japan gets older, the social networks that support communities will start to erode. Something needs to be put in place,” he said.

Hiromi Nagasawa, a social welfare worker in the city of datu in Fukushima Prefecture, near where the Abukuma river burst its banks, said nearly all of the 170 people left in evacuation centers were old.

The death toll from Typhoon Hagibis rose to 74 on Wednesday, public broadcaster NHK said, many of the victims drowned after dozens of rivers were flooded.

(Click https://tmsnrt.rs/31c0feP to see interactive graphics plotting the path of Typhoon Hagibis)

Fukushima Prefecture has the most casualties, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledging 710 million yen ($6.5 million) to Fund recovery efforts.

‘Don’t know how I GO to COPE’

Bamba’s group and city officials are recruiting volunteers to help older people clean their homes of dirt and debris.

Ten high school students working with Bamba’s group helped 78-year-old Iseno Taniguchi and her daughter, Yumi Okazaki, clean up three days after her home in date city was nearly flooded and flood waters reached as high as the second floor.

Some pulled photos from waterlogged albums to dry in the sun.

“I want to help clean so she can at least keep some things,” student Raina Sato said as she wiped away photos of the Taniguchi family.

“The streets are filled with mud and it must be difficult for the elderly to get around.”

Taniguchi, who lives alone and lives with her daughter after the flood, seemed to be losing hope.

“I just don’t know how I’m going to cope,” Taniguchi said in her ruined living room. “When I evacuated, all I took was my mobile phone, driver’s license, car and wallet. Everything I have has been destroyed.”

Taniguchi doesn’t think her house can be saved, and said she’ll likely run it down, and may even get out of the area.

Up to 300 households in the area will need the help of volunteers over the coming weeks, Bamba says.

“It will take 10 people to clean each house,” he said.

But with the effects of Typhoon Hagibis stretching the response in other parts of Japan, including Tokyo, volunteers able to help in Fukushima may be in short supply, he said.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Additional reporting by Quien Ha; Editing by Karishma Singh)

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