TOKYO, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- Some 3,600 people are still living in evacuation shelters one month after a severe rain disaster caused hundreds of deaths in western Japan, authorities said on Monday.
According to the National Police Agency, the record rainfall that started on July 6 in western Japan and the subsequent flooding and landslides have left a total of 225 people dead.
Meanwhile, 11 people are still missing in the hardest-hit prefectures of Hiroshima, Okayama, Ehime and Osaka, according to a Kyodo News tally.
Local police, firefighters and members of the Self-Defense Forces are continuing search and rescue operations for the missing.
The deadly rain disaster has caused severe damages to local economy and people's life, as some 5,200 houses were destroyed and 8,700 others were half-destroyed or damaged.
As of Sunday, more than 1,400 households in Ehime prefecture are still without water supply, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
With reconstruction work progressing slowly amid the scorching heat across Japan, many evacuees in disaster-hit areas were living in anxiety and despair.
According to a survey by Kyodo News between July 28 and July 31 in the disaster-hit areas in prefectures of Okayama, Hiroshima and Ehime, two-thirds of the respondents said they were facing serious financial difficulties, and 42.7 percent said they knew little about public aid available to them.
A total of 65.8 percent of the surveyed residents said they had little hope of resuming normal life in the foreseeable future, and over 50 percent said they did not know if they can repair their homes.
The rain disaster has also caused 240 billion yen (2.15 billion U.S. dollars) in damage to the agricultural and fishery sectors, according to a recent estimation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
Japan's top government spokesperson Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press briefing on Monday that the central government and local municipalities would work together and do their best to help the disaster-hit areas to return to normal.
The government decided last week to spend 105.8 billion yen (948 million U.S. dollars) from reserve funds to finance a package of measures to help reconstruction in the rain-hit areas.
The package includes a program designed to speed up work by municipalities to remove disaster debris and sediment in the areas.
"We'll implement the necessary measures with a sense of speed," said Suga.
