An evacuee walks outside temporary homes in Rikuzentakata, in northeastern Japan. Public and private groups worked together to build and furnish them in less than a month. By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Rikuzentakata, Japan— For Mika Terui, unit 5-2 of this devastated community's newest housing complex was home, finally home.
The 39-year-old mother of three felt like one of the luckiest survivors of the magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami that killed thousands of people and left many others homeless or languishing in evacuation centers.
A day earlier, she and her family of five had moved into one of 36 prefabricated temporary homes built on the playground of a junior high school, part of a public-private disaster relief effort in this ravaged community on Japan's northeastern coast.
The units, which resemble compact double-wide trailers, feature new appliances and two small bedrooms each. They are the first newly constructed homes to open in the region since the March 11 disaster, at a project cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-quake-housing-20110414,0,4059809.story