Tourism Ishikawa Prefecture: Kanazawa and Kaga safe, don’t come to Noto yet

[thomas]

On 1 January, a powerful earthquake struck the northern coast of Japan's main island of Honshu. More than 200 people lost their lives, and tens of thousands had to evacuate their homes, with the most extensive damage occurring in Ishikawa Prefecture's Noto Peninsula. When earthquakes occur in Japan, rural areas like Noto, where buildings are older and less quake-proofed, and there's less infrastructure surplus than in big cities, tend to be the hardest hit. Unfortunately, many rural communities rely heavily on tourism to keep their local economies afloat, and strong earthquakes can create a ripple of adverse effects as travellers avoid the region entirely because they're unaware of what areas they can safely travel to without getting in the way of relief operations. This is the position Ishikawa finds itself in. The prefecture still wants travellers to visit and support local merchants, restaurants, hotels, and cultural attractions but avoid areas where extensive recovery projects are ongoing. With that in mind, the official Ishikawa Twitter account is asking potential visitors to refer to a map created by animator and Twitter user @natoriyuichiro, which the Ishikawa government says is a proper representation of the situation as of its 17 January endorsement.

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Within the map, the area outlined in red marks Ishikawa Prefecture. Ishikawa can be broadly divided into two parts, the Noto region (能登地方) to the north and the Kaga Region (加賀地方) to the south, with the city of Kanazawa (金沢), the prefectural capital, as effectively the north border of Kaga. Noto has a higher ratio of narrow mountain roads, the map explains, many of which have been blocked or damaged by the quake, causing extensive traffic jams in the area. For this reason, use of private cars is not recommended, in order to leave as much of the road network's capacity for residents, relief staff, and essential workers. The map also subdivides Noto into Northern Noto (能登北部) (also called Inner Noto [奥能登]), and Southern Noto (能登南部), shown by the red and orange areas on the map. Out of the two, Northern Noto has been especially affected by the quake, as the epicenter was off the northern tip of the coastline. On the other hand, things in the Kaga region, shown in bright green, are pretty much as normal, the map says. Almost all shops and restaurants are keeping to their regular business hours, and sightseeing attractions remain open. The Hokuriku Shinkansen, which connects Tokyo and Kanazawa, is running as normal, flights are arriving and departing regularly at regional air hub Komatsu Airport, and roads remain open to motorists.

「能登には来ないで」「でも石川県には来て」ってなぜ？ 石川県が共有したイラストが「これすごく良い」と反響

大変分かりやすい地図でタメになります！

www.buzzfeed.com

Which parts of Ishikawa are OK to travel to after Noto quake? Government shares guideline map

On January 1, a powerful earthquake struck the northern coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. More than 200 people lost their lives and tens of thousands had to evacuate their homes, with the most extensive damage occurring in Ishikawa Prefecture’s Noto Peninsula. When earthquakes occur in...

japantoday.com

 

[johnnyG]

This morning's paper showed the smaller train line from Kanazawa to Nanao had re-started/re-opened. I guess I haven't heard anything about the island just across from there--Notojima. There are two longish bridges connecting that to the peninsula, which I'm sure were closed initially for safety checks, but I haven't heard anything about those one way or the other (being closed or open). There's a nice aquarium there, and not far from that a glass museum, and glass 'factory' where you can watch folks blowing glass into various things.

Next to the glass works is a shop that sells various things, and I have a small collection of paperweights from there. But a lot of it is fragile, not only the museum, which even has a Picasso piece or two, but this shop has hundreds of pieces for sale.

Like this:

Not the kind of place that's set up for earthquakes! Given the date/time of the biggest quake, I'm sure it was closed and empty, but another place to wonder about damage.

 

[Hiroyuki Nagashima]

As for party traveler first after though "want to come ..." earthquake disaster and … now tourist dilemma [the news station] that Kanazawa holds without coming back (January 19, 2024)


It is | from the Noto Peninsula earthquake occurrence that "wants to support" the 20%-30% foreign countries tour visitor of the "Kanazawa" of the tourist sharp decrease average year for three weeks TBS NEWS DIG


I want to heap up Ishikawa by hot-spring resort visitor sharp decrease sightseeing of Kanazawa-shi (January 22, 2024)