Miyagi Mental Care Center to Close 14 Years after 2011 Disaster

From Jiji

September 26 2025

Sendai, Miyagi Pref – A northeastern Japan facility that has provided mental care for about 14 years to people affected by the March 2011 powerful earthquake and tsunami is set to finish its services at the end of this month. 
   The Miyagi Disaster Mental Health Care Center, located in Sendai, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture, part of the areas afflicted by the disaster, had offered consultations for about 63,000 cases by early this month. After its closure, local governments in the prefecture will provide the services.
   The center was opened by the Miyagi prefectural government in December 2011, and its regional bases were launched in the Miyagi cities of Ishinomaki and Kesennuma in April 2012. At one point, a total of as many as about 50 psychiatrists, mental health social workers and others provided support to affected victims at the three facilities.
   “It was all a process of trial and error,” Yuichi Watanabe, 55, deputy chief of the center, said, noting that there were very many issues over its operations when it was opened, such as how to recruit personnel and how to inform local people of its services. 
   Before opening the center, Watanabe visited a mental care facility set up in Kobe in response to the January 1995 major earthquake that struck the western Japan city and surrounding areas and another launched in the central Japan city of Niigata following the October 2004 strong temblor that hit central areas of Niigata Prefecture.