62 solitary deaths in 2009 at housing for 1995 quake victims+

KOBE, Jan. 15 Kyodo -
A total of 62 residents of housing built in Hyogo Prefecture for survivors of
the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake died solitary deaths in 2009, a Kyodo News
tally showed Friday.

The tally, based on prefectural police autopsy results, showed that the number
of solitary deaths among the residents suddenly increased last year after
declining from 2005 to 46 in 2008, bringing the total number of solitary deaths
since 2000 to 630.
Of those who died in 2009, 44 were men and 18 were women, and 58 were aged 60
or over. The oldest person was a 93-year-old man in Kobe.
Illness was the primary cause, accounting for 51 deaths, while six people died
of accidents including fire and drowning in the bath and five committed
suicide.
Twenty-four of the residents were found dead by relatives, 11 by city officials
or social workers, eight by friends or neighbors and the remainder by other
people.
It took more than a month before three of the residents were found dead and in
the case of a 64-year-old man in Kobe, six months passed before he was found
dead by his family in April last year.
As of the end of November 2009, 48 percent of the residents in the special
housing were aged 65 or over, twice the figure for ordinary prefectural
housing.
==Kyodo
2010-01-15 23:03:41