Indoor Fungal Contamination in Temporary Housing after the East Japan Great Earthquake Disaster

• Published in: International journal of environmental research and public health Vol. 18; no. 6; p. 3296
• Main Authors: Watanabe, Maiko, Konuma, Rumi, Kobayashi, Naoki, Yamazaki, Akiko, Kamata, Yoichi, Hasegawa, Kenichi, Kimura, Noritaka, Tsurikisawa, Naomi, Oshikata, Chiyako, Sugita-Konishi, Yoshiko, Takatori, Kosuke, Yoshino, Hiroshi, Hara-Kudo, Yukiko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 23.03.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Apartments; Aspergillus; Attics; Comparative analysis; Contamination; Disasters; Earthquakes; Fungi; Health hazards; Health risk assessment; Health risks; Housing; Humidity; Indoor air pollution; Indoor air quality; Indoor environments; Insulation; Japan; Prefabrication; Rainy season; Relative humidity; Seismic activity; Temporary housing; Tsunamis; Winter; Japan; Aspergillus; allergic fungi; temporary housing; Great East Japan Earthquake; mycoflora
• ISSN: 1660-4601; 1661-7827; 1660-4601
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18063296

To understand fungal contamination in the indoor environment of the disaster region, a field survey was performed to measure the number of fungal counts and identify isolates in the indoor air of prefabricated temporary housing, privately independent-housing, and rented apartments flooded by the East Japan Great Earthquake disaster tsunami. As a result, the period with the highest detected fungal count was from the rainy season to summer in independent-housing and rented apartments. Moreover, in the temporary housing, the fungal number increased further in winter as indicated by the maximum fungal-number throughout the measurement period. The detection frequency of species was relatively higher in the indoor air of temporary housing than in typical housing in the non-disaster area. Since is known as an allergenic genus, it requires careful attention to the health risk for residents. The extremely high level of fungal condensation in indoor air possibly occurred due to high relative humidity and loss of heat insulation in the building attics. It is suggested that this problem commonly happened in the cold region including the entire disaster region of the East Japan Great Earthquake.