More than 15,000 people were still staying in shelters in the Japanese prefecture of Ishikawa on Monday, three weeks after the devastating magnitude-7.6 earthquake left 232 people dead and 22 missing.

Nearly 35,000 houses and buildings were damaged in the earthquake and many of the broken and blocked roads that left regions temporarily isolated remain in poor condition and causing communication problems, according to the most recent damage assessment published by public broadcaster NHK.

More than 49,000 homes lack running water due to serious damage to infrastructure and the supply has been suspended to six towns in Ishikawa, which is expected to be restored at the end of February at the earliest.

Around 5,400 households still experience power outages, approximately 3,000 of them in Wajima City, 2,100 in Suzu, 190 in Noto, 80 in Anamizu and 10 in both Nanao and Shika.

According to the latest official figures, 15,656 people remain in evacuation shelters three weeks after the earthquake and the situation is not expected to improve soon.

The conditions in the shelters are not ideal due to the cold, with heavy snowfall in the region, and infectious diseases have been spreading at some centers, so the government ruled that one of the priorities now is to avoid more deaths.

So far it has been certified that 14 of the deaths were not directly due to the earthquake, but due to causes linked to it, including deterioration in health among the displaced.

Additional assistance personnel were sent days ago to affected areas where there is a lack of personnel or those that exist are saturated, but the care of the displaced is an issue of concern.

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