Recovery and reconstruction efforts in the wake of major natural disasters take years and large sums of money to complete, and the recent magnitude-6.7 quake that rocked the northernmost main island of Japan is likely to prove no exception.

Shoichiro Miyasaka, mayor of Atsuma, Hokkaido, where massive landslides swept away residents in their homes during the Sept. 6 quake, said repairs of roads and farmlands will require "at least" several tens of billions of yen -- equivalent to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Thirty-six of the 41 deaths reported in the prefecture occurred in Atsuma, and 879 of some 4,600 residents of the farming town remained evacuated from their homes as of Sept. 11.

(Police search for missing persons in Atsuma, Hokkaido)

At least 73 buildings were flattened and 147 others suffered some damage, mostly due to landslides triggered by the quake, according to local officials.

"The people who died had worked to build this community. Ensuring a full and successful recovery will be a way to honor them," said Miyasaka, adding the town "must ask for wide-ranging support" from others.

The Hokkaido quake is just the latest in a series of natural disasters to have beset Japan this year.

In June, a major earthquake killed five people in Osaka Prefecture. The disaster was quickly followed by torrential rains that left more than 200 people dead in western Japan in July, and powerful typhoon Jebi followed, the 21st of the season, which damaged a major international airport in the Osaka area two days before the Hokkaido quake.

Such disasters, and the huge accompanying costs, have not been limited to this year.

The central government and a disaster relief fund established by Japan's 47 prefectures have been jointly supplying money to people who had homes destroyed in natural disasters, funding construction to build them anew.

But there are fears that funds will dry up if large-scale catastrophes continue to occur, something that climate scientists say is a reality as the effects of human-induced global warming worsen.

The disaster fund's reserves are supposed to be maintained and grown through investments, but in recent years money has been drawn from the principal, meaning the 100 billion yen it had as of the end of fiscal 2011 reduced to a low of 48.2 billion yen by the end of fiscal 2017.

While governors in July agreed to contribute an additional total of 40 billion yen to the fund, the torrential rain and ensuing disasters are expected to hurt its balance further.

The Japanese insurance industry seems to have recognized the risks related to weather-related natural disasters, particularly with climate change likely worsening the scale and frequency of typhoons and other events.

(Photo shows the collapsed gate of a temple in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture a day after the June 18 earthquake)

With policyholders more likely to make disaster-related claims and companies in which the insurance firms invest their massive assets under management likely to have profits hit by weather disruptions, the industry has begun to take action.

A global assessment of the sector released by the Asset Owners Disclosure Project Global Climate Index in May said Japanese insurers had shown recent advances in their transparency on climate-related risks, an improvement likely spurred by the Government Pension Investment Fund integrating environmental, social and governance factors into its investment processes.

However, debt also remains from past emergencies, including the massive earthquake and tsunami disaster in northeastern Japan in 2011 and even the major 1995 earthquake in Kobe, western Japan.

The northeastern Japan disaster has been particularly devastating due to the wide areas it affected and the nuclear crisis it triggered in Fukushima.

(Photo shows a truck blown over on a flooded road in Osaka after Typhoon Jebi hit western Japan)

Seven and a half years since the quake-tsunami-nuclear disaster, roughly half of the households which borrowed money from the government through local authorities have failed to meet their scheduled repayments on a combined 400 million yen ($3.6 million) in debt, a recent Kyodo News survey revealed.

The government disbursed up to 3.5 million yen to about 26,400 households, a combined 46 billion yen, following the 2011 disaster, asking them to repay the loans within 13 years.

Repayments have been called in from about 30 percent of those with loans, or 7,500 households, but 3,460 households have been unable to meet them, the survey showed.

The surveyed municipalities said, among other reasons, that borrowers have struggled to repay their debt because incomes fell after they were forced to switch jobs due to the disaster, while others said they have reached retirement age and lost a source of income aside from their pensions, meaning they are unable to put aside money to make loan payments.

"My back aches and it's hard to work, but I won't be able to repay unless I work," said a 70-year-old man in the Miyagi Prefecture capital of Sendai, whose repayments are scheduled to start in December.

(Photo in Kobe shows the damage inflicted by the 1995 Hanshin earthquake)

The man currently works at a university dorm as a cook, which earns him 880 yen an hour, or about 80,000 yen a month. Even combined with his pension, he only makes 160,000 yen a month, leaving him little after paying for food and rent among other living costs.

Figuring he will not be able to pay back the 110,000 yen due in December, the man has made a request to authorities to allow him to extend his payments.

He can only remain employed in his current job until 75. "I will have trouble just making ends meet, but I want to make an effort to repay the loan while I'm still alive."

Among historical disasters, the city of Kobe still faces debts that people have failed to pay decades after the major earthquake devastated the city in 1995.

As of August last year, some 1,960 households owed some 3 billion yen, according to the city.

The figures underscore the difficulties people face in repaying their debts as well as problems faced by municipalities attempting to collect.

"Managing debts for an extensive period of time increases our workload," an official of the Fukushima Prefecture city of Iwaki said.

Officials of the town of Yamamoto in Miyagi Prefecture also said local government workers lack the skills and experience to collect debts.

However, Haruo Hayashi, the head of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience, urged local authorities not to make debt collection their sole purpose.

"They need to grasp the circumstances of each individual and support them to rebuild their lives," Hayashi said.