"Instant Houses" provide shelter to victims in quake-stricken Kumamoto

KUMAMOTO, Japan - In quake-stricken Kumamoto Prefecture in southwestern Japan, rows of pointed dome-like structures rise out of the backyards of collapsed homes.

The "Instant Houses" are an initiative led by Keisuke Kitagawa, a professor at the School of Social Engineering at the Nagoya Institute of Technology. He hopes to have 120 of the houses installed by early next month for people still living in evacuation centers or sleeping in their cars following the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck on July 28.