Got an email yesterday from my old friend Chie Matsumoto, a Tokyo-based journalist. She just got back from Northeast Japan where she was doing a story for USA Today. The humanitarian crisis is totally devastating and they need help. I'm posting her email here with her permission.
Hey to all,
I'm back in the area for the second time tonight. I went over to Rikuzentakata, Ishinomaki and Shinjo (Yamagata), with USA Today.
If you have read the stories, I'm a contributor (a small name at the bottom of the story).
I walked through the tsunami aftermath, where the town was basically flattened miles on end. Saw a Shell gas station still standing with trees and cars and trucks thrown under it. Trains and railroad tracks ripped apart. Propane tanks and boats tipped over are stuck in the first floor of a barber shop. A Cherokee jeep turned over, covered with mud still had a dome light on. It was only three days after the tsunami. Gave me the chills every time we felt the aftershocks.
Guys, the area is vast. It's like from Tokyo to Odawara?
The entire area is so destroyed and so mixed up that it is definitely contaminated. I lit my cigarette worrying whether that would set the entire city on flame. People don't seem to want to care about that yet. I know that these things hit much later in life to affect your health.
We went to the town well known for the manga artist, Ishinomaki Shotaro, the author of Masked rider and Cyborg 009. Sato-san, 46, survived after being taken away by tsunami. He saw a boat pass over his head when he was under water. He washed ashore, thank god. But he is not happy because his mother is missing. After he heard the warning siren for tsunami, he got his mother in a car with some important personal stuff and decided to run. His mother had bad legs. He shut the store shutters and put his hand on the door to open the car, when the tsunami took it away from his hand. His mother on the car.
When I talked to him, he looked 60, with mud covering his hair, clothes, face and hands. He has not been washed because there is no water. He was one of the 20 people who evacuated to the second floor of Manga Museum, which was still standing.
The Manga Museum staff, 34, ran upstairs when he saw the tsunami coming. He let all the visitors out after the earthquake and stayed behind to close the museum. He remembers having tsunami in the past, but it was about 2 meters, he said.
He survived, but he never forgets the people standing on top of the houses crying for help and disappearing one after another when the houses crumbled against the bridge....
I'm sure you have heard all these personal stories from the media, but it is heart wrenching no matter how many times you hear it.
They need any kind of help they can get. They are not getting enough food or warmth. The entire devastated area is so dark that I even feel scared. it's so fucking cold when I was there. It snowed, hailed and rained. We don't know how cold it was because the city thermometer was not working without electricity.
There were 106 evacuation places in one small city of Ishinomaki. How many other cities are devastated?
There is no portolets yet. Because of the shortage of gasoline, they have not been getting enough of anything quickly.
They may have some food, but one meal is just one rice ball and some water.
I was with one freelance photographer (middle-aged typical Japanese oyaji), who found a mother holding her baby in arms. They were under the mud. The SDF with the photographer, Tomita-san, asked him if he wanted to take a picture of her. Tomita-san said he just couldn't do it. He said, "I may not be a nice person, but I can't be that cruel."
Most of the time, we have to walk on mud with everything under it, but I sometimes stop to think that I may be walking on some-BODY. We never know. It's that serious.
For the entire coastline to recover, it's going to take years, a decade? It's not like Kobe Earthquake, which struck one city.
We saw Red Cross distributing emergency kits earlier. It seems like they have roles for now. Red Cross with emergency kits, SDF food.
Oxfam seems to be taking care of the refugees who made it to Tokyo from Fukushima. There are thousands there too.
Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated. Kids need special help too if you can think of that too.
Thanks, guys.
With lots of love,
Chie
Also, Doctors Without Borders has sent medical teams to support the government-led earthquake and tsunami response in Japan. At this point, they're drawing on unrestricted donations given to fund their efforts.
Please do what you can, this crisis is just getting started.