Cambodia experience facilitated aid effort in the Tohoku region

Cathy Hirano, director of the Second Hand charity organization, poses with workers at a shop run by the group in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture. COURTESY OF SECOND HAND

Veterans at Second Hand charity had the knowhow to collect funds and goods, and to get them where they were needed

Saturday, March 10, 2012

By SKYE HOHMANN

Special to The Japan Times

Cathy Hirano says it was "so painful to feel powerless in the face of such a huge disaster," recalling the day a year ago that the Pacific coast of Tohoku was hit by the huge earthquake and tsunami.

The feeling of helplessness is something that will likely linger among many others throughout the country, but Hirano, a ginger-haired long-term resident of Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, and director of the charity Second Hand, was less powerless to help than many at that moment.

"It makes a huge difference to be able to do something," Hirano says. "I think what was really moving for me were these small acts — people coming to us at Second Hand, bringing things to send to the disaster area. You could see they were just longing to do something, you could see they thought 'Thank God, there's someone giving me a chance to help,' because it was so painful."

Second Hand, at the time, was in a unique position. Long-term work in Cambodia and a charity shop-based fundraising approach had given the organization both the knowhow to collect funds and necessities for the disaster areas, and the networks needed to get supplies to people most likely to need them.

Magnitude 6.8 quake jolts Japan off Fukushima, tsunami advisory

Fri Aug 19, 2011

TOKYO (Reuters) - A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 jolted northeastern Japan off Fukushima prefecture on Friday and a 50 cm tsunami advisory was issued for the coast of Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The tsunami advisory was issued for the coastal areas that suffered severe damage from a massive quake and tsunami in March.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said no abnormalities had been found at radiation monitoring posts at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and that cooling operations at the damaged reactors were continuing.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

Japanese Tsunami captured from inside a car

Yu Muroga is a Japanese delivery man. He was on his delivery trip when the 11 March 2011 earthquake took place. Like most people in his area, he did not feel threatened by the Tsunami as he lives rather far away from the shore. Therefore, he was continuing to drive for his work. Not only did the High Def camera attached to his dashboard record the shaking, it also recorded the subsequent events where several drivers were caught in the Tsunami flooding. The camera was recently retrieved by the Japanese police near Yu Muroga’s body in the car.

Tsunami japonais à l'intérieur d'une voiture

Yu Muroga est un livreur japonais. Il faisait sa tournée quand a eu lieu le tremblement de terre le 11 mars 2011. Comme la plus part des gens de son secteur, il ne se sentait pas menacé par le tsumani, vu qu’il se trouvait assez loin de la côte. Il a donc continué à conduire et faire son travail. La caméra HD installée sur son tableau de bord n’a pas seulement capturé les secousses mais aussi les moments qui ont suivi où plusieurs conducteurs se sont retrouvés bloqués par les eaux du tsunami. La caméra n’a été retrouvée que récemment par la police prés du corps du passager de la voiture.

Tsunami japonais à l'intérieur d'une voiture - Koreus

http://www.koreus.com/video/tsunami-japon-interieur-voiture.html

Small tsunami reaches Japan after major quake

Sunday, July 10, 2011
AFP

TOKYO — Small tsunami waves reached the Pacific coast of northern Japan Sunday after a major quake hit the region heavily damaged by the March earthquake and tsunami, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The port towns of Soma and Ofunato saw 10-centimetre (four-inch) tsunami waves triggered by the 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck off the main island of Honshu at 9:57 am (0057 GMT), the agency said.

No damage has been reported from the tsunami and quake, which was strong enough to sway skyscrapers in Tokyo, some 400 kilometres from the epicentre.

Tsunami alert: Warning to stay off NZ beaches

July 7, 2011
AAP

New Zealand Civil Defence has warned people in coastal areas to stay off beaches due to the risk of a tsunami caused by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in the Kermadec Islands region.

The 7.7 magnitude quake struck at a depth of 48km in the Kermadec Islands region, which is 800-1000km north of New Zealand, at 7.03am NZT (5.30 AEST).

The tsunami warning applies to New Zealand, the Kermadec Islands and Tonga and the tsunami caused by the quake is scheduled to reach the East Cape of the North Island and North Cape just before 9am NZT and Auckland at 10am.

Decrease in Japan Aid ‘May Be Inevitable’: Ambassador

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Wednesday, 20 April 2011

“That’s why we have urged the government to fight against corruption and to take care of state revenue, to save our resources for development.”

Japan’s ambassador to Cambodia warned on Wednesday that aid to Cambodia in the future will likely decrease as a result of the 2010 tsunami.

Japan has had to revise its fiscal budget in the wake of the calamity, Ambassador Masafumi Kuroki told VOA Khmer at the side of a donor meeting in Phnom Penh Wednesday.

“It may be inevitable,” he said.

Japan generally provides more than $100 million each year to Cambodia on a range of projects, but the country is still grappling with the enormity of the March earthquake and tsunami, which killed 25,000 people and displaced nearly half a million more.

Japan-supported Cambodian villagers give back with disaster aid donation

Cotton threads produced by Cambodian villagers supported by Japanese NPO Nature Saves Cambodia are seen in this recent photo. (Mainichi)

April 19, 2011
Mainichi Japan

Large amounts of financial and material aid have poured into Japan since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami ripped into the country's northeast, and while amidst such a huge volume a mere 80,000 yen may tend to go unnoticed, the donation from poor villagers in Cambodia, who have been helped by Japanese aid in the past, is worthy of special mention.

"The amount may be small, but for the poor people who gave it, this is a great deal of money," Japanese non-profit organization Nature Saves Cambodia -- which is helping the villagers build a small-scale cotton industry -- told the Mainichi. "We were deeply moved that these people in such difficult circumstances would think of Japan in its time of crisis. We want to communicate their feelings to the disaster area."

The money was collected from villagers in Cambodia's mine-ridden northwest and the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Many of these villagers, now raising organic cotton and making it into finished products like stoles, have lost a limb to the mines that dot the countryside -- a grim remnant of the country's long and bloody civil war. Nature Saves Cambodia began its support program for the impoverished villagers in 2009, helping them build a steady income through cotton products.

The 80,000 yen was collected over the course of about a month from the 30-some artisans and dyers working in the small cotton industry. The sum is about 10,000 yen more than the average annual income for a family in this poor district.

Politiktoons No. 159: Sumo

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://politiktoons.blogspot.com and also at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Scared and alone, Japanese farmer waited weeks for help

Kunio Shiga, a farmer in Minami Soma, on Friday greets the first people he has seen since the tsunami. (Hiro Komae / AP)

Reporters were first to reach 75-year-old; wife vanished in tsunami

4/8/2011
By ERIC TALMADGE
The Associated Press

MINAMI SOMA, Japan — The farmhouse sits at the end of a mud-caked, one-lane road strewn with toppled trees, the decaying carcasses of dead pigs and large debris deposited by the March 11 tsunami.

Stranded alone inside the unheated, dark home is 75-year-old Kunio Shiga. He cannot walk very far and doesn't know what happened to his wife.

His neighbors have all left because the area is 12 miles from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant — just within the zone where authorities have told everyone to get out because of concerns about leaking radiation.

No rescuer ever came for him.

Radioactive cloud [from Japan] to disperse over Southeast Asia

31/03/2011
VOVNews/VNA

The Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology said on March 31 that a radioactive cloud from the quake-damaged Fukushima reactor explosions in Japan is forecast to disperse over Southeast Asian region.

The ministry said that the main part of the cloud is forecast to be divided into small parts, dispersed and fly sparsely over the Philippines, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

In the next few days, small clouds are forecast to arrive in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. However, as the radioactive trace level is small it is difficult to discover their impacts on the radioactive background in Vietnam.

The ministry, citing discoveries from observation stations of the Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology and the Da Lat Nuclear Institute, affirmed that radioactive iodine-131 trace level found in Vietnam’s air is low and does not pose a threat to the environment and human health.

Letter from Sendai, Japan

Dear KI-Media Readers,

Please find below a letter written by a French woman teaching in Sendai, Japan, recounting her daily life after the magnitude 9 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. A rough translation in English is also provided at the end of the French letter.

Thank you,

KI-Media team

--------------

Une femme qui enseigne à Sendai depuis quelques années a écrit cette lettre à sa famille. Le Japon : une culture très différente qui répond au catastrophe par......la compassion :

"Salutations à ma très chère Famille et à mes Amis,

Premièrement, je voudrais vous remercier pour vos bonnes pensées à mon égard. Je suis vraiment très touchée. Je voudrais également m'excuser de vous adresser un message collectif. Mais il semble être la meilleure moyenne de vous envoyer mes nouvelles.

Les évenements ici à Sendai ont été plutôt surréels. Mais je me sens bénie d'avoir des amis merveilleux ici qui m'aident énormement. Depuis que ma hutte mérite encore plus son nom, je suis hébergée chez une amie. Nous partageons nos vives comme l'eau, la nourriture et un chauffage d'appoint au kérosène. La nuit nous dormions alignés dans une pièce, nous mangeons à la lumière des bougies, nous nous racontons des histoires. C'est chaleureux, amical et beau.

Pendant la journée nous nous aidons les uns les autres à nettoyer ce qui reste de nos maisons. Les uns sont dans leurs voitures, regardant les informations sur l'écran de navigation, les autres font le queue pour avoir de l'eau potable lorsqu'une source devient disponible. Si quelqu'un a de l'eau courant dans sa maison, il le signale à ses voisins par un affiche ; ainsi ceux qui le désirent peuvent venir remplir leurs sceaux et leur bidons.

In Japan, sifting through the rubble

Kamihachi, Japan -- Meguni Sasaki, right, and her husband Satoru Sasaki, both 36, return to their neighborhood to collect what few possessions they can find after the devastating earthquake and tsunami. One of the items was a couch. "This used to be in our living room," said Meguni Sasaki. "It was so expensive." Satoru located the second floor of their home about a quarter of a mile away from its original location, where they also found a couch and a few possessions. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Kamihachi, Japan -- Meguni Sasaki, left, talks to her cousin, Kouno Takayaki, right, whom she hadn't seen since the tsunami hit two weeks ago. She shows him some of the few items she has been able to recover from the family home after the tsunami swept it away. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Kamihachi, Japan -- "There is nothing left," says Meguni Sasaki, as she scans the ground looking for remnants of her home, swept away by the tsunami. Sasaki and her husband Satoru Sasaki were not at home when the tsunami struck; their two daughters escaped with grandparents to a nearby mountain temple. The roof of another temple landed near their property, moved there by the giant wave.

KamihachiI, Japan -- A photograph of daughter Yua Sasaki, 9, on a school field trip, and a bowl are some of the few possession Meguni Sasaki and her husband Satoru Sasaki were able to find after the tsunami destroyed their home and neighborhood. Satoru says photographs of his two daughters are all he is hoping to find. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

One family searches through the remains of their seaside home, hunting with calm resolve for any surviving possessions. It's an experience shared by countless others.

March 27, 2011

By John M. Glionna

Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Kamihachi, Japan— Megumi Sasaki was looking for the white bicycle helmet.

Working patiently, a flock of seabirds nagging incessantly overhead, the 36-year-old mother of two sifted through the rubble of the only home she had ever known, taken from her by the devastating wave that swallowed this seaside community on March 11.

She had bought the helmet for her daughter Sara's seventh birthday. But she had hidden it in a family car swept away by the tsunami that rolled across northeast Japan on the heels of a killer magnitude 9 quake.

Both the helmet and the car were missing, like so many other possessions.

Only a few weeks ago, her quaint two-story home was a repository of precious moments, Sasaki's personal refuge from any storm, the place that housed four generations of her family: her and her grandparents, parents, husband and their two young daughters.

Prayer for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan

Ayumi Matsuura from the International Volunteers of Yamagata (IVY) in Cambodia prays for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, at a pagoda in Phnom Penh March 27, 2011.(Photo: Pring Samrang, Reuters)

Burmese quake toll 'over 150'

 

JOURNALIST TELLS OF CHAOTIC RELIEF SCENE

27/03/2011
Mongkol Bangprapa & Kultida Ssmabuddhi
Bangkok Post

The death toll from the earthquake in Burma is much greater than feared with more than 150 people killed in the disaster, eyewitness reports suggest.

Puenkham Payakwong, a Tachilek native who works as a reporter for the Shan Herald News Agency, told the Bangkok Post that more than 150 people were killed, double the official toll of 75.

He also described a chaotic scene where relief efforts were failing to reach people, some of whom were running short of rice and water.

"The casualties are much higher than the official figure," he said.

Burma quake death toll tops 60

25/03/2011
AFP

More than 60 people were killed and 90 injured when a strong earthquake struck Burma near its border with Thailand, an official said Friday, as some affected areas remained cut off.

More than 60 people were killed and 90 injured after a strong earthquake struck Myanmar near its border with Thailand, an official said Friday, as some affected areas remained cut off.

The earthquake on Thursday, which the US Geological Survey (USGS) measured at magnitude 6.8, was felt as far away as Bangkok, almost 800 kilometres (500 miles) from the epicentre, Hanoi and parts of China.

A Burma official said dozens of people were killed in areas close to the epicentre and more than 240 buildings had collapsed.

6.8-magnitude earthquake on Thai-Burmese border kills more than 40

Friday, March 25, 2011
Aye Aye Win
The Associated Press

YANGON, MYANMAR—A strong earthquake that toppled homes in northeastern Burma has killed more than 40 people, and there were fears Friday the toll would mount as conditions in more remote areas became known.

The Thursday night quake, measured at a magnitude 6.8 by the U.S. Geological Survey, was centred just north of the town Tachileik in the mountains along the Thai border, but was felt hundreds of kilometres away in the Thai capital Bangkok and Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

Burma state radio announced Friday that 41 people had been killed and 48 injured in the quake. It said 244 houses, 14 Buddhist monasteries and nine government buildings were damaged.

An official from the U.N.'s World Food Program said there were many casualties and serious damage in Mong Lin village, eight kilometres from Tachileik. State radio said 29 were killed there and 16 injured.

Cambodian Students Recount Japan Earthquake

Police officers carry a body during a search and rescue operation in the earthquake and tsunami-devastated city of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, northeastern Japan, March 23, 2011. (Photo: AP)

Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Wednesday, 23 March 2011

"I tried every means to get through to her, but there was no answer.”

Tea Seang Houng had just been shopping for dinner with a friend in a mall in Sendai city, Miyagi prefecture, when the earthquake began.

“When we were out of the shopping mall and got to the car park, our car was shaking, along with others. It was a tremendous shake,” Tea Seang Houng, a linguistic student, said Monday, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”

“My friend told me it was an earthquake, but I thought she was just joking,” she said. “Only when it kept shaking did I start to realize it was definitely a strong earthquake.”

It was Tea Seang Houng’s first experience with such a powerful earthquake, which was later measured up to 9.0 on the Richter scale and set off a massive tsunami. So far, the March 11 disaster has killed more than 9,000 people.

CRCI Condolences to the family of the victims in Japan

Sinatoons - Speechless

Tsunami Codolences Letter from COMFREL

Click on the letter to zoom in