MEMO-052211-A
Rescue Japan, Tokyo
Recent Rescue Japan Activities
Hello everyone:
Thank you for your continued support for the Rescue Japan initiative.
I wanted to post the info from our trip a few weeks back. And update you all on what’s been happening in recent events.
Today (Sunday May 22nd) we delivered food to a Youth Hostile in Iidabashi where 30 Earthquake victims are living currently.
We donated 2 refrigerators for the hostile to keep just the food for the victims. Also are delivering fresh vegetables every other day to them because half of them are elderly.
Please note that your donations and the help of some other non-profit organizations made it possible for us to literally go to COSTCO and load up on exactly what these evacuees needed and we delivered. With your donations it is impossible to this.
Youth Hostiles generally charge for food and services. But they agreed to store the food we donated to the victims and distribute it to everyone evenly while they stayed there. They are in the building just above the TOZAI Line at the Iidabashi train station in Iidabashi. We will deliver a pair of new shoes to everyone there soon. Keep in mind these people lost everything.
::Fukushima::
Last week we sent supplies to Fukushima where victims were waiting for supplies and had not gotten any from other sources which was surprising because here it is 10 weeks in and still not everyone is receiving adequate AID.
Note the information we are collecting direct from Earthquake victims are pretty much the same across the board: At this point the Government is re-assessing who is staying in evacuation shelters and who is being sent either to temporary housing or back to their own homes if they were not badly damaged, (no matter if their homes have water, or power).
::Ishinomaki::
The woman we spoke to in Ishinomaki just 3 days ago sounded scared. She said all her neighbors were sent back to their homes. And no one to this day has received money or Aid from anyone out side of the Evacuation Shelter. Without jobs they have no idea where the next meal is coming from. They are pretty much on their own.
In light of this Rescue Japan and another NPO are getting together to prep 3 trucks of supplies to be sent next weekend, we leave Friday.
The women we spoke to is going to help organize support locations for neighbors to come and pick up supplies as they need them. This is a long term Aid program we are preparing. Until that area is stabilized there is really no other way for them to get food and water and other essential supplies because there are no stores in their immediate area. And they still get massive earthquakes, and in some areas the flooding is still occurring. She said it’s very difficult to drive through that area which is why she thinks there are no Aid trucks coming through. Many of the local Government buildings have been completely destroyed.
::May 6 thru May 8 (Golden Week)
05/06/2011 – May 6th at approximately 11am, a group of people and myself took a journey into northeast Japan for 2 purposes. 1 was to deliver Aid to a base-camp in Minamisanriku the other was to continue north to tour the devastated area if Iwate in cities along the coastal region. The following is what we experienced.
We arrive at the base-camp at approximately 8pm. This is located at the Kanyo Hotel in Minamisanriku where about 150 earth quake victims were staying. The government is paying the Kanyo hotel about 5200 yen per day for each victim staying there. Each day the situation changes of course because some people move out into temporary government housing and new victims move in from other areas. Some victims have come from far north and others used to live right in the same area.
The first 2 floors of the Kanyo hotel were destroyed from the flood so we could not go to those levels. The lobby is on the 5th floor. Since the hotel sits on a hill, the lower levels are facing the sea and the higher levels are accessible from the ground at the entrance and then elevator or stairs.
Every morning a water truck comes to connect to the water works in the building to allow for showers because the drain system in the hotel is still not yet completely repaired. Water is not considered drinkable or can used for cleaning at this point.
OGA for Aid is the local NPO providing Aid for area residents who did not move into the hotel. They have a small warehouse where they are storing Aid that is sent to them to re-distribute to area residents when needed. There are no stores within 20 miles of this place. The one thing that OGA shared with me was they are having a hard time distributing Aid to the residents because they do not own a truck. So the distribution process relies on borrowing other vehicles and that slows down the distribution of Aid collected.
The Kanyo hotel is located:
We are preparing large shipments of Aid to assist the hotel in future long term support for the man victims who are assigned to this location.
05/07/2011 – Saturday morning about 9am, the crew and I headed out to drive north toward Kesennuma.
On our way to Kesennuma we past a few side roads and houses still standing from the flood. We stopped at one of them because of we saw many people walking away from this particular house with boxes in their hands. The owner explained that she was helping local neighbors get daily necessities and people often stopped by. She pointed us to a distribution center in the area where they were getting Aid from to re-distribute to their neighbors. She started crying as she told us what happened and realized that were also offering our help to provide aid to her and her neighbors. Her house was on Route 65 as we were detoured because of the road closings in that area.
11:10 – We past a small town going in where we say Yoshinoya offering free lunch to long lines of residents from the area. Some of the people standing in line spoke to us and explained since they do not have jobs, it is hard to keep the same pace of buying food and paying regular bills even if their homes were still standing from the earthquakes and floods. The area has been effected by the crisis to the extent where some companies no longer exists. This has a direct impact on the residents directly.
11:27am – When we arrived, we were shocked to see the amount of wreckage downtown Kesennuma. Boats that had been washed to the shore onto the side-walks were still sitting there. More roads that closed kept us moving literally in circles to find a route in and out of Kesennuma.
12:15 – We made 2 stops in Kesennuma. The first one was at a city municipal building who were doing road and re-construction planning. They gave us contact information of who to send Aid to when we were ready. The 2nd stop was at a Government Evacuation Center where they were receiving Aid. The director gave us his contact information for receiving various items. His location was also supporting several other Evac Shelters in the area and would be considered the hub for this operation. He indicated they were in need of priority items but could use some other items.
Both places we visited in Kesennuma were very receptive of receiving Aid from private sources which was surprising given the information we had been hearing that Government facilities don’t receive private Aid.
13:30 – After continuing along 65 until it merged again with 45, we arrived at Rikuzentakata, a coastal city that had been on the news because of how much damage it took during the Tsunami. Literally every building in the coastal region of that city was gone. The town was literally wiped out. The only thing left were the cement-base where the buildings used to be.
Most of the people who survived Rikuzentakata were relocated. That entire area was designated disaster area and there is very little chance of people moving back. The only thing we saw construction crews doing there was cleaning up. Not much construction going on. Perhaps the areas on hire ground is where they may relocate people to new housing, we were not clear on this and we had very little contact with people in that area.
15:51 – We arrived in Ofunato. This is a distinctive visit and we remember it well because the first thing we saw when we got there was 2 transport trucks sitting on the edge of a 3 story building. Even though construction crews were working on the ground around this structure, no one seemed to be concerned about moving these trucks. This area was near the sea and also near railroad tracks which seem to have survived the flooding because of the higher ground.
On our way to the support center, we past a clock that had stopped running do to the power being cut during the flooding. It read 3:20pm, which was about the time the major earthquakes happened all over the eastern seaboard of Japan on March 11th.
We arrived at the Evacuation Support center where we met with Mr. Kazushi who explained the basic needs for the victims they were looking after (about 2300 people in total). 1000 of them are children. Again he did not mention priority emergency items, mostly clothing needs. Also women hygiene products were in big demand.
He did explain thoroughly what their situation was and the policy of the receiving goods. He also explained they did not have Internet at that time and they were all using Cell Phones because landlines had not been restored. He seemed to paint a really grim picture as far as the future of these people and how long it would take to get things back to normal.
17:30 – We arrived at Kamaishi. We pulled over in Heita because of the damage and documented everything we saw. It was a mess. What was left of local government seem to be putting all the damaged cars they found in the lot of the previous police station which had been completely destroyed. There were thousands of cars; as far as you could see.
The homes had huge indicators of the presence of people being there when the water came. Keys, dolls, brief cases, cars still in the drive way turned over or stuck in the wall in the side of the house… these were common images.
After documenting with photos, we continued into downtown Kamaishi. It was completely destroyed. The buildings were still there with damage and debris in and around them. They will be torn down eventually. Nothing can be salvaged there. City offices that were still operating had closed by the tine we arrived, so we could not speak to anyone, but have made contact since.
Our encounters with residents who were gathering supplies to help their neighbors were inspiring. We have sent items to these types of grass-roots support locations and continue to support them based on requests.
Please Note on our way back from the north we kept taking Radiation Readings. As we past through Fukushima on highway 4, the radiation readings were normal. But the closer we got to Tokyo the radiation contamination readings went up on the Geiger counter. It makes no sense. But it happened. Tokyo is still within safe readings. But for measurements to go up higher in Tokyo than up near Fukushima and other coastal cities, was baffling. The equipment works fine.
Our next trip is scheduled for the first week of June to continue the tour into the northern cities of eastern Japan. That could be delayed due to the recent discovery of the growing situation in Ishinomaki. We will keep you posted.
contact@rescuejapan.asia