It seems now the media attention on Japans earthquake issues has fallen, the locals based not wanting to sell newspapers can get the real word out without media spin. It has been over a month now since the earthquake which effected many parts of Japan. Although based in Fukushima myself, due to lack of work, and the minor nuclear threat I was moved down to the Chiba prefecture next to Tokyo.
The Chiba area around Tokyo bay is all built on reclaimed land so was moved quite a bit during the earthquake which knocked the earth 4 degrees off it’s axis. Sand and water has come through cracks, but that isn’t stopping everyone rebuilding it as before.
Here is an image I took just outside a train station I got off at on the Sobu line – I can’t remember the exact stop as I was just looking for something to do so got off at the busiest looking station):
Fixing the problem quickly
You can see the cracks in the ground, mostly where electrical lines connect up the street lights. But also note the white bags everywhere. This is sand and other material in to fix the area. This was taken just 2 weeks after the earthquake. You can see people are mostly getting on with their lifes as much as normal. There was even a Japanese TV crew here filming the efforts to fix the damage (something no-one seems to have seen anywhere else in the world).
I walked around the area a bit further and found a pavement which had quite a bit of damage all along it. What was more surprising was around 100 people working to fix it. Not just government or charity workers, but children, civilians and foreigners too. All with shovels moving the bad stuff and preparing for the repairs.
I took a video of this walking past, unfortunately it is mostly of me filming the sky (d’oh) as I didn’t want to disturb there work or seem to be blatantly filming them working hard. But you can get the idea of the manpower involved of the locals putting in an effort and getting things fixed. I think this video says a lot more than I can in words about it:
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Thanks for the post is really serves as a reminder that just because there isnt as much new coverage doesnt mean that there is a lot of work to be done. The one good thing though is that people are able to move on with their lives and get things back together without all the press.
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Yeah, there is still plenty of news here, mostly with dealing with the damage and the budget required. I think the Japanese government are assigning a lot more than all the worlds donations together from the looks of it, but donations haven’t been counted as far as I know.
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I think its a lot left to be done and hopefully everything that needs to be done gets taken care of. Just because the new coverage stops doesn’t mean there isnt anymore news.
True, there is still plenty of news here in Japan, it’s just all to do with recovery now that’s all.