Salon.com > Jay Alabaster

Strong aftershock slams weary Japan, kills 2

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:51:00 +0000

A strong aftershock ripped through northeastern Japan, killing two people, knocking out power to vast areas Friday and piling misery on a region still buried under the rubble of last month's devastating tsunami.

The northeastern coast was still reeling from the destruction wrought by a jumbo 9.0-magnitude earthquake on March 11, with tens of thousands of households without power or water. The 7.1 tremor has now thrown even more areas into disarray and sent communities that had made some gains back to square one.

Gasoline that had become more available after weeks of shortages was scarce again, and long lines formed at stations. Stores that had restocked shelves sold out of basics Friday and were forced to ration purchases again.

Still, the latest quake did far less damage, generated no tsunami and largely spared the region's nuclear plants. Some slightly radioactive water spilled at one plant, but the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi complex reported no new problems.

Matsuko Ito, who has been living in a shelter in the small northeastern city of Natori since the tsunami, said there's no getting used to the terror of being awoken by shaking. She said she started screaming when the quake struck around 11:30 p.m.

Hope and loss in Japan’s search for 8,000 missing

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:38:00 +0000

Line after line, a list on the wall of city hall reveals the dead. Some are named. Others are identified only by a short description.

Female. About 50. Peanuts in left chest pocket. Large mole. Seiko watch.

Male. 70-80 years old. Wearing an apron that says "Rentacom."

One set catches the eye of Hideki Kano, a man who appears to be in his 30s.

"I think that's my mom!" he says. He rushes out into the snow, headed for a makeshift morgue.

The list in Natori, and others along Japan's northeast coast, will only get longer.

Five days after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, the official death toll is more than 4,300. More than 8,000 people are still missing, and hundreds of national and international rescue teams are looking for them.

In the industrial town of Kamaishi, 70 British firefighters in bright orange uniforms clamber over piles of upturned cars to search a narrow row of pulverized homes. They wear personal radiation detectors amid fears of leaks from damaged nuclear plants far to the south.

One woman's body is found wedged beneath a refrigerator in a two-story home pushed onto its side.

"Today and tomorrow there is still hope that we will find survivors," says Pete Stevenson, head of the British rescue crews. "We'll just keep on carrying out the searches."

Tide of 1,000 bodies overwhelms quake-hit Japan

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 11:33:00 +0000

A tide of bodies washed up along Japan's coastline, crematoriums were overwhelmed and rescue workers ran out of body bags as the nation faced the grim reality of its mounting humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis Monday after a calamitous tsunami.

Millions of people were facing a fourth night without water, food or heating in near-freezing temperatures in the devastated northeast. Meanwhile, a third reactor at a nuclear power plant lost its cooling capacity, raising fears of a meltdown, while the stock market plunged over the likelihood of huge losses by Japanese industries including big names such as Toyota and Honda.

A Japanese police official said 1,000 washed up bodies were found scattered Monday across the coastline of Miyagi prefecture. The official declined to be named, citing department policy.

The discovery raised the official death toll to about 2,800 but the Miyagi police chief has said that more than 10,000 people are estimated to have died in his province alone, which has a population of 2.3 million.

In one town in a neighboring prefecture, the crematorium was unable to handle the crush of bodies being brought in for funerals.

Japan death toll likely over 10,000 after earthquake, tsunami

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 13:57:00 +0000

People across a devastated swath of Japan suffered for a third day Sunday without water, electricity and proper food, as the country grappled with the enormity of a massive earthquake and tsunami that left more than 10,000 people dead in one area alone.

Japan's prime minister called the crisis the most severe challenge the nation has faced since World War II, as the grim situation worsened. Friday's disasters damaged two nuclear reactors, potentially sending one through a partial meltdown and adding radiation contamination to the fears of an unsettled public.

Temperatures began sinking toward freezing, compounding the misery of survivors along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the northeastern coast battered by the tsunami that smashed inland with breathtaking fury. Rescuers pulled bodies from mud-covered jumbles of wrecked houses, shattered tree trunks, twisted cars and tangled power lines while survivors examined the ruined remains.

In Rikusentakata, a port city of over 20,000 virtually wiped out by the tsunami, Etsuko Koyama escaped the water rushing through the third flood of her home but lost her grip on her daughter's hand and has not found her.

Quake brings modern Tokyo to a standstill

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:15:00 +0000

Japan's huge earthquake brought super-modern Tokyo to a standstill Friday, paralyzing trains that normally run like clockwork and stranding hordes of commuters carrying mobile phones rendered largely useless by widespread outages.

The magnitude-8.9 quake off Japan's northeastern coast shook buildings in the capital, left millions of homes across Japan without electricity, shut down the mobile phone network and severely disrupted landline telephone service. It brought Tokyo's train system to a halt, choking a daily commuter flow of more than 10 million people.

"This is the kind of earthquake that hits once every 100 years," said restaurant worker Akira Tanaka, 54.

He gave up waiting for trains to resume and decided -- for his first time ever -- to set off on foot for his home 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of the capital. "I've been walking an hour and 10 minutes, still have about three hours to go," he said.

Tokyo prides itself on being an orderly, technologically savvy, even futuristic city. Residents usually can rely on a huge, criss-crossing network of train and subway lines, but authorities were forced to scan the entire web for quake damage and canceled nearly all train service for the day.

Japan defends dolphin hunt in Oscar-winning ‘Cove’

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:40:00 +0000

The Japanese fishing village featured in "The Cove," which won an Oscar for best documentary, defended its practice of hunting dolphins Monday as a part of a long tradition.

The movie, which mixes stunning underwater shots of gliding dolphins with covertly filmed grisly footage of their slaughter, also claims that dolphin meat is laden with toxic mercury.

Taiji, a quiet fishing village on the rocky coast of southwestern Japan, kills only a small fraction of the dolphins hunted by the country each year. But it has long been a target of environmentalists and animal lovers because it uses a method called "oikomi," in which the dolphins are chased into shore, making the hunt more visible.

Though few residents said they had seen the film, there was universal disgust at its portrayal of the town. Taiji proudly bills itself as "Whale Town" and a main bridge is adorned with dolphin statues, but after years of what locals see as unfair treatment by the foreign press, few are willing to talk on the record. One young dolphin trainer turned and ran away when asked for her opinion.

"This is a close-knit group of fishermen. The more they feel squeezed, the more they will close off to outsiders. They won't stop this hunt because of such pressure," said Hisato Ryono, a local councilman who appears in the film.

Japanese princess bullied at elementary school

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:34:00 +0000

Japan's Princess Aiko, granddaughter of the emperor, has missed several days of classes because of bullying by boys at her elementary school, a spokesman for the royal family said Friday.

The news provided a rare glimpse into the private affairs of the world's oldest hereditary monarchy, which usually abides by strict, formal protocols and is tightlipped about personal matters.

The 8-year-old princess complained of a stomachache and expressed deep anxiety and has not attended school since coming home early Tuesday, the spokesman for the Imperial Household Agency said. He declined to provide his name, citing agency policy.

An investigation by the agency and the school revealed that she and several other students had suffered "violent things" from boys in another class, the spokesman said, declining to elaborate.

The story is likely to shock Japanese. The imperial family is treated with deep reverence in the country, where Aiko's great-grandfather, Emperor Hirohito, was worshipped as a living god until Tokyo's defeat in World War II.

But an official at the elite Gakushuin Primary School in Tokyo's central Shinjuku district attended by Aiko said the incident may have been a simple misunderstanding.