Monday, May 02, 2011

LETTER FROM TOKYO














The Western media have lost interest. No more dramatic pictures are coming out Fukushima so screw it. Why bother? Better to concentrate on the unseemly dancing in the streets after the death of Osama Bin Laden. Fortunately we have our very good friend Yukiko writes to keep it fully in our minds…

“There's not much left for me to write about what's going on at Fukushima. The human race simply hasn't reached the stage of evolution in which they can control atomic power. Soon, the highly contaminated water will overflow one of those "trenches" and go into the sea (at one of them, it's about 3 feet up to the edge). And just yesterday, they detected some radioactive substances in breast milk. I feel humbled for the people who've been working so hard at the disaster site. The Japanese absolutely have a very special notion regarding bodies of the dead. Do you know that the Japanese government still sends a ship to Iwo Jima every year to pick up bones of the soldiers? So, you can imagine with how much care and attention they are clearing the debris given more than 15,000 people are still missing. Also, it's amazing even to me that they are actually trying to "recycle" the debris by dividing the rubbles. A few days ago, the bullet train operation was reinstated throughout the extensive disaster site, connecting the area with the rest of Japan, which is admirable if we imagine how much reconstruction work and safety check was necessary. Since the new school year begins in April in Japan, most of the schools reopened last month, which required substantial restructuring of the system to utilize the school buildings that were left relatively intact. The seismologists say the seismic map under Japan have completely changed by the 3.11 earthquake, which means their accumulated knowledge is almost no use to predict what will happen next. Given the frequent aftershocks we've had all around Japan (in fact I had one while I was writing this), there is a good chance that Tokyo will also hit by a major quake before long.”

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The secret word is Invisible

Henry Cooper – RIP
Andy Dunkley – RIP

1 comment:

Aleleeinn said...

How many other disasters have suffered the fate of dropping from fashion. There are royal wedding and dead terrorists to fill the headlines.
But not all are so fickle. I was friends and volunteered with an old (met him when he was 90) preacher who was know around here for kicking it up a notch once the cameras had gone. He made many a trip to Bosnia to help the people--not build competing churches.
He ran a charity called Bread--aptly named for feeding the hungry.
The real humans work long after the media event.