On 11 March 2011, the catastrophic disaster took thousands of lives away in north-eastern Japan. It leaves hundreds of thousands of people homeless. And over 5000 still remain unaccounted for. This horrible event and its after-effects are now tearing the country apart. But we don't let them!!
On 11 March 2011, the catastrophic disaster took thousands of lives away in northeastern Japan. It leaves hundreds of thousands of people homeless. And over 5000 still remain unaccounted for.
I visited a few of the devastated areas two months after the horrible event. Although public and media coverage-focus had gradually shifted more on the nuclear crisis, I expected to see a really bad situation. Because my neighborhood, which is almost 500 km away from the center of the quake, was liquefied badly as the result of the city council’s survey that showed my house as a totally destroyed property. What I saw was, however, way worse than expected.
The sea, which should normally give us a beautiful view, feared me. A school building that was totally emptied by the tsunami… A clock that stopped working when the tsunami hit… A coastal town, which used to attract many tourists, had no one but heaps of rubble… A hard working volunteer wore a helmet with a protest sticker against TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company). Looking at it made me think a lot, really a lot… Whatever I got to see… It was very hard for me to focus.
This horrible event and its after-effects are now tearing the country apart. But we don't let them!! We all have to face it and make the country come back!!