May 27, 2011

Appreciation

Every day, the newspaper reports the number of dead people, missing people and refugees. Just recently, the number of missing people exceeded the one of dead people. As you know, this earthquake happened with big tsunami. Many people were rushed in a matter of seconds.


15,217 were killed. 8666 people are missing and there're 103,021 are living in shelters.


3 months has passed since 3.11, the earthquake and tsunami. I live in Tohoku regions where the tragedy happened. My city faces the sea but tsunami hit cities on opposite side.


I want to write down what happened and how I felt theoretically...but, my English is not enough to do that within short time now. So, I'll jot down what happened randomly.


At first, we suffered from blackout. Because of blackout, the water pump didn't work at home. Traffic signals didn't work so policemen worked at big intersections even though it's raining heavily. In some city, because trafffic signals tuned off, cars crashed and people were killed. TV didn't work. The only information we can get is radio. Many people have cellphone which has TV or radio but this didn't work at last after the battery went dead. Without electricity, we couldn't do anything.


Plants tsunami hit were forced to stop working and not only disaster area but also entire Japan suffered from the lack of things and foods. Around noon, I went to buy lunch at convenience stores but there's nothing. After 5, many stores were closed because they didn't have enough stocks to sell.


These day, there's almost no aftershock we feel but it happned almost every day during one month since that day. It's like it's always somehow shaking.


From our hospital, the rescue team help people in devasted area. I believe they did good job. Our male coworkers and bosses went there as a staff for logistics. Our hospital didn't send female staffs like me so we worked regular jobs male staff left. After the rescue team retured to the hospital, we welcomed in the entrance and we cleaned their clothes and boots. The team member looked tired but also satisfied with their efforts. We, female staffs, are proud of them but we somehow feel frustrated with this situation. That is, we can't do anything directly for the refugees.


This feeling has covered entire Japan. Most people just watched TV and we felt sorry. We wanted to do something but we couldn't do anything except donation. Donation helps refugees right now? What do they need now? Many people cried for the loss of their families. Houses are gone to somewhere. What can we do now? It seems many festivals or cerebrations such as wedding were postponed everywhere in Japan.People didn't feel like going out. This emergency forced all people stay calm at home.


Personally, I sometimes worked on weekend and as of April, my duties have changed. A coworker is mentally down and taking off from office. We worked so much hard and came back to home in the midnight. One day, I burnout. Suddenly, I started to cry and couldn't stop crying. I'm getting better but I'm not so ok actually.


Well, while I was apart from my blog, many people gave me cheeriings. Roopali, irfan Muhanmad younnus, Alpha Bug, Anrield, Longstride, Todd Bedo, Singing pilgrim, Joy, Briand and....you who are reading this post right now, I really appreciate for your support. Your countries sent rescue teams and foods for us.


I heard medias overseas reported politeness of Japanese there. Even though it's hard time, refugees didn't rush to the food. They waited in the line. For us, it's usual but some of medias reported with this situation. On the other hand, because we looked calm, some feel the damage was not so big. It's not true. This is the biggest disaster since the WW2. Still over 100,000 people live shlters such as sym in school.


I wish you keep attention to our country. I strongly believe we'll get their normal life back but we can't do without your support.

3 comments:

hapi said...
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anurag sharma said...
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Anrield said...

I believe we were more amazed at hoe calm you were because if it was in Puerto Rico or in the United States, I bet people would push others around and wouldn't care about others while the people in Japan cared about everyone and helped none stop.

I remember once here in Puerto Rico that an Hurricane (Typhoon) was coming here and people were pushing even older people to the side to just grab some water and food, it was such a horrible experience that I had that day at the store that I ended up hitting those who were pushing the old people and giving the stuff back to them even if I wasn't able to get much for myself.