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Audio interview with Gary Irwin:
"Kumamoto resident Gary Irwin says many people, including himself, have been too scared to return home after Saturday's earthquake."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36061707
Japan earthquake: People sleep in cars for safety - BBC News
Kumamoto resident Gary Irwin says many people, including himself, have been too scared to return home after Saturday's earthquake.
Here's a link to an article with really striking video of the area where the Aso Ohashi used to be:
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201604160029.htm
Large road bridge collapses as new quake hits Kumamoto：The Asahi Shimbun
MINAMI-ASO, Kumamoto Prefecture--A 200-meter-long road bridge spanning a deep gorge here collapsed A
The video of a bridge that collapsed in Minami Aso is very striking. Please take a look.
-- Kirk
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36065334
Japan earthquake: Thousands spend night in cold and wet - BBC News
Heavy rain and cold temperatures mean a difficult night for tens of thousands of people forced into temporary shelters following two powerful quakes in south-west Japan.
This is a personal request from editor Sara Brown:
I saw a facebook post yesterday that a friend had shared and it showed foreigners living in (i think) Fukuoka who gathered goods age delivered them to an evacuation site here in Kumamoto. I forgot which friend posted it and i cant find it.
Im asking for anyone who has information about non-Japanese delivering goods or making donations for Kumamoto.
The REASON I'm asking is because I have seen at least 5 reshares of tweets and facebook posts in the past two days (each with numerous likes, retweets, and reshares) about foreigners in the disaster-struck areas being written up as suspicious and asking people to look their doors and be cautious of thieves. I can't say for sure there aren't foreigners doing that kind of thing and I know that there are also similar posts where the nationality isn't specified (meaning by default they will be considered japanese), but I was just shown a reshare of a facebook post by a woman in Shiranui who said that she saw what she estimated to be 8 foreigners (though she only saw the face of one) in 2 vans with fukuoka rental plates and that when one of the men smiled at her, she glared at him. Her reasoning was that PERHAPS he was volunteering, but why would foreigners come all the way to kumamoto and why were they stopped in Shiranui. She said that she had heard of suspicious foreigners in Mashiki and aso and such and that everyone should remember to lock their doors and keep vigilant.
It makes me want to cry.
So I'm asking that anyone who has information about foreigners helping out - especially if there are pictures attached - to PLEASE contact me. I want to make a post in Japanese asking people to share THAT information instead of unfounded and potentially harmful claims.
I was interviewed for a broadcast by Radio France International in Paris. I don't understand French but those of you do may enjoy this:
http://www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~masden/2016/journal_international_13h00_-_13h10_gmt_20160417.mp3
The original file was found at the following address but Radio France took it down so I placed it on my own site:
http://telechargement.rfi.fr/rfi/francais/audio/journaux/r001/journal_international_13h00_-_13h10_gmt_20160417.mp3
-- Kirk
gmt 20160417
On Friday, I offered to ride my bike to the Mashiki Town Hall (Machi Yakuba) to get some water and other supplies for the family who had been living in this house. At the time, the house was still standing. After I delivered the water, I learned that they were planning to spend the night in front of their house. In the first picture, you can see the remains of a fire they sat around. When the second, magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck, they were still camped out in front of the house. Fortunately, no one was killed but one family member had to be taken to the hospital and get several stitches for a gash in her forehead that she got when the house they were sleeping by collapsed. There were three generations in the family I met and the patriarch (ojiisan) said that he had wanted to sleep inside but the younger family members convinced him to stay outside with them -- a decision that saved his life.
These are some of the photos of the Mashiki area I took today. The damage was far greater than what I had seen on Friday, before the second quake.
As I walked around the neighborhoods, I asked the people I met if there was anything I could do to help. In most cases, they thanked me for offering but said there was nothing I could do. In one case, however, I was able to help a gentleman, a man who seemed to be somewhat older than I am (I'm in my late 50s) move some heavy boxes of salvaged items into a car. The gentlemen told me about a neighbor who was unaccounted for and whose house had been demolished by one of the quakes. Because he was unaccounted for, a huge rescue effort was mounted to attempt to get the man out of the house. My interlocutor said that a group of about 50 people, including media, gathered at the scene for a number of hours while rescuers probed the rubble. Finally, it was learned that the man had left the area without telling anyone but was safe in a relative's home.
In a way, it's a happy ending but the sad part is that the efforts of the personnel involved in the rescue effort were wasted. If they had not been distracted, perhaps they might have found and saved someone else. The moral of the story is "In an emergency situation, make sure people know where you are going before you leave."
In regard to the photos, there was no end to the devastation in Mashiki. The photos are samples of what the earthquakes did, but I might have taken hundreds more such photos if I had had the time to visit other neighborhoods nearby.
Kirk Masden
Tag: Photography
【UPDATE】
This is only for customers in areas struck by the disaster.
================================
Softbank and Docomo have both announced that they would not be charging their customers in Kumamoto for extra data usage.
Docomo, Softbank, and AU have also said that customers have until the end of May to pay their April bill (for those who pay with a bill sent through the mail only; those who pay through automatic withdrawal will still be billed per usual) . They are offering support (lender phones/reduction in repair fees) for customers whose phones were damage in the earthquakes, so please contact a branch for assistance.
As always, if you need Japanese language support, you have only to ask and it will be provided.
Here are two more shots in my series of comparisons of Friday (after the first quake) and Monday (after the big one).
Kirk Masden
Here's a rather dramatic comparison between Friday and Monday in Mashiki. After the second quake, the road is in worse shape, a building that had collapsed after the first quake is now almost completely flat, and a building that looked to be in fairly good shape on Friday has now collapsed.
Kirk Masden
Tag: Photography
This is Mr. Yoshikawa, a life-time resident of Mashiki-machi, standing in front of his ruined house. He is both a victim and one of many people volunteering his expertise and labor to help with the recovery effort. Mr. Yoshikawa works in construction and therefore has access to a backhoe and ot
her equipment, which he has been using to clear rubble away so that vehicles can get in.
He confirmed that the double punch of the two quakes has been especially devastating. He also said that he had been quite annoyed by various media personnel who had gotten in the way of his work. He expressed particular disdain for reporters who sat in taxis, which, like all four-wheel vehicles in the area, tend to exacerbate the congestion.
Mr. Yoshikawa was quite nice to me, however. He was kind enough to approach me on a short break in his work and ask me if I spoke Japanese. He then told me about his experiences and graciously showed me his home where he allowed me to take this picture.
We talked a little about volunteering, too. He said that he thought is was too early now -- that most novices would be more likely to get in the way than to help. He said, though, that after about a week, lots of hands would be needed for the vast clean up job.s
Kirk Masden
Tags: Photography, media, volunteering
Here's another comparison between Friday and Monday. The position of the toppled statue is different but more importantly the Monday photo shows new cracks in the pavement and that a wooden structure behind the statues has collapsed.
Kirk Masden
The sunny picture was taken in Mashiki on Friday, April 15. The second picture of the same spot was taken today, Monday, April 18. As you can see, the quake that occurred a little after 1 AM, on the morning of Saturday the 16th, caused the open area where the TV personal were standing to be filled with debris.
The "double punch" of the two quakes caused the buildings that were still standing after the first quake to come down after the second. The people I met told me that the first quake was vertical. They we jolted up in the air. I was told that the movement in the second quake, however, was more horizontal. The multiple quakes and the different kinds of movement produced the change you see.
Kirk Masden
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