The publisher of a noted Japanese literary magazine has begun to publish online English translations of fiction related to the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake by 15 authors.
Waseda Bungakukai, the publisher of literary magazine Waseda Bungaku, allows visitors to its site (http://www.bungaku.net/wasebun/) to download and read the stories for free, but urges them to make a monetary donation to help disaster victims.
The stories, which originally appeared in the latest issue of the annual literary magazine, are intended to convey the current state of affairs regarding the earthquake and tsunami disasters to a worldwide readership, according to Waseda Bungakukai.
The 15 writers, including Akutagawa Award winners Kazushige Abe and Mieko Kawakami, wrote their works after the March 11 disaster and allowed the publisher to use them for free.
Three stories are currently available on the Waseda Bungakukai Web site. More will follow.
The three are "Ride on Time" by Abe, "Poola's Return" by Hideo Furukawa and "Almost Everything in the World" by Shin Fukunaga.
The second major typhoon in a month made its way out of Japan on Thursday after triggering landslides and floods that left at least 16 people dead or missing but sparing a crippled nuclear plant from major damage. There had been concerns that Typhoon Roke could pose more problems for the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which was sent into meltdown by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but officials said the plant weathered the storm without major incident. Hiroki Kawamata, spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., said several cameras set up to monitor the plant were damaged, but there had been no further leaks of radioactive water or material into the environment. Police and local media reported 16 people dead or missing because of the storm, most swept away by rivers swollen with rains in the southern and central regions. One person died in a landslide in northern Iwate prefecture and two people were swept away in Sendai in the northeast. 
Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Toshio Nishizawa said Tuesday the utility is considering cutting corporate pension payments as well as its workforce as it faces ballooning compensation payments over the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The government panel tasked with overseeing Tepco's cost-cutting efforts has pointed out that the utility's personnel costs are high compared with other sectors. After briefing a meeting of the panel, Nishizawa said of a possible cut in pension payments and personnel: "We are considering it and currently discussing the details." 
Asian giants Japan and South Korea cantered to home wins while Australia fired blanks in a dour draw on Wednesday in the final round of qualifying for the 2012 Olympics. Later, Saudi Arabia and Qatar drew 1-1 in Riyadh, Uzbekistan beat Iraq 2-0 in Tashkent, and Syria defeated Bahrain 3-1 in a qualifier played in Jordan. In front of an expectant home crowd in Tosu, Japan beat Malaysia 2-0, with a goal in either half breaking the visitors' doughty defence. Dominating the game throughout, Takashi Sekizuka's side opened the scoring in the tenth minute after midfielder Keigo Higashi latched onto a defence-splitting pass to slot the ball beyond the Malaysian goalkeeper. 
A local election in southern Japan pits a pro-nuclear-energy incumbent against an anti-nuclear-energy candidate in the first big electoral test for how far the country will go in pulling the plug on nuclear power. WSJ's James Simms explains.
Farm's future: A scallop farmer in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, holds young scallops on Sept. 8. The quake-tsunami disaster wiped out most of the farm's fully grown scallops, and it will take three to four years before the young ones are ready for sale. KYODOThe huge tsunami spawned by the March 11 quake destroyed two of his fishing boats and his warehouse in a matter of minutes. The town's fish market was also wrecked and piles of debris remain untouched at the port in the city's Taro district.Fujita has joined with other fishermen to place an order for a new vessel — but doesn't know when it will arrive or even when the port will reopen and he can resume fishing."I feel anxious every day," Fujita said. "What is going to happen in the future?"Iwate's coastal towns are renowned for their fishing businesses, thanks to the Kuroshio Current from the south and the Oyashio and Tsugaru currents from the north that meet off the prefecture.Taro fishermen primarily catch salmon, and harvest kelp, abalone and wakame seaweed. But the March tsunami destroyed about 900 of the city's 960 boats, along with the fish market, as well as most of the wakame processing factories, refueling facilities and cranes.It also wrecked portions of the huge tide embankments — locally dubbed the "Great Walls" — that had been erected to protect the city from tsunami.The March disasters caused an estimated ¥7.5 billion in damage, according to a local fisheries cooperative association, which is trying to rebuild processing facilities, install new cranes and resume wakame cultivation.But local fishermen have no idea when they will receive their new vessels.The central and local governments, together with local fisheries associations, are subsidizing nearly the full cost of purchasing new vessels for fishermen in devastated coastal communities such as Miyako.But this has generated a massive amount of orders for new fishing boats all along the Tohoku region's tsunami-hit coast, and manufacturers are unable to meet the surge in demand, meaning the fishermen have to wait."Those in the fishing business can't do anything until they receive their new boats," said Masahiko Hatakeyama, a 43-year-old official in Taro's local fisheries cooperative association in Miyako.Hatakeyama is worried that less than 100 boats for fishing abalone — compared with the 540 before the tsunami struck — will be built and delivered to the tsunami-wrecked town before November, the peak season for catching abalone.In Otsuchi, about 50 km south along Iwate's coast, only 30 of the town's 650 fishing boats survived the catastrophe, according to the local fisheries cooperative association.All sea farm facilities were also destroyed and there are no plans to rebuild two of the town's four fishing ports in the near future, the association said, adding total damages to its fisheries industry are expected to total billions of yen.The association said it plans to harvest wakame seaweed next spring, but just as in Miyako, a shortage of vessels is preventing the town's fisheries industry from recovering.According to the Iwate Prefectural Government, out of the 111 fishing ports in the prefecture, 108 had their seawalls or moorings destroyed, and a total of 9,672 fishing vessels were destroyed by the tsunami. Nearly all of Iwate's fish markets, fisheries processing facilities and sea farms were also damaged, it said.The total amount of damages to the fisheries industry in Iwate Prefecture was estimated at more than ¥371.5 billion as of Sept. 2.The central government has said that 319 fishing ports in seven prefectures ranging from Hokkaido to Chiba — about 10 percent of the country's 2,914 fishing ports — were damaged in the March disasters.But the coastal towns in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures bore the full impact of the monster waves, and nearly all of their ports were destroyed or severely damaged.In addition, debris from the catastrophe, estimated at tens of millions of tons, is still floating off the coast or washing up at ports, the central government said.Farms that cultivate sea products such as wakame, kelp, oysters and scallops, as well as large fixed fishing nets, were all damaged on March 11, it said.The Iwate Prefectural Government said it is building temporary tide embankments and other port facilities, and has helped eight fish markets to reopen.It also said 17 local fisheries cooperative associations are working to resume operations at sea farm facilities."We will restore (fisheries industry infrastructure) so that local fishermen can resume their fishing operations," said Koen Osawa, a prefectural government official.The central government plans to remove debris floating dangerously in ship lanes and near ports by the end of the current fiscal year, which ends next March, and restore most of the ruined port facilities by the end of fiscal 2013. It also aims to rebuild sea farms and large fixed fishing nets by the end of the fiscal 2012.But the needs of local fishermen are not being fully addressed as central government officials have made few, if any, visits to damaged ports, the Otsuchi fisheries association said.For example, the government is offering subsidies for fishermen to buy new boats, but while port facilities remain damaged they will be unable to process their catches, the association said.Masato Koshita, an official at the association, called on central government officials to visit wrecked ports and inspect the damage firsthand before drawing up measures to revive the local fishing industry.Some fishermen say they have already given up hope of continuing their business.They include a 77-year-old Otsuchi fisherman who lost his job when his employer's vessel was swept away by the tsunami. As his employer has been hospitalized since the disasters, the prospects of restarting his business appear dim.His 75-year-old wife said she often sees people on television encouraging tsunami-hit communities to hang in there, but what they need to survive is money, not kind words.The fish market near her temporary housing unit was completely destroyed in March, and all that remains are mountains of debris and twisted iron bars used to reinforce concrete."As there are no longer any fishing boats, (the local fisheries industry) will not survive," she said. "No one can survive nature's power."
Japan will develop an emergency flash report system to tell people when Pacific coast tsunami will arrive, officials said Wednesday. The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry will seek ¥7 billion initially for the project as part of the fiscal year's third supplementary budget, the officials said. Under the project, cables incorporating tsunami-measuring equipment will be laid on the seabed stretching from an area off Tokachi, Hokkaido, to Chiba Prefecture in the Boso Peninsula, surrounding the Japan Trench, which is vulnerable to major quakes, they said. 
Typhoon-powered waves exploded against a breakwater in Kiho in central Japan on Wednesday.