Biden Meets With Tsunami Survivors in Japan - New York Times

NATORI, Japan — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with survivors of the Japanese tsunami and spoke at an airport that was reopened just a month after the disaster with American military help, in a visit aimed at highlighting strengthened ties with Japan.

Mr. Biden was on the final leg of an eight-day trip to Asia that was dedicated mostly to improving relations with China, whose rising economic and political power is a challenge to the United States and has overshadowed a Japan mired in two decades of stagnation and then hit in March by an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear disaster. Mr. Biden used the first of his two days here as a counterbalance, offering reassurances that the United States remains committed to its disaster-stricken ally.

He stressed the two nations’ economic and military ties, at times sounding almost as if he were giving a pep talk. He said it was in the United States’ interest for Japan to recover and help lift the sagging global economy. “Some around the world are betting on the decline of America and the inability of Japan to recover,” Mr. Biden said at a speech at the Sendai Airport. “They are making a very bad bet.”

The airport serves as a showcase of the goodwill created here by the American military’s large relief efforts after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan, leaving some 20,000 people dead or missing. The United States Army, Air Force and other services worked with Japanese military personnel to reopen the airport, after it was struck by a 10-foot wave that covered the runway with mud and mangled cars and stranded more than 1,000 people in the terminal.

In his speech at the immaculate, modern terminal building, Mr. Biden noted that just a few months ago, the lower floors had been gutted by the tsunami and its upper floors filled with shivering and frightened refugees, many from neighborhoods that had been swept away.

“I’m proud that our military was given the privilege to join your forces” in repairing the airport, Mr. Biden said in the speech, as several Self-Defense Force generals looked on. Above them, a banner proclaimed, “Stay Strong Japan!”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Biden met in Tokyo with the Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan, who thanked him for American assistance. Mr. Biden praised the dignity and perseverance of the Japanese people in the face of the disaster.

Mr. Kan, 66, is deeply unpopular here, and a cabinet minister said Tuesday that his expected resignation is likely to come next week, adding to the country’s uncertainties. The fifth prime minister in as many years, he was first criticized as being haplessness in foreign and economic policy, then for blunders in response to the disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

The American relief efforts, known as Operation Tomodachi, or Friend, provided a chance to strengthen ties with Japan that had frayed last year during a dispute over an American air base on Okinawa. On Tuesday, Mr. Biden repeatedly spoke of the friendship between the nations, saying that he had no doubt Japan would have come to America’s aid if the tables had been turned.

Mr. Biden spent several hours in Natori, a town made famous by video, broadcast worldwide, of the tsunami tearing through homes and farm fields. He joined the town’s mayor in laying a bouquet of white flowers at a pile of what had once been decorative garden stones in front of a shattered home near Natori’s ravaged waterfront.

He also visited a community center that had served as a refugee center after the disaster and nearby temporary housing for some 400 people whose homes near the airport were destroyed. He nodded gravely as he listened to survivors who described their ordeal.

“The American military made the airport very clean,” said one survivor, Kyuichiro Sakurai, 70, whose home was washed away. “We won’t forget that.”

Mr. Biden seemed relaxed, making jokes about his thinning hair and holding a young boy for several minutes in one arm as he shook hands with survivors. The Japanese applauded him and seemed genuinely touched.

“I want you to know that America will stay involved here as long as you want us to,” he said, prompting several older Japanese women to break into tears. Mr. Biden hugged one of them.

“I feel gratitude that he would come all the way here to support us,” said one of the women, Katsuko Suzuki, 79.

At several points during the visit, Mr. Biden said Americans had been moved by the survivors’ stoicism and quiet courage.

“The American people admire the spirit of the Japanese people,” he said. “Disaster met its match in the legendary industriousness and perseverance of the Japanese people.”

View the original article here

Biden meets with Japanese tsunami survivors - USA Today

Vice President Biden spent Tuesday in Sendai, Japan, where he told survivors of the March earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that Americans "admire their character" for having persevered against adversity.

Biden, on a nine-day Asia trip that has taken him to China and Mongolia, toured largely vacant areas where entire neighborhoods once stood and met with survivors living in temporary housing nearby.

The vice president talked about how much Americans admire the "stamina and resolve" of the survivors. "We're here as long as you need us to help you rebuild," he said, according to press pooler Michael Memoli of the Los Angeles Times. "The way you came together was the envy of the world."

Traveling from Tokyo, Biden delivered a speech in Sendai to an audience composed of U.S. and Japanese military, Japanese teachers and students, first responders and displaced families.

"I came to express not only my commitment to say we will do whatever we can to help, [but also] to tell you how much the president, how much I, how much the American people admire your character," he said.

Biden met in Tokyo with Prime Minister Naoto Kan, telling him that no one should bet against Japan's ability to recover from disaster or America's ability to recover from recession.

"There are voices in the world who are counting us out," he said. "They are making a very bad bet."

View the original article here

Slow aid distribution frustrating survivors

Japan's worst natural disaster on record spurred a $3.7 billion outpouring of donations. But five months later, survivors living in temporary housing are still waiting for aid.

Half of the funds donated by groups including the Red Cross have yet to be disbursed amid a backlog of data processing and wrangling over how to distribute the money.

Thousands of people in Miyagi, the prefecture worst affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and Fukushima, where one of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s nuclear plants had three meltdowns, have received the least cash, health ministry documents show.

That's adding to uncertainty for thousands of families reeling from the disaster, which left more than 20,000 dead or missing and destroyed 263,000 homes.

It's also frustrating the recovery of an agricultural region that contributes about 8 percent of the gross domestic product and also manufactures goods ranging from cars and electronics to beer.

"We have about 500 to 600 applications coming in daily and are processing the same amount each day," said Emiko Okuyama, the mayor of Sendai, where 700 people died and 65,000 homes were destroyed by the tsunami. The city doubled the number of staff issuing payments to survivors, she said last week.

But 82 percent of donations allocated to Sendai have yet to be given to families in the city, according to the ministry's documents.

"I'm sorry, I can't say when most of the money will be sent to the people," Okuyama told reporters at an Aug. 9 briefing. "We are doing all we can to accelerate the process."

The money was raised by the Japanese Red Cross, the Central Community Chest of Japan, NHK and its welfare arm, the health ministry said.

Donations were also sent from 77 Red Cross branches overseas totaling ¥38.7 billion ($506 million) as of Aug. 9, according to a statement by the Japanese Red Cross.

A total of ¥25 billion has been earmarked for running programs to distribute relief supplies, provide medical services and appliances such as washing machines at evacuation centers, and to help move household goods to shelters, it said.

In Fukushima, one of 15 prefectures eligible to receive donations, 37 percent of allocated funds weren't transferred as of Aug. 12, according to the health ministry documents.

In Chiba Prefecture, 36 percent of the money allocated for the municipality's 34 cities and towns is still sitting in local authorities' bank accounts. In Urayasu, a bayside suburb that's home to Tokyo Disneyland, 42 percent of funds have been distributed.

In Fukushima, payments have been delayed while officials in some towns addressed complaints that a policy to allocate a set amount per household put large families at a disadvantage.

"Our town has many big families," said Minoru Shoji, who works in the government office in Iitate.

His village in Fukushima was one of the towns the government ordered evacuated because of the threat of nuclear fallout from Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

"It's not fair if a household with only one person gets the same amount as a family of 10," he said.

Criteria for allocating donations to survivors were set by a committee comprising the Japanese Red Cross, academics and local government officials of the affected areas.

An emergency payment was made in April that gave families ¥350,000 for each dead or missing relative.

The same amount was also given to families whose homes were destroyed and those ordered to evacuate within the nuclear crisis exclusion zone.

The committee devised a method in June in which funds were allocated according to the severity of damage suffered by cities and towns, which then devised their own method for disbursement to households. Local governments are also supplementing the donations to survivors from funds they raised independently.

In Iitate, ¥204,000 will be given to each of the 6,567 residents by the end of August, town official Shoji said.

Families whose homes were inside the 30-km radius of the crippled nuclear plant and residents outside the zone who had to be evacuated will be paid ¥300,000 per person in the Fukushima city of Minamisoma.

Those told to prepare for evacuation will receive ¥220,000 and the rest will be paid ¥200,000, the city's website said.

A shortage of staff at the Japanese Red Cross delayed the use of funds raised overseas, Ramona Bajema, a senior program manager with AmeriCares, a nonprofit disaster relief group planning to distribute $8 million raised through donations, said in an interview in Yokohama.

"It's a lot of paperwork," Bajema said.

"It takes an incredible amount of time" because staff must travel and consult with government officials to plan projects and oversee all of the works being sponsored by the donations, she said.

View the original article here

40% of tsunami survivors didn't evacuate quickly

The Yomiuri Shimbun

More than 40 percent of survivors of the tsunami caused by the March 11 earthquake did not evacuate immediately after the quake as they searched for family members or went home, a central governmental report on the disaster has revealed.

The survey was jointly conducted by the Cabinet Office, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry's Fire and Disaster Management Agency and the Meteorological Agency last month at temporary housing facilities and evacuation facilities in coastal areas of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, which were severely hit in the disaster.

According to the survey, 361 of the 870 people interviewed said they did not evacuate immediately.

According to the report, 22 percent of the 361 people said they went home, 21 percent said they went to look for family members or pick them up, and 11 percent said they were not concerned about tsunami as they had not experienced them in past quakes.

The report also said 857 of the respondents ultimately evacuated and 485 of them fled by car.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency instructs people to evacuate on foot in cases of tsunami.

Of those who evacuated by car, 34 percent said they thought they had to do so to survive and 32 percent said they wanted to evacuate with family members. Thirty-four percent said they got caught in heavy traffic jams,

"Actions taken by individuals need to be analyzed," Kansai University Prof. Yoshiaki Kawata, head of the expert panel of the government's Central Disaster Management Council, said at a press conference.

He cited the traditional evacuation philosophy of "tsunami tendenko" in areas frequently hit by tsunami, which advises people to run to high places individually without thinking about family members, friends or neighbors.

"It's difficult for many old people to evacuate on foot and, in our graying society, evacuation rules have to be made by individual communities taking this into consideration," he added.

The results were handed out to participants on the expert panel and released Tuesday.

The Cabinet Office said it would thoroughly analyze the survey results.

View the original article here

Japan tsunami survivors pray in summer Buddhist rite (Reuters)

OTSUCHICHO, Japan (Reuters) – In a little room of a small hillside temple that barely survived Japan's tsunami five months ago, Yuko Kikuchi knelt down, quietly sobbing and gently caressing the boxes that hold the bones and ashes of her perished mother and sister-in-law.

"It's harder now," 57-year-old Kikuchi, who came back to her devastated hometown Otsuchicho, about 500 km (300 miles) northeast of Tokyo, on Sunday to observe "obon," a series of annual Buddhist ceremonies in mid-August to honor the spirits of the dead.

"In the beginning, there were so many things I had to do and my feelings were high. But now that things are gradually settling, it's hard and I remember many things that we used to do without thinking deeply ... It was just so sudden."

Many survivors of the magnitude 9 quake and tsunami that struck northeast Japan on March 11 are trying to take a step forward in their shattered lives with obon ceremonies, which involve gatherings of extended family members, welcoming back the spirits of ancestors to homes, and praying.

But residents of Otsuchicho, still surrounded by burned and melted buildings and other reminders of the disaster, know that the annual festive mood they have long embraced won't be back this year.

"We can't celebrate obon like we used to until last year. But even though we can't recognize them in a visible way now, I believe talking about them with everyone and doing our best would help honor them, so I'm trying to stay strong," Kikuchi said.

The March 11 disaster left more than 20,400 dead or missing in Japan, and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

TIME AND SCARS

Kikuchi and her brother was in Dainenji, a Buddhist temple that survived the tsunami and fire that reached its gate. The temple is now temporarily housing cremated bones and ashes of more than 100 washed away by the tsunami and burned by the fire.

A big temple nearby burned down and heavy gravestones were knocked down all around, shattered by the force of the massive tsunami, which brought many followers of that temple to Dainenji.

Nearly 80 boxes containing remains of unidentified bodies lined up in the temple's hallway, while dozens more already identified rested in small rooms in the back of the temple, with relatives offering prayers in front of smiling portraits.

"We are sorry we could not find her until recently. At the weekend, we went around morgues many times. But we are relieved," said Shoetsu Kobayashi, 54, who came with his wife to honor his mother-in-law, identified last month with DNA testing.

A town of about 15,000 before the quake, Otsuchicho lost nearly 800 residents in the disaster, including its mayor, and more than 650 are still missing.

Rebuilding the town has not been easy. Five months on, many residents are still looking for jobs and the town is preparing for a mayoral election later this month so that reconstruction planning can go ahead.

Kobayashi and his wife Masako, who lost their mothers and their home, moved to temporary housing last month with their two sons. He was puzzled about how to prepare an obon altar -- an annual chore his mother took care of -- but said he was determined to observe the ceremonies as in the past.

"I only wish I'd done this before now," he said in front of the three-stage altar, where lilies and greens adorned his mother's photo, fruits and cakes were offered, and candles and incenses were lit. "But I think she would be happy in heaven."

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Alex Richardson)

View the original article here