Japan remembers tsunami victims
Monday, March 12, 2012
For 70-year-old Toshiko Murakami, memories of the terrifying earthquake and tsunami that destroyed much of her seaside town and swept away her sister brought fresh tears, exactly a year after the disaster.
"My sister is still missing so I can?t find peace within myself," she said as she attended a ceremony in a tent in Rikuzentaka marking the anniversary of the March 11, 2011, disaster that killed more than 19,000 people and unleashed the world?s worst nuclear crisis in a quarter century.
Across Japan, people paused at 2.46pm ? the moment the magnitude-9.0 quake struck a year ago ? for moments of silence, prayer and reflection about the enormous losses suffered and the monumental tasks ahead.
Japan must rebuild dozens of ravaged coastal communities, shut down the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant and decontaminate radiated land so it is inhabitable again.
These are enormous burdens on a country already straining under the weight of an aging, shrinking population, bulging national debt and an economy that?s been stagnant for two decades.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reminded the Japanese people that they have overcome many disasters and difficulties in the past and pledged to rebuild the nation so it will be "reborn as an even better place".
"Our predecessors who bought prosperity to Japan have repeatedly risen up from crises, every time becoming stronger," Noda said at a ceremony at the National Theatre attended by the emperor and empress.
Later, he said he hoped to see the disaster-hit areas fully rebuilt when "babies born on the day of the disasters turn 10 years old."
The earthquake was the strongest recorded in Japan?s history, and set off a tsunami that swelled to more than 65 feet in some spots along the northeastern coast, destroying tens of thousands of homes and causing widespread destruction.
Some 325,000 people are still in temporary housing. While much of the debris along the tsunami-ravaged coast has been gathered into massive piles, only 6% has been disposed of by incineration.
Very little rebuilding has begun. Many towns are still finalising reconstruction plans, some of which involve moving residential areas to higher, safer ground ? ambitious, costly projects. Bureaucratic delays in co-ordination between the central government and local officials have also slowed rebuilding efforts.
In Rikuzentakata, which lost 1,691 residents of its pre-quake population of 24,246, a siren sounded at 2.46pm and a Buddhist priest in a purple robe rang a huge bell at a temple overlooking a barren area where houses once stood.
At the same moment in the seaside town of Onagawa, people facing the ocean pressed their hands together in silent prayer.
Memorial services continued into the night. In Ishinomaki, survivors lit some 2,000 candles to mourn for the victims.
The memories of last year are still raw for Naomi Fujino, a 42-year-old resident of Rikuzentakata who lost her father in the tsunami. She escaped with her mother to a nearby hill, where they watched the enormous wave wash away their home. They waited all night, but her father never came as he had promised. Two months later, his body was found.
"I wanted to save people, but I couldn?t. I couldn?t even help my father. I cannot keep crying," Fujino said. "What can I do but keep on going?"
In Tokyo, anti-nuclear demonstrators waving banners, beating drums and shouting slogans marched to the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant. As dusk fell, protesters holding candlelit lanterns linked arms to form a human chain nearly all the way around the parliament building.
Public opposition to nuclear power has grown in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986. The tsunami knocked out the plant?s cooling systems, causing meltdowns at three reactors and spewing radiation into the air.
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Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/ietopstories/~3/L3AAD0wh4Q0/
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