The fear of Tsunami

When I went to help clear sludge around the house, I heard a story of that house owner's wife. The day of Tsunami was happened, he and his daughter weren't at home. When Tsunami occurred, mom was at home alone and failed to escape. The water level was up to 2m, so she held on a beam of her house. After that water level was up to 3m, she caught tatami and held on it for 2 hours. It was very cold and snowy. Rubbles, broken cars and house pieces attacked on the pillar and broke them. But she was lucky not to be hit by rubbles. If the rubbles hit her.... Can you image her fear and suffering? And we also know that there were lots of victims like her, and most of them died...

What we can do for victims

Many people hesitate to go to help victims at disaster area, because they are afraid of disturbing the people there. Actually we can not help heavily damaged area but if some other areas where wasn't suffered too much, we can help them.

First we should pull the furniture, tatami, clothes etc. out of the house. They are that contaminated with sludge. So you should prepare the clothes, groves and work boots for safety.

Next we should remove the sludge from the sea out of the house and around the house, because it smells petroleum. The petroleum, chemicals and salt in the sludge would damage their health and agriculture. It's very difficult to remove all these substances from the soil. But We have to remove them as much as possible.

After that we have to clean the house. If electricity is restored, we can use water injection machine. But If not yet, we have to clean with blush.

Continue...

Volunteer in Higashi Matsushima

I went to Higashi Matsushima city, Miyagi pref. to help disaster victims for a week. I lived in a tent and cleared away tsunami debris everyday. We did our best but we couldn't help them so much. Because in Higashi Matsushima area volunteers work was limited to only 4 hours a day. Most of the volunteer workers were unsatisfied because 4 hours working is not enough to finish the item.

Why the staffs limit the working hours of volunteer workers? Because they want us to finish the work before 15:00 to avoid their overtime work. If the volunteer working was finished 16:00 or 17:00, they couldn't finish their working before 17:00 because they have to make data base.

Even the time was not enough, we did our best. I think they still need more volunteer workers' help. During GW many people volunteered, but volunteer staff was refused volunteers....

I thought volunteer center staffs should improve the management of volunteer workers distributions. They waste so much time. And they also don't grasp the stricken areas' situation.

If all the people can share the suffering areas' situation, NGO groups or even individual volunteer teams can join them.....