International rescue teams struggle to find more victims
A week after the devastating quake and massive ocean wave wiped out towns on the northeast coast of the country, international rescue teams are abandoning the search for survivors in below-freezing temperatures.
At least 6,539 people are confirmed dead, more than 10,000 are still missing and over 410,000 people are in shelters.
Teams from aid groups and charities are working their way north — challenged by destroyed roads and scarce fuel — seeking the isolated groups of people who are most exposed.
Stephen McDonald of the Save the Children charity said: “We’ve seen children suffering with the cold, and lacking really basic items like food and clean water. Tomorrow we’re giving out blankets, and our team in Tokyo is looking into what other goods we can supply.
“As we push up the coastline from Sendai, we are finding pockets of profound humanitarian need, and we’re going to do everything we can to meet them while remaining focused on our child protection work.”
Hypothermia is a major problem and 25,000 blankets will be distributed by Doctors Without Borders.
Eric Ouannes, the Japan director of the aid service, said: “In the 20 or 30 shelters we’ve visited the main problems are elderly people with chronic illnesses. They have run out of medication for diabetes and high blood pressure and we are trying to restart them on their medication.”
Ouannes said the most serious medical needs are covered, with only a few exceptions and there are working hospitals in the disaster zone.
World Vision began distributing relief supplies yesterday in the city of Tome and will reach Minami Sanriku, one of the hardest-hit towns in the country, today.
A spokesperson for World Vision said: “Blankets, bottled water and sanitary and hygiene supplies are among the items in World Vision’s distribution to assist more than 6,000 people in urgent need in Minami Sanriku, where 9,600 townspeople have been displaced into 40 shelters.
“This tsunami-swept town in Miyagi prefecture, like many other areas of Japan, is experiencing below-freezing temperatures and snowfall.”
Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) said the British search and rescue team in northern Japan had completed its unsuccessful search for survivors on Thursday and had decided to leave the country.
“Heavy snow and falling temperatures six days after the start of the disaster mean there is now an extremely low chance of finding survivors,” they said.
The team included 59 British fire service search and rescue specialists, two rescue dogs and a medical support unit. They were dispatched to Japan following a direct appeal from Japan.
Japanese authorities have accepted international support in a few specific areas, particularly from search and rescue teams and nuclear specialists.
Given Japan’s capacity for dealing with major catastrophes, most international non-governmental organisations helping with the relief effort are focusing on getting to especially remote areas or providing specialist help to young children and the elderly.
* A rare intervention by the world's biggest economies slowed a damaging rise in the value of the Japanese yen even as the economic impact of Japan's earthquake continued to widen.
The Bank of France, Bank of England, Bundesbank, Bank of Italy and European Central Bank all confirmed they were participating in currency markets in the first coordinated intervention since 2000, when they rescued the sinking euro.
The action successfully pushed the Japanese currency lower, though the yen later gained some ground. A strong yen hurts Japanese exporters, a mainstay of the economy and crucial to any recovery.
