Japan marks one month since tsunami

Sirens wailed and people bowed their heads and wept along Japan’s devastated north-east coast today as they marked a month since the devastating tsunami which killed up to 25,000 people and unleashed a nuclear crisis.

With thousands of bodies yet to be found, a tsunami-flooded nuclear power plant still spewing radiation and more than 150,000 people living in shelters, there was little time for reflection on Japan’s worst disaster since the Second World War.

“My chest has been ripped open by the suffering and pain that this disaster has caused the people of our prefecture,” said Yuhei Sato, the governor of Fukushima, which saw its coastal areas devastated by the tsunami and contains the damaged plant at the centre of the nuclear crisis. “I have no words to express my sorrow.”

People in hard-hit towns gathered for ceremonies at 2.46pm local time, the exact moment of the magnitude-9.0 quake which spawned the tsunami on March 11.

In a devastated coastal neighbourhood in the city of Natori, three dozen firemen and soldiers removed their hats and helmets and joined hands at the top of a small hill that has become a memorial for the dead. Earlier, four monks in pointed hats rang a prayer bell there as they chanted for those killed.

The noisy clatter of construction equipment ceased briefly as crane operators stood outside their vehicles and bowed their heads.

In the industrial town of Kamaishi, Iwate Governor Takuya Tasso led a moment of commemoration as a loud siren rang through a high school gymnasium being used as a shelter. He bowed while people who have lived there since the tsunami knelt on makeshift futons, bowed their heads and clasped their hands.

Students will start school at the shelter tomorrow even though 129 people are living in their gym.

Some, like 16-year-old Keisuke Shirato, wore their baseball uniforms for today’s ceremony.

Shirato’s family was not affected by the tsunami, but about half of his teammates lost their homes.

“A new school year starts tomorrow,” he said. “Hopefully that will help give people hope and allow them to look toward a new start.”

The earthquake and tsunami flattened communities along hundreds of miles (km) of coastline. More than 158,000 people are still without electricity and 210,000 have no running water, although some of that is because of a 7.1-magnitude aftershock which rattled the area last week.

“Even after a month, I still cry when I watch the news,” said Marina Seito, 19, a student at a junior college who recalled being in a basement restaurant in Sendai when the earthquake hit. Plates fell and parts of the ceiling crashed down around her.

Adding to the misery is radiation spewing from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex 140 miles (220km) north-east of Tokyo, which lost its cooling systems when water from the tsunami washed over it.

Government officials have ordered the 70,000 to 80,000 people who live within 12 miles (120km) to leave, and those farther from the plant may also be told to evacuate as the crisis drags on.

“We have no future plans. We can’t even start to think about it because we don’t know how long this will last or how long we will have to stay in these shelters,” said Atsushi Yanai, a 55-year-old construction worker. The tsunami spared his home, but he has to live in a shelter anyway because it is in the evacuation zone.

Nuclear safety official Hidehiko Nishiyama apologised for the worry and inconvenience caused by the radiation spilling from the plant, where cooling systems still have not been restored and probably will not be for several months.

Contamination leaking into the ocean and into soil has raised concerns about the safety of food including fish, vegetables and milk.

“It’s still difficult to give a timeline regarding when we can resolve the problem,” he said today. “We are very sorry for the evacuees who are anxious to see the problem resolved.”

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said its president, Masataka Shimizu, went to Fukushima prefecture today to relay his gratitude and apologies. He did not speak to the press there.

He recently spent eight days in hospital with dizziness and high blood pressure, but has since returned to work. At Tepco headquarters in Tokyo, hundreds of employees bowed their heads for a moment of silence at 2:46.

As workers at Fukushima Dai-ichi struggle to remove contaminated water that has prevented them from restoring cooling systems, the search for bodies along the coast continues. More than 14,000 people are still listed as missing.

Japanese and US troops fanned out along the coast for another all-out search by land, air and sea yesterday managed to find 103 bodies.

Just 13,000 deaths have been confirmed so far, and many bodies have likely washed out to sea and will never be found.

Japan’s government marked the anniversary today by placing an advertisement in newspapers in China, South Korea, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, a letter from Prime Minister Naoto Kan thanking people around the world for the outpouring of support that followed the tsunami.

Mr Kan described the outpouring as “kizuna”, the bond of friendship, and said that with the help of the global community, Japan would come back stronger than ever.

“We deeply appreciate the kizuna our friends from around the world have shown and I want to thank every nation, entity, and you personally, from the bottom of my heart.”