Strongest Ever Japan Earthquake
and Tsunami News updates
for May 28-June 3, 2011
This page is a continuation of my main Strongest
Ever Japan
Earthquake and Tsunami
page, reflecting May 28-June 3, 2011 news updates
for the
12th week after
the initial quake. Thanks so much for your
concern, and please remember in your thoughts and prayers those
thousands of people who are
suffering right now and haven't heard from their missing
family
members.
News Updates for
12th Week after Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
-- May 28-June 3,
2011
(JST=UT+9 hrs., or CDT+14 hrs., e.g. 8 am in Houston = 10 pm in Tokyo):
June 3, 2011
8:50 (JST): 'Earthquake drunk' cases on the rise -
A few days after Japan's magnitude 9 earthquake struck, physician
Munetaka Ushio felt the unnerving sensation of the earth moving beneath
his feet.
Dizzy and unsettled, he fell into a chair and waited out what he
thought was another of the hundreds of aftershocks that have rocked
Japan since the disastrous March 11 earthquake.
What happened next really shook him, Ushio says. When nobody else in
the room said they had felt any tremors, Ushio checked an
earthquake-monitoring website to confirm his suspicion: It was all in
his head.
Ushio had experienced a mysterious condition known here as jishin-yoi,
or "earthquake drunk," an illness in which people feel as if they are
swaying, as though moved by a phantom temblor. More...
"I know it's not a life-threatening condition. It fascinated me. So I
became my own test animal," said Munetaka Ushio, an ear, nose and
throat specialist at Tokyo Medical Center. (Tom Miyagawa
Coulton/L.A. Times)
June 2, 2011
21:20 (JST): Taiwan to offer 15,000 hotel rooms for Japan
earthquake victims - Taiwanese hotels will be offering
15,000 free rooms for Japanese victims of the March 11 earthquake and
tsunami. That's the word from Taiwan's Tourism Bureau on Thursday.
The Tourism Bureau said it hopes that every hotel in Taiwan can offer
at least one free room. Currently 350 hotels have agreed to do so.
Bureau official Chiang Ming-ching said his office will announce the
final arrangements at the Taiwan-Japan Tourism Summit at the end of
June.
Chiang said Taiwanese travel agencies also plan to donate NT$20 million
(~US$698,000) to Japan for relief efforts. More...
June 2, 2011
6:10 (JST): Japan Today "Picture of the Day"
Fast Retailing unveils its "Super Cool Biz"
lineup for men,
including chinos, mesh polo shirts, linen jackets and knee-length
shorts, that it bills as "cool, yet professional" office dress. The
"Super Cool Biz" summertime energy-conserving campaign began Wednesday.
(Source: Japan Today)
June 1, 2011
22:00 (JST): Free Telephone Consultations on
Legal Issues for Earthquake Victims - The Tokyo
Public Law
Office will offer free telephone consultations on a variety of legal
matters to non-Japanese victims of the earthquake through September 30,
2011. Consultation hours are Monday through Friday from 10:00 am to
12:00 noon and are available in English, Japanese, and several other
languages. To take advantage of this service please call 03-3591-2291.
(Source: June 2011 Tokyo U.S. Embassy newsletter)
June 1, 2011
16:05 (JST): Tepco Begins Compensation Payments Despite
Government Aid Delay - Tokyo Electric Power Co. began to
pay initial compensation Tuesday to farmers for their lost income due
to contamination of their crops from radioactive fallouts from the
stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex.
In the first compensation payments to businesses hit by the March 11
disaster, Tepco paid out 500 million yen ($6 million) to farmers who
suffered losses because they were unable to sell their produce due to
concerns over radiation.
Separately, Tepco has paid Y47 billion in living expenses to about
50,000 households who evacuated the area around the plant. (Source:
Wall Street Journal)
June 1, 2011
9:30 (JST): Fukushima cleanup could cost up to $250 billion -
A private think tank says the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
plant could cost Japan up to $250 billion over the next 10 years.
The estimate is part of the Nuclear Safety Commission's ongoing survey
of opinions on the disaster from nuclear and other experts.
He said the costs of the accident could range from nearly $71-250
billion. The figure includes $54 billion to buy up all land within 20
kilometers of the plant, $8 billion for compensation payments to local
residents, and from $9-188 billion to scrap the plant's reactors.
(Source: nhk.or.jp)
June 1, 2011
7:15 (JST): IAEA draft on Fukushima says tsunami risk
underestimated - A group of experts from the International
Atomic Energy Agency acknowledged in a summary of a draft report on the
Fukushima nuclear crisis that the risks of tsunami were underestimated
and called for the independence of nuclear regulatory authorities to be
ensured.
The summary is expected to be handed to the Japanese government on
Wednesday by the IAEA group, which has been visiting Japan on a
fact-finding mission into Japan's worst nuclear crisis, triggered by
the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami. (Source: Japan Today)
May 31, 2011
21:15 (JST): Japanese photographer getting tsunami and
earthquake victims to smile -
A Japanese photographer is making a difference for tsunami survivors by
bringing smiles to the faces of people who have lost so much.
Koji Mizutani has seen devastation before. From Japan's 1995
earthquake, to the 2008 quake in Sichuan Province, China, to Sumatra,
Indonesia, hit by a devastating tsunami in 2006.
He's taken pictures of more than 5,000 smiles. Now, he hopes his
pictures will encourage survivors of Japan's recent earthquake and
tsunami.
Last month, he traveled to hard-hit Miyagi prefecture to take pictures
of children smiling, then printed those pictures on umbrellas.
Saturday in Tokyo, people opened their umbrellas to show off their
smiles. (Source: ksby.com)
May 31, 2011
15:50 (JST): Disasters prompt more women to seek marriage
- Amid the increased sense of insecurity in the aftermath of the March
11 earthquake and tsunami, a growing number of Japanese
women set their minds on finding a marriage partner.
Many women say they have become more eager to get married after
reassessing their lifestyles and rediscovering the importance of family
in these trying times.
Since the twin disasters, which also triggered the nation's worst
nuclear crisis, matchmaking agencies have reported a rise in female
membership and the number of marriages arranged, while retailers are
noting brisk sales of engagement rings and wedding bands. (Source:
Japan Today)
May 31, 2011
6:55 (JST): Radiation exposure for 2 workers may exceed limit
- Two workers at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may
have been exposed to high levels of radiation exceeding the safety
limit set by the government.
If confirmed, these are the first cases of radiation exposure since the
health ministry raised the limit in March following the accident.
Tokyo Electric Power Company said on Monday the 2 workers are men. One
is in his 30s and the other in his 40s. Both worked at the control
rooms of the Number 3 and 4 reactors, and elsewhere, after the accident
broke out at the plant. (Source: nhk.or.jp)
May 30, 2011
22:40 (JST): Japanese scientists hope lone pine brings back
70,000 destroyed by tsunami -
The terrifying force of the March 11 tsunami left only one tree,
estimated to be 270 to 280 years old, standing from the Takata
Matsubara forest of 70,000 red and black pine trees in Rikuzen-Takata,
Iwate Prefecture. Now scientists are using that tree to bring back one
of the nation's most beautiful sights, a stretch of beach about 1.2
miles long which has been designated a scenic beauty spot.
With permission from the Takata Matsubara Protection Society, the
Forest Tree Breeding Center collected 2-inch-long branches with buds,
which have been grafted to about 100 rootstocks of red and black pines.
If the grafts are successful, the branches of the pine tree will grow
as part of new trees, preserving the original tree's genetic material.
(Source: freep.com)
Before the March tsunami in Japan, about 70,000 red and black pines
grew on a stretch of beach about 1.2 miles long. Only one tree, about
270 years old, survived the disaster. (Photo by Yomiuri
Shimbun)
May 30, 2011
15:30 (JST): Gov't misses 30,000-unit home supply goal for
quake evacuees - The government has failed to achieve its
stated goal of supplying 30,000 temporary housing units by the end of
May for people displaced by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. But
the government will not backpedal from a longer-term goal set by Prime
Minister Naoto Kan to deliver temporary housing units by mid-August to
all evacuees eager to move into such homes, infrastructure minister
Akihiro Ohata told a parliamentary session.
The number of temporary housing units that can be completed by Tuesday
will be 27,200 units, Ohata said. (Source: Japan Today)
May 30, 2011
11:50 (JST): Japan Today Picture of the Day
A couple looks at a poster explaining protective wear
against radioactivity in Tokyo on Sunday.
May 30, 2011
7:35 (JST): Kiwi IT man sells up dream property to help
rebuild Japan - Kiwi entrepreneur Terrie Lloyd, owner and
founder of Tokyo-based LINC Media and who has also invested in start-up
companies in New Zealand, has put a 19-hectare waterfront estate near
Mangonui, NZ on the market, with the land in five titles and a combined
capital valuation of $3.4 million. Some of the proceeds from the
property sale will be used to help fund business opportunities in
Japan. "As you can imagine with the post earthquake, the banks aren't
lending a lot of money, so whereas a year or so ago I could have just
gone out and just simply raised the money locally, I'm finding now that
liquidity is much tighter." (Source: New Zealand Herald)
Terrie Lloyd, owner and founder of Tokyo-based LINC Media with his
children Monica, Sophie and Eva (left to right) in front of the Meiji
Shinto shrine in Tokyo.
May 30, 2011
1:20 (JST): TEPCO believes stabilizing reactors by year-end
impossible - TEPCO is coming to the view that it will be
impossible to stabilize the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant by the end of this year, possibly affecting the
timing for the government to consider the return of evacuees to their
homes near the plant.
The revelation that meltdowns had occurred at the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors
at the plant, most likely with breaches to pressure vessels encasing
nuclear fuel, has led the officials to believe that "there will be a
major delay to work" to contain the situation, one of them
said. (Source: Japan Today)
May 29, 2011
22:10 (JST): Gov't mulls making highways in disaster-hit
areas toll-free -
The government and the ruling Democratic Party of Japan are considering
earmarking 60 billion yen in a second supplementary budget for fiscal
2011 to make highways in northeastern Japan hit by the March 11
earthquake and tsunami fully toll-free.
The budget would make the highway toll-free for not only victims of the
disaster, but all people driving on them for about half a year from
this fall to help the region's recovery.
Currently, the transport ministry and lawmakers are in the final stage
of preparations to make the highways toll-free for people with a
disaster victim certificate for the time being after the current system
of limiting highway tolls to 1,000 yen at maximum in wide areas of
Japan on weekends ends in mid-June. (Source: Mainichi Daily News)
May 29, 2011
17:50 (JST): Fukushima tsunami plan based on single
page - Japanese nuclear regulators trusted that the
reactors at the
Fukushima Daiichi complex were safe from the worst waves an earthquake
could muster based on a single-page memo from the plant operator nearly
a decade ago.
In the Dec 19, 2001, document -- one double-sized page obtained by The
Associated Press under Japan's public records law --Tokyo Electric
Power
Co rules out the possibility of a tsunami large enough to knock the
plant offline and gives scant details to justify this conclusion, which
proved to be wildly optimistic.
Regulators at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, or NISA, had
asked plant operators for assessments of their earthquake and tsunami
preparedness. They didn't mind the brevity of TEPCO's response, and
apparently made no moves to verify its calculations or ask for
supporting documents. (Source: Japan Today)
May 29, 2011
11:40 (JST): Foul-smelling fish and seaweed plague survivors
of earthquake and tsunami - Mountains of rotting,
foul-smelling fish and seaweed are causing March 11 disaster survivors
here and in fishing communities all along Japan's northeast coast
serious headaches.
Though local governments have been concentrating on removing debris in
the quake- and tsunami-ravaged regions, they have not been able to find
space for rotting marine harvest -- a lot of which spilled from
aqua-farming and fish-processing facilities washed ashore by the
tsunami and now increasingly covered in flies. Some residents have
reported headaches due to the foul smell, raising health and hygiene
concerns. (Source: Mainichi Daily News)
A mountain of rotten fish that had been in storage at fish-processing
plants in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, is seen on May 25, 2011. (Mainichi)
May 29, 2011
5:25 (JST): Criteria to assume missing people as dead
undecided
- The government under a special law will recognize people still
missing three months after the March 11 disaster as dead, but criteria
for determining whether individuals fall into the category have yet to
be outlined.
Local authorities will start accepting applications for bereaved family
pensions and other benefits on June 11 as part of efforts to ease
financial burdens on those affected by the massive earthquake and
tsunami that hit northeastern Japan.
Under the special law enacted on May 2, a missing person can be assumed
to be dead if his or her fate remains unknown three months after the
disaster. (Source: Japan Today)
May 28, 2011
10:35 (JST): Tokyo Disneyland, DisneySea to halve entrance
fee for kids this summer
- Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea will halve the entrance fee for
children this summer for the first time as part of efforts to help lift
their spirits in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami,
the operator said Friday.
The amusement parks will offer their one-day passport at the price of
2,050 yen, compared with the usual 4,100 yen, for 4- to 11-year-olds
from July 8 to Aug. 31, Oriental Land Co said, adding that holders of
the annual passport will be excluded from the discount program.
(Source: Japan Today)
May 28, 2011
3:20 (JST): Fukushima gov't to conduct health checks on all
residents - The Fukushima prefectural government will
launch long-term health checks on its 2 million residents in the wake
of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant,
prefectural government officials said Friday.
The program will cover those who have evacuated outside of Fukushima
Prefecture, the officials said.
Through the program, the prefectural government plans to allay concerns
among residents about the effects on their health of radioactive
substances released from the nuclear power plant which was crippled by
the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. (Source: Japan Today)
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