From the Editor in Chief
DISASTER At around 2:46 pm on Friday, March 11, an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 struck in the Pacific Ocean to the east of Honshū, Japan’s main island. It was followed by tsunamis affecting coastal areas all the way from Hokkaidō in the north to Okinawa in the south, with an especially severe impact on the five prefectures from Aomori at the northern end of Honshū through Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, and Ibaraki along the Pacific coast. The first waves reached the shore within 10 minutes, and about half an hour after the quake tremendous tsunamis struck locations in Iwate and Miyagi, reaching a height of more than 10 meters in some places. The height of the water was accentuated by the deep indentations along parts of the shoreline, with waves building up as they reached the heads of estuaries. The resulting inundations virtually obliterated ports including Rikuzen Takada in Iwate and Minami Sanriku in Miyagi. Severe destruction also occurred in Sendai and Natori, both in Miyagi, and the Sōma district of Fukushima, all located along the coast of Sendai Bay. The broad mouth of the bay admitted huge amounts of water that then became trapped within the bay, bouncing back and forth against shorelines to produce increasingly higher waves.
As of 8:00 this morning (March 13), the All-Nippon News Network (ANN) was reporting at least 945 deaths due to the earthquake and 957 persons missing. With more than 10,000 people still unreachable, the final toll can be expected to be significantly higher.
Shortly after 8:00 this morning, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio spoke about the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, referring to the report from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) of an emergency at the plant’s Unit 3 reactor: “The water-supply function at the Unit 3 reactor stopped, and so operations are being conducted to withdraw gas in order to reduce pressure in the pressure vessel; in addition operations are being conducted to supply water using pumps and other equipment. The gas will include some radioactive materials of a level that will not affect human health, but if this set of operations is carried out, it will be possible to control the reactor in a state where its safety is secured.” The situation is clearly a cause of ongoing concern.
Meanwhile, also this morning, the government decided to increase the number of Japanese Self-Defense Forces deployed in rescue and relief operations from the original 50,000 to around 100,000. The previous evening it designated a wide area in eastern Honshū as having been affected by a “disaster of extreme severity,” paving the way for the national government to provide extra financial assistance to local government bodies in their efforts to restore schools, other public facilities, and farmland.
Some foreign countries were quick to offer assistance for rescue activities. The government of Singapore dispatched a five-person, five-dog rescue team, which arrived at Narita Airport yesterday and headed to an affected area in Fukushima. The United States positioned two destroyers from the US Navy Seventh Fleet in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chiba in readiness to take part in search and rescue operations, and the carrier USS Ronald Reagan and three cruisers are due to arrive in the area today to serve as a refueling base for Japanese SDF helicopters involved in the search and rescue effort. I would like to express my sincere personal gratitude for the sympathy and support that foreign governments and friends have extended on this occasion.
