the news from Japan

My colleagues had a bumper weekend in my absence, so much so that the cake practically ran out and there weren't any leftovers for the staff room.  There still seemed to be a lot of plants left in the plant centre, so I couldn't work out quite what customers had been buying, except that they'd had all the red flowered Pulsatilla.  We were busy again today, for a Monday.

My friend in Japan has agreed that I can post her e-mail of 17th March on the blog. This is the view of a retired teacher, living in Tokyo.

I'm very grateful to all the people that worry about our people and the situation happening here.  I saw BBC news on the Internet and found them very excellent, better than NHK, our broadcasting.

I was at church having a meeting when the earthquake happened.  It was such a big one I'd never experienced.  All the trains stopped and I came home by bus.  My husband came home by car from a nearby town.  My son came here at two at midnight as the train to our station started to run at last, and he went to his flat by our car.  He happened to be on the 39th floor in central Tokyo.  That night over ten thousand people couldn't come home from the central Tokyo.  My daughter was in her flat on the 10th floor and safe.

I was afraid of the influence and worried what would happen, but never imagined the nuclear plant was damaged.  I was not for the construction of nuclear plants, but the majority of people insisted it was safe.  Now we are having 3 to 4 hour power cut every day.  The factories can't move machines or systems.  Most people work using electricity, but now they can't work as usual.  I do hope they will succeed cooling the nuclear plants, which will take many days. 

About 45thousand people in the damaged areas are in the refugees and it is very cold there.  Yesterday it was snowing and they were collecting the layed snow to make water.  They are short of every nececities and medicine.  Transportation system has at last recovered.  We are having too many problems, which is above our imagination,.  !5 thousand people were killed or missing.  It was a very very beautiful region, but now all the towns and villages are gone. There were lots of small bays, which made Tsunami much higher than they imagined, maybe above 13meters high. 

I'm very sorry to see some selfish people in Tokyo buying lots of nececities and food and the shelves in the shops and supermarkets are empty.  We have to endure any situation and share the difficulties in the damaged areas. 

Thank you very very much for your thoughtfuness.  All of us are very grateful to all the people in the world for their help.  I'll write to you again,

With love