It's been one year since the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. To pray for the twenty thousand victims, including the missing, there were many ceremonies held throughout Japan on the 11th of March. At 14:46 on the day, many people, even those walking on the street, stopped to pray for them. While praying for them, many people, including myself, felt gratitude for all your support worldwide and for being alive. The disaster has made us realize how fragile life is, which has made us determined to lead meaningful lives.
On the other hand, we have been struggling to find ways to deal with the harsh reality. Partly because of a wide range of damaged areas and partly because of slow action by our government, it has been taking more time than we expected for the survivors to get their lives back on track and make their new life plans. As the time goes by, differences in progress among the survivors have become significant. Some have already restarted their businesses, whereas some are still at a loss as to what to do. Everybody has their own idea of how to rebuild his/her life, so it's difficult for folks involved to find common ground on how to rebuild their local areas and where to rebuild their houses. It seems that these things have resulted in creating some gaps and awkward atmospheres among the survivors.
On top of that, the nuclear disaster has complicated the situation. The issue of how to and where to deal with rubble piled up in the tsunami-stricken areas other than Fukushima demonstrates it. To promote the rebuilding of the areas, the rubble need to be dealt/incinerated with throughout Japan. However, since the rubble is slightly contaminated by radiation, this issue has been very controversial. The central government has been insisting that rubble below a certain contamination level will hardly harm the environment, but many people frown on accepting the rubble to be dealt with//incinerated in their local areas, wondering if the information is reliable. They are also worried about the further spreading of radioactive contamination. Those living on agriculture or fishing in non-contaminated areas say that if the rubble is dealt with/incinerated in their local areas, their brands will be surely damaged even if the rubble is harmless. I think that unless the government gives us enough information and clear policies, the issue won't be resolved.
Since the 3/11 earthquake, Japan has been more subject to earthquake than before. There have been a huge number of aftershocks and earthquakes in Japan since then. The day before yesterday, we had two large quakes. One caused the survivors in the tsunami-stricken areas to evacuate since tsunami was expected to hit there. Some towns in the Tokyo area were damaged by the other one. As for the Fukushima plant, nobody knows exactly what is going on there and what will happen there. Nobody knows exactly how harmful the radioactive contamination is. Because of that, this ongoing accident and the radioactive contamination are of concern to us.
I hope that we can transform the disaster to an opportunity for change and improvement.
