Realtime Japan

The increasing accessibility and immediacy of the Internet makes it easier to remember that Japan is struggling right now.

It is important to recall throughout the day that the events unfolding in Japan and throughout the world are not happening at night while we are asleep for us to read in the news in the morning. The events are happening while we are walking through our own days, going to classes, work, meetings and scrolling through pictures on Facebook.

Therefore, in this post I will discuss some of the latest developments coming out of Japan.

According to Reuters.com, Japanese engineers are currently struggling to get control over the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant 150 miles north of capital Tokyo. The plant was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. It poses a serious threat to those in the area.

Only two of the six reactors at the plant are considered stable.

“Their dilemma is that they must keep pumping water to prevent overheating and meltdowns, but that creates more contaminated water that must be pumped out and kept somewhere when they are running out of storage space,” Mayumi Negishi writes in the article.

One of the reactors has emitted radiation at over 1,000 millisieverts an hour, which means that “a worker who entered the room would top his annual radiation exposure quota in just 15 minutes.”

No one knows how long it will take to get control of the plant. The main risk posed is that leaking water could seep into the soil and the ocean, contaminating the crops and the water.

The Washington Post reported this morning that Tokyo Electric Power Co. has begun dumping water tainted with “low levels of radioactivity” into the Pacific Ocean. The company said it could release up to 11,500 tons of this water into the sea.

The Reuters article estimates that the site will likely become “no man’s land.” It could become possible to live and work a few kilometers away, but recycling and transporting the materials are both more or less unfeasible. Experts say that the clean-up of this mess will take decades.

Meanwhile, in a joint, three-day search between Friday morning and Sunday afternoon, 69 more bodies were found, according to CNN. The search was conducted by Japanese and U.S. militaries at a strategic time when the tides would be low and allow for better access to tidal flats.

The current overall confirmed death toll now stands at 12,087 people, with 15,552 missing or unaccounted for and 2,876 injured.

Buses have begun evacuating 1,120 people from shelters in the town of Minamisanriku. The community’s major encouraged residents to go to other cities while temporary housing is being built.

“Over 300 more people have applied for evacuation to other cities and towns, but the Miyagi prefecture government did not have any other evacuations planned Sunday,” Negishi writes.

It is clear that Japan cannot rely on the current trendiness of giving to pick itself back up as people and as a country. It has decades upon decades of work ahead.

Japan and the creativity of the human spirit

In the last post, I voiced my concern over the United States’s double standard in determining which people need our attention and aid and which do not.

However, the disaster in Japan has also manifested the creative spirit of humanity. It has been incredibly heartening to see how technology such as cell phones, Facebook and Twitter have been able to adapt effectively to reach millions and raise millions in a very short period of time.

While I find the worship of celebrities as annoying as the next person, I cannot deny that their influence in a crisis like this is very welcome. It is sad that Americans have to be told by their favorite pop singers to contribute to relief efforts after a natural disaster, but when it becomes trendy to donate, the good that results is indisputably worth it.

According to Teen Vogue as of April 1, Lady Gaga’s bracelets created to raise money and awareness for Japan have contributed over $1.5 million to the earthquake and tsunami relief. Within just 48 hours of selling the bracelets, she had raised a quarter of a million.

Other musicians and celebrities are also using their influence to encourage action. Bands Blink-182 and Linkin Park have designed t-shirts in which 100% of the proceeds will go to Japan. EMI Music, Sony Music, Universal, and Warner Music lent some of their artists’ hit songs to a “Songs for Japan” relief album. According to Reuters.com, the album has “rocketed to the top iTunes charts in 18 nations” and is slated to arrive in stores on April 4.

For a more comprehensive list of all products being sold to benefit Japan, click here.

Charlie Seen pledged to donate $1 from every ticket sold for his upcoming stand-up tour to the Red Cross. Other celebrities such as Conan O’Brien, Katy Perry, Diddy and Chris Brown have used their Twitter influence to promote their fans to donate.

Phone companies such as Verizon and Sprint have allowed their users to send free texts and make free calls to Japan until April 10. Google’s Person Finder allows users to view aerial and satellite images to locate loved ones displaced by the disaster.

Sites such as LivingSocial, which sells discounts to local areas of interest, offered their customers the chance to have their $5 donations to the Red Crossed matched.

Smaller efforts are being undertaken by those in Japan, such as this man Jason Kelly, who is encouraging people to send new socks along with a note of support in plastic bags. “People need lots of them in disastrous times away from home,” his blog says.

These are just a few examples of the beautiful and transcendent ways humans can come together for the betterment of others. While we cannot reply on any one of these methods alone to restore Japan, we can be assured that they are helping. Trendiness can be substantial and meaningful, too.

If you have not yet, choose one of these opportunities and donate. I hear everyone’s doing it.

U.S. response to Japan, Pakistan

The United States dispatched immediate aid to Japan in response to the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit the northeastern coast on Friday, March 11 at 2:46 p.m. local time. The earthquake was initially declared to have an 8.9 magnitude. Three days later, the U.S. Geological Survey updated the magnitude to 9.0, and Japanese seismologists did the same thing independently.

This ranked the earthquake as the fourth largest in the world since 1900 and the largest in Japan in the past 130 years when modern instrumental recordings have been in use.

Hundreds of people were estimated dead immediately, and rescue efforts commenced while Japan continued to experienced aftershocks of the quake.

By March 12, several U.S. Marines aircraft groups boarded cargo to be taken to the mainland, and pilots flew helicopters to Naval Air FAcility Atsugi to provide help in the surrounding areas.

On March 13, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney released a statement regarding the United Sates’s response to the crisis in Japan. In this address, he said that “we have offered our Japanese friends whatever assistance is needed as America will stand with Japan as they recover and rebuild.”

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) began “coordinating U.S. government efforts in support of the Japanese government’s response.” The U.S. Ambassador declared the aftermath of the quake an emergency, which opened up the funding of $100K from USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.

Response teams partly comprising of experts on energy and health were established immediately, as were rescue missions.

The end of the statement read, “From the moment this earthquake struck our State Department and Embassy and Consulates in Japan have been working around the clock to assist and inform U.S. citizens.”

By March 25, the Marine Expeditionary Force and the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 265 had flown thousands of supplies into Japan, including 129,000 pounds of water, 4,200 pounds of food, 94,230 pounds of cargo.

Various Marine groups have been coordinating other missions as well, including the facilitation of distributing supplies. “Tomodachi, which means ‘friends’ in Japanese, was the name selected by Japan for this operation.”

According to Reuters.com , as of April 2, a total of 11,938 people have been confirmed as dead by Japan’s National Police Agency. An additional 15,478 people are reported missing.

Residents who live in areas around nuclear power plants have largely either left or been evacuated. The government estimates damages to be around $190 billion to $298 billion, making it one of the world’s most expensive disasters. 134 countries and 39 international organizations have offered assistance.

While this level of assistance from the United States and so many other countries is incredible and necessary, I cannot help but wonder where the U.S. was when Pakistan was blighted by massive flooding in July of 2010.

In no way am I trying to diminish the amount of death and destruction in Japan; on the contrary, I believe the U.S. has a responsibility to respond in the way it has. However, people are people are people, regardless of where they are when they are struck with a natural disaster.

OXFAM declared the Pakistani floods as the “worst humanitarian crisis that the UN has recognized.” The damage was greater than both the Haiti and Kashmir crises combined.

The flooding left over a fifth of the entire country underwater. Over 1,600 people were killed immediately. 20 million people were displaced.

The UN estimated that around 3.5 million children were at risk of contracting water-borne diseases, and as many as six million people faced the risk of contracting diarrhea, dysentery, etc. 70 percent of the roads and bridges in the affected areas were washing out.

The U.S. has undergone massive fundraising campaigns on a nation-wide level to raise money for the Japanese victims. Yet few people in the U.S. even remember that there was flooding in Pakistan last summer.

The question facing us as Americans is not whether these two disasters are comparable. The question is why our response was not comparable.

Do we help Japan because they like us more than Pakistan? because Japan is wealthier than Pakistan and therefore more worthy of saving? Where were our "friendship" operations there?

It is perhaps tempting to be hesitant in aiding a country like Pakistan with the excuse of not knowing where that money is going, and “it could just end up in the hands of future terrorists.”

To this argument, I would reply that it is common knowledge that organizations like the Red Cross and the UN are not going to be funding terrorism but serving people. Furthermore, all moral obligations to help aside, does the world really think that a flood-ravished country which receives a fraction of the help it needs will produce people who will love the West?

Political tension should never blind us from seeing the suffering of human beings. We as Americans claim all people are created equal. We need to start acting like we believe it.