My mind is still on Japan. The BBC has had a reporter in Yamagata and there have been features every day. Natsuko wrote yesterday that Nobuko was ok though no phone. Hard to say how much disruption they are experiencing.
What about the children and adults at Ai Ai, the center for autistic children and adults that Nobuko directs? Yamagata has not been totally disrupted but they have received many refugees and there are fuel and food shortages. I heard somewhere that trucks were not willing to make deliveries unless they were guaranteed enough fuel to get back.
Japan is a first world country, yet they struggle to deal with all of this. Like America with Katrina but this is way worse. The information coming out now is spotty, no tsunamis just the boring, hungry cold aftermath. What about the hospital patients? And the elders? I just read 23 percent of the Japanese population is over 65.
I've often thought that we take our distribution chain WAY for granted. Food appears in grocery stores, always full and we never stop to think how they got there. And how easily they can be disrupted.
Hungry and cold...and that's without radiation scares from burning destroyed nuclear plants.
Picture of a main street in Yamagata taken last April. From a cab to the train station on our way to Kyoto. Nobuko lives very close to the city center and train station in a district of temples.
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