Japan yesterday marked the ninth anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that triggered the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear meltdown, but the coronavirus outbreak forced public commemorations to be scaled back.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe canceled the annual public ceremony at the National Theater, attended by members of the royal family and people from the northeastern region hardest-hit by the 2011 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear accident.
The cancelation was extremely regrettable, but “it’s time to take every possible measure to prevent the spread of infections in our country,” said Abe at a small wreath-laying ceremony at his office in Tokyo.
Photo: Reuters / Kyoto
He offered condolences to those who lost loved ones and renewed his pledge to rebuild the disaster-hit region.
“We should not allow precious lessons from the disaster to fade away,” Abe added.
The country fell silent for a minute at 2:46pm, the exact time a magnitude 9 earthquake struck the seabed off Miyagi Prefecture on March 11, 2011.
Photo: AFP
Under light drizzle in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park, mourners gathered to pray silently in front of an altar strewn with cherry blossom — most wearing protective masks.
Naoya Matsuoka, a 32-year-old staff member at a financial company, said it was important to defy the coronavirus to pay respect to the 18,500 killed or missing.
“We are now facing all different issues [like the virus] and hear lots of noise about holding events, but the disaster is something we must not forget. So I am here,” he said.
The government has urged the public to cancel or postpone major gatherings or unnecessary outings to help contain the spread of the virus, which has infected 568 people and been linked to 12 deaths.
The call has resulted in the shutdown of schools and the cancelation or rescheduling of everything from music concerts to soccer matches, while graduation ceremonies, fashion shows and a sumo tournament have taken place behind closed doors.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga yesterday lauded the recovery efforts under way in the northeast of the nation, but acknowledged the challenges that remained in providing psychological care and other services to evacuees.
Despite the many signs of recovery in the region, some residents are still unable to live in the areas closest to the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Radiation levels in such areas remain high, despite repeated decontamination efforts.
The final decommissioning of the crippled plant is expected to take four decades, but Abe’s government hopes to showcase reconstruction so far in the region at this year’s Olympics, with the torch relay starting from Fukushima and travelling across affected areas.
“I think the memory [of the disaster] is fading away,” said Masahiko Sano, a 47-year-old company owner, who joined the event at the park in Tokyo.
Additional reporting Reuters
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS