3.11 Great East Japan Earthquake

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Date : November 30 - December 1, 2011

Video Report: Press Tour on Recovery of Food Industry (November 30-December 1, 2011)

post date : 2013.08.24

 

 

 

 

Performance by students of Ishinomaki Municipal Ogatsu Junior High School
March 11’s tsunami swallowed their whole junior high school building. Most of their houses were gone and some of them lost their families. In this tsunami, the heirloom Wa-daiko (Japanese drums) were lost, too. The students made drums from old tires wrapped with sellotape. On September 11, 6 months after the tsunami, they played a requiem in front of their disaster-affected school building. 
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Mr. Takashi Tachibana, OH! Guts! llc.
"As you can see, Ogatsu town was completely washed away by the tsunami. Its population has decreased from 4300 to under 1000 because 80% of its people have left the town or lost their lives."
"The fishermen in Ogatsu have lost everything from their fishing boats and fishing gear to the processing workshop. Starting over from the beginning with ten fishermen, it will cost 50 million yen per fisherman."
Mr. Hiromitsu Itoh, Representative Director of OH! Guts! llc.,
"Although the tsunami took everything away from us, in return, it brought us many people in here. I’m thinking in this way.It brought many new people to Ogatsu where lives had been lost."
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Mr. Mitsuo Sugawara, farmer in Higashi Matsushima City
"I feared it would be impossible to raise any crops this year since the land contained salt from seawater and there was a lot of debris. We did not have any ideas but the Zen-Noh recommended us to grow Sendai-Hakusai. So, we made a decision to sow it straight away, aiming to harvest by the autumn, like this."
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Mr. Nobuo Hariu, CEO of Butai Farm Co., Ltd.
"Since March 11, all the consumers worry about whether the radiation level of rice or vegetables exceeds the regulation limits. So, we carry out a radiation test on all the rice and vegetables we sell and all the vegetables we produce. The point is to test every product; otherwise we arouse distrust in the consumers."
"We can’t be vague. The instruments to measure the radiation level should be provided to every farmer. We need to work as one. Not just saying “No!” to rumors, I think it is more effective to overcome the rumors if all of us carry out radiation tests and show we mean it, domestically and internationally." 
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