Showing posts with label Tsunami. Show all posts

2014-03-11

Remembering 3/11/2011

March 11 2011 has been etched in the minds of the world. This year I wanted to share a little story from my experiences on that unforgettable day.

2013-05-24

2013-05-23

[Japan, How it Is 08] Volunteering in Touhoku - Tsunami Cleanup

A look at Volunteering in the tsunami affected areas of Japan.
I went up to Ofunato City in Iwate Prefecture to volunteer.
It was my sixth trip up there. This video is more about the trip.
I will make a supplemental video with more info on how to go about volunteering next. If you have any specific questions, throw them in the comments below. I will try to answer them If I can.

Ofunato City Volunteer office (japanese):　http://ameblo.jp/ooshakyo/

絆

2012-12-07

Live Hangout about the M7.3 quake off the coast of Iwate pref.

pic from tenki.jp (Click pic for source)

There was an M7.3 today at 17:13 in the same fault as the big one on in March 2011. Where I live it was Shindo 4 which is a measurement of percieved intensity. 4 is not common in these parts. There was a Tsunami warning in effect on the coast. The sirens rang out and people were evacuated. Thankfully the larest tsunami was only 1 meter and it struck an area where the land was not at 0m. A 1 meter wave in parts of Iwate would have been dangerous. because the tsunami barriers were all destroyed in 2011.

Ofunato City only had a 20cm wave so everything there is OK. I called one of my mates who was cold because he was on his way up a hill but other than that, he was fine.

Below is a google hangout recording that I took earlier on. It is 30 minutes long and it was live so my thoughts come out of my mouth as they arrive and I am often distracted by the TV news. But hey. If you have time to kill. Check it out.

Don't forget to subscribe ;)

2012-05-30

Shots #86 A Room with a View

2012-05-29

Golden Week Volunteering 2012: Part 2 –Revisiting Rikuzentakata

continued from here

After the first day’s work we took the first timers over to Rikuzentakata to get an idea of the level of devastation that the tsunami caused because in Ofunato, the amazing pace of the cleaning and reconstruction effort had hidden the scale of the damage. Things had not changed terribly much since I went in September, but for those who had not been back since last year golden week, they could see how much clearing had been done since…

Touhoku ~5 hit combo~

when shots are taken with iPhones, its sometimes nice to use an app to give them a little more vavavoom than the tiny ass cell phone cam can provide. At least it’s not instagram ;)

Golden Week Volunteering 2012: Part 1 - Sanriku Ditches

I went back to Ofunato this golden week. This time however I was in a rather large company of ALTs who wanted to join me. There were two who had been before but all the rest were first timers.

3/11 Where were you? What have you done?

Last year the earth shook and the waves came in. While I don’t expect any of my readers outside Japan to have done anything (those of you who have contributed… Thank you.) Everyone who reads this blog and lives in Japan however.

Were you here on that day?

What did you think and feel?

And most importantly what have you done to help since then?

Ofunato HDR

What do you think?

2011-09-27

Ofunato Volunteering - September 2011

We had a Friday public holiday last week in Japan which afforded me the chance to go back to Ofunato for a lightning volunteer trip with All Hands. I put the word out as I did before, but this time the call was answered by a fellow ALT in my city. We finished our work on Thursday, packed the loaner car I am currently driving (this is why) and headed north.

Ofunato Summer 2011 Volunteering – Water Closets and Free Candyfloss.

The Thursday and Friday saw me back with All Hands and onto a Job that taxed us both physically and mentally. We Had to remove 3 prefab bathrooms…

WITHOUT destroying the walls…

Ofunato Summer 2011– Chainsaws and FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday saw the re-opening of the City volunteer office and re joining them gave me a good chance to re-connect with some of the people I had met on my first trip in May…

Ofunato Summer 2011 Volunteering - Break Time

On Tuesday All Hands takes they day off. With the city volunteers still down for 1 more day it seemed like the perfect time to get that tourism that I had planned to get done done…

Ofunato Summer 2011 Volunteering - The SPPCF

After a good warm up on Sunday afternoon I was ready to go on Monday morning. I had chosen to go down to the marine factory site (A demolished refrigeration warehouse) to help The SPPCF – The Society for the Prevention of Prevention of Cruelty to Foam.

Ofunato Summer 2011 Volunteering. Getting started…eventually.

The next day (Sunday)I got up nice and early, got my shit wired and headed to the city volunteer center for my first day’s work…They were on holiday till that Wednesday. OH SHIT! I just spent 13 hours driving across North Eastern Japan to volunteer, only to find that I was going to waste a whole 3 days doing nothing. Needless to say I was displeased.

I decided to hit up the onsen and relax a bit and clear my thoughts. We had bathed there a few times on the previous trip but it was always at night and so I had never seen the surrounding landscape… Up winding road I drove, rounded a bend and it was like DAM!