At 2:46 p.m. local time on March 11, 2011, a magnitude 8.9 earthquake rocked the Oshika Peninsula of Tohoku, Japan. Within an hour, a wall of water up to 30 feet high washed over the Japanese coast. That evening, the Japanese government declared an emergency for a nuclear power plant near Sendai, 180 miles from Tokyo. In a matter of hours, Japan had a multi-level catastrophe on its hands. The public health emergency required swift and decisive action on several fronts, and the country rose to the challenge while an outpouring of international support flooded in.
Japan’s transparency in dealing with the disaster stands in stark contrast to another recent ecological disaster, the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. British Petroleum’s attempts to consistently minimize the danger rankled the public: BP CEO Tony Hayward initially assessed the calamity as a “relatively tiny” spill, and then infamously groused that “I just want my life back” (a statement for which he later apologized) as a steady flow of oil poured into the gulf over the next few months from a broken pipe at the ocean floor.
This past June, Japan’s Consul General since 2008, Junichi Ihara, spoke in Westlake Village at an executive business briefing on the Red Cross Ready campaign for Ventura County. He described Japan’s immediate steps in what portends to be a decades-long journey of recovery. Reached by phone near the half-year mark of the disaster, Consul General Ihara said the situation remains very serious, yet the resiliency of Japanese people has buoyed the country through exceedingly challenging and uncertain times.
Some areas have been decimated by the combined effects of the earthquake and tsunami and it is not known when, or even if, displaced residents will be able to return to their homes. “We need to take immediate measures to alleviate the suffering of the evacuees and other people,” acknowledged Mr. Ihara. “Those types of efforts have been made immediately after the earthquake and the government continues to take various measures, for instance, building temporary housing for repair infrastructures. [We have] made significant progress in the past six months, [but] we still have a little more than 8,000 people living in shelters for various reasons.
“Several challenges are facing the Tokyo area,” he continued. “The release of radioactive substance from the crippled nuclear reactors [at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant] is almost below the level that we should be concerned about. But already lots of the radioactive substance have been released from the facilities, so we have to take care of the contamination issues. That is a very big challenge.”
The immediate priority, he reiterated, is to attend to evacuees who are still waiting to return to their homes in affected cities and villages. “Once we achieve the so-called cold shutdown of reactor, which we are now targeting early 2012, we will have no more concerns about further radiation issues.”
Mr. Ihara said that for the first several days after the earthquake and tsunami, a significant amount of radioactive substance was released. “We are still assessing the extent of contamination and the significance of the effects on humans. The difficulty is there is no threshold which we can say is 100 percent safe. Up to now, however, there are no severe casualties to human health and human body.”
Japan’s typhoon season, which typically reaches its peak in August and September, has not contributed to any further damage in the country thus far. “All the places of interest to tourists are totally safe and open to visitors both domestic and abroad.” October, November, and December are the best months to travel to Japan because of the seasonal change and vibrant colors of leaves changing colors.
Before our conversation ends, the Consul General does offer one caveat to travelers visiting Japan. “Bring a little more dollars, because the yen [exchange rate] is very strong.”