"Skåne & Copenhagen for Japan"is a network located around Øresund link. The members are in Lund, Malmo, Copenhagen, and nearby areas. We aim at supporting people suffering from the earthquake and the tsunami in Japan on 11/03/2011.
"Act for Japan in Sweden&Denmark"は東日本大震災の被災者支援を目的とし、主にスウェーデン南部(Lund、Malmo)及びコペンハーゲン居住者によって組織されています。
Time just flies. We Japanese LU students are now back in Lund. And, it has been six months since the earthquake and tsunami. As long as I know, some of us, including me, volunteered in the affected area and saw what had happened there with our eyes.
Time passes anyway, and events easily fade out one another in our memories, no matter how grateful or devastating they would be. That's the reason why we have created a message video. We hope what happened on March 11 in Tohoku and our loved ones who passed away will never be gone, but alive forever.
Deep appreciation for all the messages appearing in the video.
And for those who are now entering the next stage for recovery, we are all together with you.
On 21st of May, we joined a flea market at Södra Esplanaden in Lund, Sweden. It was a small charity market for victims for Japanese earthquake. All the money will be send to Japanese Red Cross through Swedish Red Cross. We sold mainly Japanese stuffs and also some second hand stuffs.
This market is held every Saturday but there are much more people than usual on that day because the weather was so nice. We started to prepare for it from 6:00AM and sell stuffs from 7:00AM.
At first, we felt a bit anxious because people seemed to be interested in practical stuffs such as electricity and second hand clothes. However, Japanese stuffs especially with Japanese motif were gradually coming to be popular. We also tried to give handmade origami cranes for free but some people paid extra money as donation. It may be a good opportunity to show Japanese culture.
We aimed to get 1,000kr before we started but it was much more successful than we had expected. The total money for the sales and donations were about 4,000kr. We really appreciate all the people who visited us!
Teaching how to fold a paper crane :)
Many people were a bit confused with Japanese size system!
This article reports our fund-raising campaign in downtown of Lund (Sweden) on March 26th, which received backup of Swedish red cross (Svenska Röda Korset). We held the campaign mainly in front of of COOP in centrum of Lund and in the square with the tourist information center. The weather was not bad, but it was such windy that I felt a bit chilly. Around 30 people gathered and called for donation to the sufferers of the earthquakes and Tsunami in east Japan. I participated in the group in the square with the tourist information center. I describe detail of the activities there. On the holiday, many events were organized in the square. Open air market of natural food, firefighters' event for children (Children took pictures on fire-fighting vehicle), activities to promote fair trade, live of band, etc… The square seemed so joyous and boisterous that I rather got to worry that people might not notice our activities. Many people passed through the square, so we further divided the group and asked for the contribution. As I tell what impressed me in the activities, first thing that I come up with is that children showed very cute reactions to cranes made of paper (Japanese Origami), which we prepared as return to the donation. All children seemed pleased to get the crane and some children even wanted more than two cranes silently directing their eyes to us (That was incredibly cute!!). Second impressing thing is that I met many people with connection with Japan. A person who became friends with Japanese exchange students to Sweden, one who visited Kyoto on business, one who worked in a company into which Japanese companies invested their capital… A person even knew name of temples that I did not know. I have felt need of studying culture of my home country. Donation itself went very smoothly and collection boxes got full earlier than expected. Finally, as many as 29605.50kr was donated. The money will be transferred from Swedish red cross to Japanese red cross and then be used for the sufferers of the earthquakes. We would like to express big appreciation for the people who donated. We all are highly grateful for the heartfelt attitude of people. I do not know whether Japan has contributed to Sweden, and spatial distance between the countries is quite big. Regardless of this situation, many people donated very kindly. I would like to repay the great kindness with something in the future. Hontou ni Arigatou Gozaimashita!!
A few days later, I received an email from the neighbor of my home in Kamaishi. She was in another city when the earthquake occurred, and came back to her home. She wrote, “Your mother and father are safe. I got words from them, “We are alive and fine. Don’t worry.” Your mother is managing everything well in the situation with no electricity and water. Since we lack of gasoline, our neighbors share a car and go to a supermarket to buy foods. As your mother said, I think helping each other is really important.”
I was really relieved then. It was almost a week after the earthquake. Until then, so many people helped and encouraged me: classmates, my host family in the previous house, friends, and colleagues of my previous workplace… I really appreciate them for sharing the pain and showing the sympathy.
Some more days later, the cell phone system restarted to work in my hometown, and I finally could reach my parents. It was 2 weeks after the earthquake. When the earthquake occurred, my father was in the hospital which is about 12km away from my home. He drove back home then, and the tsunami came when he reached there. He said he could see the wave coming to the coast at the balcony of the house. My mother was in the bank in the downtown, and was waiting for a bus at the bus stop. Then she heard the warning of tsunami. When she looked back, she saw the debris with cars and other things were approaching her. Then she ran away toward the inland and climbed up the hill with other evacuees. She said the tsunami was still coming even when she was running up the hill. It was 30 minutes after the earthquake.
Unfortunately, over 700 citizens died and another over 600 citizens are still missing in Kamaishi. Overall in the north-eastern Japan, more than 12,000 people are confirmed to be dead and over 15,000 people are still missing. Missing people are probably under the debris and under the sea at this moment. I think the sadness that their family and friends have are far beyond my imagination. I do hope people are missing to be found as soon as possible.
What people want to know best is whether their family are safe when natural disasters occur. Phone did not work next day neither, so many people were using Twitter, social networking services, google person finders to get information of their family. Most of the time, I was checking information on Twitter and share them with my friends and people from my hometown. I thought information is the most vital. Even if they are small pieces of information, when many of them are accumulated, they will be useful to capture what happened in my hometown as a whole.
I registered my parents name on Google Person Finder, and sent an email to a local radio station so that they would read aloud the name of my parents. They were reading aloud all messages from listeners for 24 hours. I understood how a local radio was important because listeners may have a portable radio though they cannot watch tv, and they tell us very detailed information such as who are looking for whom, which roads are available, and which shelter does not have enough foods, etc... Besides, the national broadcasting and large private tv stations could not work on these and were not very helpful to grasp the local condition. I also wrote how my classmates in Lund were worrying about them. I knew there was no electricity and my parents might not be listening to the radio, but I wanted to do try everything I could do. So did many people, I guess.
One of the most important information were satellite and aerial photos of my hometown. You can see which areas were devastated by the tsunami from the photos. The coastal areas were mostly destroyed as you can see in the aerial photos.
I got to know the houses near by the coast in my home area were washed out. The tsunami came to the train station, but it seemed it did not go further. The tsunami did not reach my home because its altitude is a little high though it is just about 1.2 km away from the coast. I got to know my home seemed safe. But I could not know where were my parents when the earthquake occurred. If they were in the downtown...such a negative imagination comes out many times.
According to the news and information on Twitter, there were many people evacuated from the tsunami and they were in a public shelter, but they really lacked of foods and water. It was very cold for them because the temperature was below 0 and it was snowing. What made it worse was there was no electricity and oil, so the condition in the shelters. Each public shelter made lists of evacuees, and the prefecture police office collects them and showed them online. These are quite important information source for us.
Later, I found there was my mother's name on the list. She seemed to be in the city court in the downtown of Kamaishi. But I was wondering where my father was. Why they are not together...?
Japan is a country which often experiences earthquakes. Perhaps most of us are quite used to small shakes. There was a news about a big earthquake occurred in north-eastern Japan on 9th March and a little height tsunamis came to the coastal cities. I did not worry about it at all because the damage was quite small.
I went to the lecture around at 9:00 AM and met my teacher when I opened the door. This day was one of the most important day for me since our group was going to give a presentation of a project. I said him "good morning" and he responded me,
"Did you hear the news about the earthquake?"
I thought it was about the earthquake occurred 2 days ago, but it was not. He said, "today" and "400 km northern from Tokyo." I immediately opened the news web page and found the name of my hometown "Kamaishi" and "4.2 m tsunami (later I got to know it was over 10m)." Another article said, "magnitude 8.9." I was really shocked because I knew how tsunami at this height was powerful and destructive, and thought of safety of my parents soon. I made a phone call to my father, but it did not work. "The phone lines are full", I thought. All of my classmates became quiet when they heard the conversation between the teacher and me, and someone said, "Japan is prepared for this kind of natural disasters, so they will manage well." But I knew this was the different. I could not be optimistic at all and got a little panic , and went to another room to be alone and calm down.
I called and sent emails to my parents many times, but I could not make it. The more I reloaded the web page, the more bad news came. It was easy to guess so many people were already washed out. Later, the international news was showing the video of my hometown. The massive tsunami was washingout ships and cars, and roads were disappeared. On another video, the buildings in the downtown of Kamaishi was being destroyed by tsunami, and collapsed houses were spreading out dust into the sky. The sky was becoming gray and gray with the dust. I could not believe it. Is this my hometown where I grew up for 18 years? Is this the city I walked just 2 months ago? Yes, my hometown was being devastated.
After going back home, I checked different types of news to know what happened in my home region Tohoku (North East) Region, and tried to contact with my family. The media broad-casted overall information such as height of tsunami, which cities got damaged, how many people were missing... But there was no detailed information about my hometown such as which areas were destroyed, where did people evacuated, etc... Later, I got to know the reasons were simple: the cell phone tower was collapsed, fixed phones were not available, the internet in local areas was not available. From the news, I got to know many coastal cities in north-eastern Japan had severely damaged by the tsunamis. Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture had oil spilled, which made huge fires in the downtown. Minami Soma had the large crop fields were covered with dark colored sea water and huge debris. Many coastal cities experienced over 10 m tsunami, and a lot of lives were immediately taken. It was too early that tsunami came after the earthquake, only 30-60 mins after the earthquake. Many people tried to run away from the tsunamis, but the time was not enough.
I really worried about my parents, relatives, and friends. Eventually I had been watching news until 6 a.m. on the next day. But there was little useful information.
Act for Japan in Sweden & Denmark started as a group of Japanese exchange students at Lund University soon after the earthquake and tsunami hit our home country Japan on March 11, 2011. Now, it also spreads in Malmö and Copenhagen.
I couldn't just believe such a catastrophe really happened in my country even though I was keeping myself updated about it through TV, newspapers, and Twitter. But, without experiencing anything regarding the earthquake, tsunami, or fear from the effects of nuclear power plants, my normal life was going on here in Sweden. Understanding what's happening there from my heart was very difficult for me, and that might have made me more upset and disappointed.
Now, I think I've slightly moved forward. More than 40 other Japanese and international friends are together and are very positive to take the greatest actions that we can do here.
Svenska Röda Korset is our official partner, in addition to the amazingly supportive Lund University. We promise every single activity, from street donations to charity events, will be trustworthy and all collected money will be donated to Japanese Red Cross via the Swedish one.
We would like you to be aware that it takes not a month or year but a decade or more for many of the victims of natural disasters to be back to their normal life. I wish the terrible happening wouldn't fade away from our memories and want to say to Japan and the people, "I´m thinking of you always."
Thanks for your sympathies and interest in Act for Japan in Sweden & Denmark.
If you're willing to donate, please visit the website of Svenska Röda Korset!
Also, you're more than welcome to become a member of our facebook group :)