March 20, 2011
Tohoku Zenrokyo (Northeastern NCTU) Countermeasures Commission

We are deeply grateful to your support and cooperation for our earthquake/tsunami sufferers.

Now it is one week since the disaster. The tsunami hit the 5-kilometers-wide area along the 500-kilometers-long Pacific coast. At the inland area, other than the coastal belt, the damages are furniture toppling in general, and there are rather few housing collapses. The overwhelming majority of about 20,000 deaths and missing persons are reported at the Pacific coastal area*.

800-1,000,000 people evacuated the disaster-hit area immediately after the earthquake and tsunami, and now the number of evacuees is around 300,000, with 170,000 in Miyagi prefecture*. The lifeline infrastructures of electricity and water supply has been restored considerably at the inland area, it seems, and evacuees have been returning to their own dwellings accordingly. In the central part of Sendai City, people have decreased at evacuation sites, and numbers of the sites have been shut down step by step.

• As of 23:00 JST, March 23, there were 25,617 deaths and missing persons, the former being 9,523 and the latter 16,094, and the evacuees numbered around 256,700 at the northeastern coastal evacuation sites, with 100,800 evacuees of Miyagi prefecture, 83,800 of Fukushima pref. and 44,300 of Iwate pref., according to the National Police Agency.

　People at the coastal evacuation sites are now those who lost their dwellings and family members due to the tsunami. Much unlike the Great Osaka/Kobe/Awaji earthquake of 1995, people have lost both their dwellings and workplaces through the Northeastern earthquake-tsunami. At the coastal area of Fukushima prefecture, tsunami-disaster countermeasures are obstructed seriously by the Fukushima nuclear disasters, and the survivors are forced to live as collective evacuees at various inland cities.

Lack of fuel is serious very much. Media vehicles for TV broadcasting, too, are waiting in line at gas stations. Workers are unable to attend their workplaces and forced to stand by at home. Japan Tobacco, NTT, JapanRail and other big businesses are dispatching relief supplies to their northeastern or Sendai branch offices. However, the those offices can only notify their employees of the arrival of relief supplies, but unable to distribute the things themselves to them due to the lack of vehicle fuel.

We are now making preparations for our northeastern-wide relief works toward earthquake/tsunami sufferers and Fukushima nuclear evacuees, and we will get started as soon as the vehicle fuel is available to us.

At the moment, it is most urgent to grapple with bathing question under the current condition of no town gas: restoration of the town-gas supply may take 2 months or more. Water and electricity are available now, and some modest solution of the problem is possible for babies with some appropriate electric heaters. Thus, we request our friends to procure those electric heaters and dispatch them to us.

Relief donation account:
Bank: Tohoku-Rodokinko, main office
Account holder: Railway Industrial Workers Union
Account number: xxxxxx

Recipient of relief items:
Tohoku Zenrokyo (Northeastern NCTU) Countermeasures Commission
Sinji 1-5-26-101, Wakabayasi Ward, Sendai City

FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY:

You can send donations via Europe solidaire sans frontières (ESSF), Europe in Solidarity Without Borders :

Cheques
cheques to ESSF in euros only to be sent to:
ESSF
2, rue Richard-Lenoir
93100 Montreuil
France

Bank Account:
Crédit lyonnais
Agence de la Croix-de-Chavaux (00525)
10 boulevard Chanzy
93100 Montreuil
France
ESSF, account number 445757C

International bank account details :
IBAN : FR85 3000 2005 2500 0044 5757 C12
BIC / SWIFT : CRLYFRPP
Account holder : ESSF