What to do with all those wrecked cars and debris?

Part of the cleanup includes collecting all the cars that have been scattered everywhere by the tsunami waters. Some cities have resorted to stacking them up three of four high just to get them out of the way. Other cities have decided to not stack them but instead to line them up on the level out of respect for the owners who may want to retrieve items from the car, etc. In this situation, the city looks up the owner by the licence plate number. Then they send a letter to notify the owner and ask for permission to junk the car. However, many of these letters come back because the owner's homes were destroyed or the owner had to evacuate and can not be found.

It will likely take at least three years to clear up all the debris left from the disaster. It is estimated that the total volume of the debris will take up the space worth about twenty years of usual garbage collection. So it is a dilemma where to put all of it. Many places are working hard to separate the debris for recycling or burnable disposal. Other places are making plans to use the debris to build up a better sea wall to protect communities from future tsunamis.

More reactor shutdown news

Since the quake, 35 of Japan's 54 reactors have been temporarily shut down for safety inspections. Perhaps even more will need to be closed for inspection in the future. The general public has become very concerned about reactor safety and there is growing interest that nuclear energy be discontinued completely.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company has just revised their plans for bringing the Fukushima reactors under control. Their goal is still to have things to a cold shut down within 9 months, but they've had to change their tactics. There has been news that reactor 1's pressure vessel has been damaged by melting fuel and is causing the leaking of highly contaminated water into the containment chamber. And from there it is leaking into other areas. There's more talk about cleaning and recirculating the water back into the reactor so less water has to be disposed of.

Also, they're getting a lot more robots into action.

Reactor shutdown news

The president of the Chubu Electric Company has just announced that it will be shutting down some of it's nuclear reactors in order to improve safety conditions. The reactors that will be shut down are in the Hamaoka reactor complex in Shizuoka prefecture. These reactors are only about 100 miles from us in the other direction from Tokyo, so it was big news for us.

For about a month after the big earthquake, there were many aftershocks, but there haven't been many recently. However, it has been predicted that there may be another big quake in this region within the next 30 year. So at the suggestion of the government, the power company will be shutting down these reactors until it can build better sea walls and back up protection. A lot of valuable lessons have been learned from the nuclear disaster in Fukushima.

The shutdown of these reactors will be affecting areas in Shizuoka and Aichi prefectures. This will include the city of Toyota where we have a lot of friends and family. This of course is also the headquarters of the Toyota Motor Company.

There's some other news about the evacuation area around the Fukushima reactors. The government has announce that it will be safe enough to allow people in the restricted area to come back to their homes for a short trip only so they can get personal possessions etc. However it will still be six to nine months or more before they can move back into their homes.

Still a lot of cleaning up to do

It's been quite a while since the big earthquake, but it's still going to be a long time time before the communities are fully recovered. I've heard that it's probably going to take about three years just to clean everything up. Watching the news it's just amazing to see the mile after mile of rubble and debris left behind.
After looking at this picture you can really get the idea of how much work it's going to take to rebuild some of these towns.

As of last Sunday, there have been 14,877 confirmed dead, 9,960 still missing and 119,656 people living in refugee shelters. I'm not entirely sure, but I think there are still some places where water and electric have not been restored yet. On the good side, there has been a lot of support coming in the form of living goods being donated from all over the place. Also, there are a lot of volunteers donating their time and services. These may range from people just helping clean up to doctors coming to check on people in the shelters and barbers to cut hair. Even entertainers have been traveling to the disaster locations to give moral support and cheer people up.

The city officials of these towns have also been working hard to keep there communities together. This has been an extremely difficult task since in many places the records of citizens have been destroyed in the tsunami flooding. In addition to that, the residents have been scattered to many different refugee shelters and it has been taking time to find out the status of all of the city's citizens. Of course even the distribution of mail has been difficult without knowing where the mail needs to be delivered to.

The biggest problems that people are facing in these communities consist of finding jobs, housing, raising children and schooling. Some of these communities even had to decide weather the whole town should evacuate/relocate as a group of if the citizens would be better to relocate separately. Many people have strong connections with families and neighbors making these decisions very difficult. It also has been difficult for children to be separated from their friends and schoolmates.

Testing fish for radiation

I just saw on the news today that the Japanese government will be increasing it's testing of sea food for high radiation levels. The testing locations will be increased from what it is at now (about 45) to over a hundred points ranging from where we live in Kanagawa prefecture all the way up the northern coast of Japan. The tests will be done once per week. If high levels are found, the fisheries will be not be able to harvest any fish until the readings have dropped to a safe level for three consecutive weeks. The results of these tests will be available to the public so other countries will be reassured of Japanese sea food.