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.