Japanese

"Indian Ocean Earthquake"

One of the strongest earthquakes with the magnitude of 9.0 occurred at the off-island of Sumatra at 8:00 a.m. on December 26. The massive tidal waves caused by this earthquake hit eight nations along Indian Ocean, such as Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Malaysia, and total number of victims will be no less than 200,000 people according to the announcement of the United Nations. Since the most of the area stricken by the disaster were resort areas, many video images taken by the tourists were remained and the realistic images that the paradises of everlasting summer were swallowed by the large wave in a moment were repeatedly run on TV even in Japan. It is said that the size of the energy of this earthquake goes up by about 1600 times the Great Hanshin Earthquake (M6.9). In Japan, there is a system that tells the possibility of the danger of tsunami immediately after earthquake information if we have an earthquake. However, no required disaster prevention measure seems to have taken although it had taken 2-5 hours until the tsunami arrived at the stricken areas after the earthquake occurs. The fact that the alarm system has not been put into place in the stricken areas, and the authorities that were anxious about the influence on the tourist industry had hesitated to announce the alert though they have recognized the possibility of tsunami had resulted in generating numerous casualties more than expected. The revival support for the stricken areas has also got into stride. The supporting nation meeting of the United Nations was held on January 11, and debate was made about the concrete use of the support money exceeding 5,500 million dollars to which each country expressed donation until now. While Japan also expressed the donation of 500 million dollars that ranks third next to Australia and Germany, it opted for dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces towards revival support. Japanese economic support as represented by ODA has been criticized as unimpressive because their supports seems to be limited to financial instead of taking actions. Now it's time to carry out a visible contribution to the Asian countries utilizing the technologies and know-how that have been accumulated through the past earthquakes. I think those kind of effort will help us to wipe away a negative image based on historical perception and to increase the presence in Asia in a good sense.