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Tohoku Earthquake

15 years after Tohoku tsunami, Japan’s free disaster phone message number is important to remember

Free-to-use system helps disaster victims connect with loved ones in times of crisis, and is worth remembering for anyone traveling or living in Japan.

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U.S. lifts all agricultural import bans for Fukushima, Tohoku region of Japan

A decade after the 3-11 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear incident, all Japanese produce from the affected areas has an open path to the U.S.

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Japan surprised to find Justin Bieber and world praying for them

On the morning of Saturday, November 14, many Japanese Beliebers, along with some Non-Beliebers and Agnobiebers, awoke and checked into Twitter as usual only to find the famous Canadian pop star declaring that he was praying for their souls right alongside those of the people of Paris.

Confused and a little concerned, I—a card-carrying Agnobeiber—showed the above tweet to my coworkers, all of whom were equally baffled as to why Justin Bieber should be praying for them, considering nothing out of the ordinary happened here in Japan.

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Japanese man helps lost Taiwanese tourists, thanks them instead, warms the hearts of netizens

Many of us may have experienced getting lost in a foreign land and needing assistance from a local person. In most cases, we thank the kind soul who lent us a helping hand, but have you ever received thanks from the person who helped you instead?

A Taiwanese tourist recently shared that during his visit to Osaka, he sought help from a Japanese man, who not only spent over 30 minutes making sure the foreign visitors made it safely to their destination, he even thanked the tourists for their help instead. Find out why after the break!

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“Customer growth is stronger now compared to immediately after the quake,” said G, an organized crime group affiliate familiar with the illegal drug market. The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995 proved there was a good post-disaster market for illegal drugs among temporary housing residents and others suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As a result, when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, dealers from major urban centers swiftly loaded up and headed north to disaster-afflicted areas in the Tohoku region in search of quick profits.

According to G, “First on the scene were the stimulant drug pushers who began selling out of their cars on the back streets and in pachinko (pinball) parlor parking lots. Customers were wide-ranging, from high school students and young bar hostesses to grandfathers and grandmothers. Inferior grades of speed which couldn’t be sold in Tokyo and Osaka were offloaded there.”
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Google to Photograph Street Views of Evacuated Town in Fukushima

It wasn’t just the earthquake or tsunami of March 11, 2011 that shattered the town of Namie in Fukushima Prefecture, it was the subsequent radiation. Slowly creeping across the once fertile land, it ripped families from their homes and banished them to evacuation centers elsewhere. Today, nearly two years after the worse nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, the entire 86 square miles of Namie have been declared uninhabitable due to high levels of radioactive cesium. Even if families wanted to return, they can’t.

Amid this tragic loss, Google Street View is giving the people of Namie a chance to visit the town they were forced to flee.

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Elementary School Child’s Design Chosen For Japanese Commemorative Coin, “Unsophisticated” Drawing Shown No Mercy

Japan’s Ministry of Finance has just announced the chosen designs for coins commemorating the reconstruction efforts for the Great East Japan Earthquake that rocked the northern area of Tohoku on March 11, 2011. 

A premium gold coin with a face value of 10,000 yen (US $127) and a premium silver coin with a face value of 1,000 yen (US $12.75) are schedule to be produced in 2015.  Most are engraved with beautiful symbols of Japan, but does one of them look a little funny to you? Read More

Expensive “Cybernetic Mumification” of Japan’s Tree of Hope Draws Criticism from the Net

The city of Rikuzentakata was thoroughly devastated by the March 11 tsunami.  However, following the destruction a single 27 meter 200 year-old pine tree was left standing, the sole survivor of a forest of 70,000 trees along the coast line.  The tree had become a symbol of hope for the country and local government vowed to protect it at all costs.

However, for the past year the tree’s health had been fading fast and it doesn’t have much longer to live.  And so the city’s government is going to enact a preservation scheme which is rubbing Japanese netizens the wrong way due to its 150,000,000 yen (US$1.9M) price tag.

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