12,200 Fishing Boats Lost

 Fishing Boats
The government has announced that more than 12,200 fishing boats were lost to the tsunami. The Tohoku area is one of the best areas for fishing in Japan and those boats need to be replaced for the economy to get back on its feet.

M. 5 earthquakes
Since the big quake on March 11th, there have been at least 372 quakes over M. 5. How does this compare to other, past quakes.
The Kobe quake, 16 years ago, suffered just 106 after quakes over M. 5.
The Niigata area quake a few years ago only had 6 M. 5 quakes.
This just goes to show how massive this Tohoku quake was.
Also, the quakes seem to be heading south to Chiba,... that means Tokyo. Not something I want to think about. Tokyo, supposedly has a major quake every 80 to 100 years. And the last big quake to destroy the city was in 1923. You do the math. :-)

Sad stories
The director of a TV news show went to find his father who lived in a small fishing village of 250. His father lived right on the ocean front. Of that 250, 150 died. There was nothing left of his father's house, nothing left of his father.

Another Fukushima Plant problem -- people trying to get out of the plant area are having a hard time getting into new shelters. They have to first prove that they are not contaminated by radiation.

A farmer has committed suicide after his organically farmed crops were found to be in a radiation contaminated area.

The Ookawa Elementary School Randoseru
Every little boy and girl who is 6 years old and about to enter first grade, looks forward to getting their own  randoseru (click to see photo) or leather book bag. The word comes from the Dutch, ransel, which eventually became radoseru about 1880. Usually the proude grandparents buy the first randoseru that will be used during the 6 years of elementary school to carry all the books needed for school. It is considered a right of passage. To becoming a big boy or big girl. The randoseru seems to over power the little first grader and by the time he/she is in the sixth grade, it looks small on the back of all those much bigger kids.

At the Ookawa Elementary School only 34 of its students survived. The report said that 70% to 80% died.

The teachers did what they were supposed to do. The children followed their teachers out into the school yard. No one knew that the tsunami would come so quick or that it would be so big.

Now there is a sad line of randoseru on the school grounds.  Parents and grandparents are at the school looking at the lined up randoseru, wet and soggy from the tsunami, for their child's school bag, crying when they find it, if they are lucky.

Here is a link to a blog with details about individual families:
Ookawa from Elementary School to Graveyard