Expatriates Say ‘Japan at Its Best’ as Nation Endures Disaster
Expatriates Say ‘Japan at Its Best’ Nation Endures Disaster
George Iino/Bloomberg
As the scenes of devastation from Japan’s strongest earthquake on record and the resulting tsunami hit television screens around the world, Im-gyung Koo marveled at the calmness of the victims.
As the scenes of devastation from Japan’s strongest earthquake on record and the resulting tsunami hit television screens around the world, Im-gyung Koo marveled at the calmness of the victims. Photographer: George Iino/Bloomberg
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Mike Firn reports from Tokyo about people leaving the city and the country in the aftermath of Friday's record earthquake and the tsunami and nuclear crisis that followed. Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. are "working together as one with all our might" to prevent a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant north of Tokyo. (Source: Bloomberg)
As the scenes of devastation from Japan’s strongest earthquake on record and the resulting tsunami hit television screens around the world, Im-gyung Koo marveled at the calmness of the victims.
“What struck me in this footage of Japanese in shelters, who lost their homes and relatives, is that no one was crying or showing any negativity,” Koo, a 26-year-old language teacher and native of South Korea, said by phone from her home in Tokyo. “There’s this deeply ingrained consideration for others, no matter the circumstances. In Korea, people would be bawling.”
Koo, who has lived in Japan for five years, said she panicked when she turned to TV for guidance as the magnitude-9 earthquake hit on March 11, only to see a shaking image of an empty studio. The composure of her Japanese neighbors, who advised her to stay inside and watch less TV, comforted her.
Foreign governments heightened warnings to nationals in Japan, with several including the U.S. advising citizens to consider leaving the country as concerns mounted over radiation leaks from the earthquake-stricken nuclear power plant in Fukushima, 135 miles north of Tokyo. As expatriates crowd airports trying to escape, many expressed admiration for the way Japanese are enduring a crisis Prime Minister Naoto Kan has described as the country’s worst since World War II.
“All my compatriots have left, but what they are missing is Japan at its best,” said Davy Bergier, a 38-year French musician living in Tokyo. “There is a look in the eyes of strangers on the street, more compassionate than before, like they are ready to help.”
U.S. Airlift
The U.S. advised citizens yesterday to consider leaving Japan, urged them to keep 50 miles away from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Dai-Ichi plant in Fukushima, and began an airlift of Americans wishing to leave the nation. The U.K. said people should consider leaving Tokyo. France, Belgium and Norway have advised leaving the country altogether.
Prime Minister Kan appealed for calm as Tokyo residents packed hotels in Osaka, 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of the capital, uncertain whether efforts to contain radiation would be successful. Those remaining in Tokyo face empty supermarket shelves, lines at the gas pump, sporadic train service and rolling blackouts as at least 536 aftershocks have continued to rock the city.
The official death toll from the earthquake and tsunami was 5,692 people, with 9,522 missing and 2,409 injured as of midnight local time, the National Police Agency said. The tsunami and fears of a nuclear meltdown forced 429,519 people from their homes into temporary shelters as of March 16, the police said.
Radiation Readings
Radiation readings in central Tokyo spiked 21-fold to as much as 0.809 microsieverts an hour on March 15, before declining to 0.0489 microsieverts as of 9 a.m. today, according to the website of Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health. Readings in the area the day before the quake averaged 0.0338 microsieverts, according to the agency.
Exposure to 1 sievert of radiation can cause hemorrhaging, 4 sieverts can cause death within two months, and 2,000 sieverts can cause loss of consciousness within minutes and death within hours, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Bergier, the French musician, was riding a train on the Yamanote line, a 21-mile above-ground railroad encircling central Tokyo, when the earthquake struck. Except for a few people who cried out in surprise, most remained calm and within minutes followed the conductor’s instructions to the street, he said.
’Difficult to Panic’
“It was difficult to panic when everyone around you is so composed and orderly,” Bergier, who has lived in Japan for three years and chose to stay in the country with his Japanese wife, said by telephone. “If this was France, there would be a moment of chaos.”
As supplies of bottled water dwindled, Adam Donahue, a 33- year-old U.S. real estate investor based in Tokyo, said he was grateful to see a shopper leave a bottle for him instead of taking all of the remaining stock.
Chia An Lin, 27, who came from Taiwan to study journalism at the University of Tokyo a year ago, dashed out of a ramen shop after the earthquake, the world’s fourth-most powerful since 1900, hit. She found herself standing alone in the street.
“People keep calm, they stay in lines, no one is grabbing stuff -- I really respect that,” said Lin, who still recalls Taiwan’s worst earthquake in September 1999, which claimed 2,500 lives.
Social Conditioning
No cases of looting were reported in the days following the earthquake, either in Tokyo or elsewhere, the National Police Agency said. People continued to stand in line at supermarkets, train stations and ATMs even as news of rising radiation levels grew grimmer.
“Japanese line up for things, that’s nothing special. What’s amazing is that the lines got even straighter since the quake,” said Abasa Phillips, a 35-year-old U.S. citizen living in Tokyo.
The social habits on display seem more deep-seated than simple manners and etiquette, said Sangita Rajbongshi, who moved to Japan from India 11 years ago. The 34-year-old left her apartment building in the suburbs of Tokyo to witness nursery- school teachers taking children outside to safety.
“It looked like if the ceiling had fallen on their heads the teachers would protect the kids with their own bodies; that’s the kind of training they get,” said Rajbongshi, a mother of two and a part-time English teacher. “Maybe this is something beyond any training -- one has to learn it from the day one is born.”
When she invited the nursery-school group into her apartment building’s spacious lobby from the cold, they apologized profusely for imposing, Rajbongshi said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net
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