Fu checks in with family in Japan

JAPANESE national Fu Akamine, who lives in Kilmaley with his wife Sarah, first heard about last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan by text.

Originally from the metropolitan area of Southern Tokyo, Fu was stunned when he learned of the devastation that engulfed his home country on Friday afternoon.
“An Irish friend of mine sent me a text. He had heard about the earthquake. Then I turned on the radio and turned on my computer to check on the news and I saw the disaster,” Fu told The Clare Champion on Tuesday.
“I talked to my brother, who lives there. They have power cuts occasionally and they feel the aftershocks from time to time but everybody there is very calm and it’s not much different from normal daily life.
“There’s no panic there, although the local commuter train is not running and the local supermarket only opens for half a day. The petrol station is empty because people obviously want to keep some petrol in the car just in case,” Fu added.
He believes people are staying calm mostly because the Japanese media are not sensationalising the disaster.
“There’s quite a bit of disruption there but it’s not chaotic there at all. People are very calm. I think that’s thanks to the media, especially the TV, although in my opinion Japanese people do not realise how dangerous it is now,” he suggested.
On Tuesday afternoon there was a powerful aftershock near Shizuoka, south-west of Tokyo. Japanese television described it at “six plus” on the Japanese intensity scale, which runs from zero to seven. It has been described as magnitude 6.0 in the Richter Scale.
Currently, the overriding concern in Japan is the stability of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima.
“It’s not under control and I think it’s getting worse. I just rang my brother to discuss it and talk about the possibility of evacuating to western Japan.
“My biggest concern is the power plant and that there could be a disaster. I’m just following the news and I don’t know what else I can do,” Fu concluded.