Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Please help.

Before, and after

The earthquake and following tsunami has devastated large swathes of north east Japan. The quake has leveled many towns, and the following tsunami rolled in, and literally scoured the land free of any remnant of those towns. 

Basically, nothing left

Many of these towns are unlikely to be rebuilt, ever. Indeed, one town had a population of 17,000. 7,000 people where safely evacuated. That means that more than half the population is missing. Many towns will probably never be re-populated. Everything that makes a town, a town, is gone. Homes, schools, shops, businesses, restaurants, bars, everything. It is almost as if the town was never there.

Mother nature, despite kicking lumps out of Japan, does have a sense of humour

This has devastated many lives, and hammered Japan hard. My area was not affected by the quake. But the impact is so great that we now have fuel rationing, and rolling blackouts to reduce demand so as much power as possible can be directed to the relief effort. Simply because there is no power generating capacity in the northeast of Japan.

Dead fish? No, dead boats.

So, please, dig deep, and help. The disaster side of this is going to take months to stabilize. The clean-up will take longer, and the rebuilding will take years. The people will take years and years to recover.

Dont think I need to say anything about this.

So, please, here is a list of charities that are looking to help out with this disaster. To steal Tesco's strapline:

"Every little helps!"

Please be careful! The Red Cross has announced scam e-mails going round purporting to come from them asking for donations! Ignore it! Go direct to their website!

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