Encouragement from Oversea

The government announced that the electric power supply in the Kanto Region, where more than 40 million people are living, would not be able to be maintained over this night unless electric power demand decreased. It is cold today, so the lower temperature is increasing power demand for heating both in residential houses and the industrial sector, and there may be a possibility that the demand will exceed the supply.

My boss requested his subordinates to go home at 4:30 p.m. because the transportation system would not be functionning if the electric power supply stopped. Though I had a task to be finished, I left the office. The unintentional and large scale blackout has not occurred so far, fortunately.

Tokyo Electric Company (TEPCO) is responsible for supplying electricity in the Kanto Region. Since several power plants, including Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, owned by TEPCO were damaged by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami and did not work at this time. Thus, TEPCO is now short of electric supply.

The situation is more severe in the Tohoku Region than in the Kanto Region. More than 15,000 people who had lived there were confirmed to have died or been lost so far. In addition, more than 0.45 million people are in refugee camps in the Tohoku Region. Little water/gas/electricity/oil/food have been provided to the refugee camps so far.

Furthermore, the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is getting worse day by day. I cannot capture what is going on there, but I am certain that in the future this crisis will be proved to have harmed the health of many people (I don’t know whether or not the radiation pollution remains to be confined in Japan) and polluted the soil/air/water in Japan and the Pacific Ocean.

The Japanese people are now in trouble. Thus, I am very glad to hear that foreign people are kindly expressing their sympathy for Japan. Some artists gave money donations to us. Some countries provided us with daily necessities. Other individuals encouraged us over the Internet. I greatly appreciate every bit of help offered by foreign countries. The encouragement from foreign countries must directly help us.