Japanese leader urges people to unite, rebuild

[onehandle]

Source: AP

TOKYO – Japan's prime minister is calling on all the nation to unite in rebuilding the country from scratch.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a national television address Friday that, "We will rebuild Japan from scratch. We must all share this resolve."

Kan exhorted all Japanese not to be discouraged and to carry on with working hard, just as they have rebuilt Japan in the past. He said the massive earthquake and tsunami disaster and ensuing nuclear crisis were a "great test for the Japanese people."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake

---

Maybe you need to wait and see how much is left of Japan to rebuild on.

[Demeter]

1. Yeah

I was expecting something more on the lines of "Run for your lives!"

[EFerrari]

6. Terrible stories this morning of hospital and nursing home staff that did.

The military apparently is going through the affected areas and finding a lot of seniors left behind to fend for themselves. Lots of deaths. :(

[octothorpe]

10. Didn't we see a lot of that here during Katrina?

Sad :(

[Uncle Joe]

12. No the hospital staff in New Orleans stood with their patients in-spite of being surrounded by

water and Alligators, but they're weren't in danger of being exposed to high doses of radiation either and Al Gore did eventually rescue about 270 of them while Bush played guitar, ate cake and did a flyover.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/02/24/305376/-Oscar-edition,-Al-Gore-rescued-Katrina-victims-Sep-2005AP

Award-winner and VP Al Gore chartered a rescue plane in the 1st week following Katrina and flew to New Orleans to medEvac 100s of patients from Charity Hospital and bring them to Tennessee.

During the transport, Gore declined interviews while he was shuttling the evacuees that Saturday and in a 2nd return flight he made on Sunday, but the doctors who flew with him talked about the experience.

Gore had to work around a sequential blockade by FEMA, which naturally denied his team permissions, repeatedly.


KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP)- Al Gore helped airlift some 270 Katrina evacuees on two private charters from New Orleans, acting at the urging of a doctor who saved the life of the former vice president's son.

... refused to be interviewed about the mercy missions he financed and flew last Saturday and Sunday. . . .

(snip)

At every turn, FEMA and military officials tried to stop these 2 flights.

The 1st flight out on Saturday was mostly patients in need of supervised care, including dialysis and insulin, and the second one on Sunday had more evacuees and fewer patients.

After landing slots were denied numerous times during the planning, the one person in Washington who would grant the 2 landing slots ended up being the single Democratic member of Bush's cabinet, Norm Mineta. That took a personal call from Gore to Mineta to override the instructions from below to withhold landing slots.


much more on link

[EFerrari]

16. Iirc, there was one facility where the staff split

and I believe the owner was later charged. See if I can find the story.

Maybe it was St. Rita's nursing home mentioned here:

The abandonment of residents of St. Rita's Nursing Home in Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish was cited as an example of what can happen to the elderly during a disaster. The 35 old folks "left to die" as Katrina approached was "the most disgraceful" episode in all the tragedies on the Gulf Coast, said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., chairman of the Special Committee on Aging.


http://www.globalaging.org/armedconflict/countryreports/americas/affectedmost.htm

Here's a story about the owners' trial, looks like they were acquitted:

http://www.nola.com/living/index.ssf/2008/02/st_ritas_nursing_home_trial_ba.html

[Uncle Joe]

18. Now that you mention it, EFerrari, I do recall that incident. n/t

[Dappleganger]

11. Do you have a source for this info?

Thanks.

[EFerrari]

13. Greg Mitchell tweeted a link here:

RT @estheraddley Such a shocking story of elderly Japanese left to die in nuclear zone http://gu.com/p/2nzyy/ip
4 hours ago via web

http://twitter.com/#!/GregMitch/status/48719681787404288

It goes to The Guardian. :(

[Dappleganger]

14. Thank you.

[Dappleganger]

15. Oh my, what a sad article.

This one really got me...

"The charity said they met Kazuki Seto, eight, at an evacuation centre not far from Sendai. He told them: "We are really worried about the nuclear power plants. We are very afraid of nuclear radiation. That's why we don't play outside." Another, Yasu Hiro, 10, added: "We know about the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we are very scared. It makes us really worry. If it explodes it is going to be terrible."


:cry: :cry: :cry:

[EFerrari]

17. Very sad.

I can't believe this is happened to Japan. :(

[Nitram]

2. nice sentiment

But you better solve the slight problem of four reactors that are on the verge of catastrophe. Can't rebuild while you're watching radiation levels and waiting for an explosion.

[mia]

3. Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Alexander Pope

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Rebubula]

5. OK....

...what would you have him say??

'You are all soooo fucked, seppuku is all we have left'
'Start hoarding and kill anyone that gets in your way'
'Oh well...it was a good run'



Seriously - what else could he say other than be upbeat? What good does it do to be morose? Should he be looking to blame someone for this?

The Japanese will overcome this.

The Japanese are a very cohesive culture and very proud. No doubt the Japanese have more historical blood on their hands than pretty much any other country (like any other group, they have been right bastards from time to time - but they have done it with gusto) - but they have shown great resolve and will rise back after this.


Wringing your hands just prevents you from rolling up your sleeves.

[GKirk]

9. "Wringing your hands just prevents you from rolling up your sleeves."

Was that original? Cause it was pretty good.

[JJW]

7. Winning the future

[thelordofhell]

8. Northern Japan will rebuild and prosper

While New Orleans will still be ignored and never rebuilt. :-(

While The World Trade Center site will never be rebuilt. :-(

[Wednesdays]

19. They did it before, they'll do it again

When you consider the utter devastation from World War II bombings (exacerbated by historic typhoon and earthquake disasters ca. 1943-8), the fact that Japan became a major economic power in less than a generation is nothing less than awesome.

Tokyo and Yokohama were utterly destroyed by the 1923 earthquake, and they rebuilt in time to fight World War II.

Terrible as the destruction has been this past week, more than 80% of Japan is unaffected, and I'm sure they'll rebound quickly.