MSNBC: 400,000+ displaced tsunami survivors ask 'When can we go home?'

[Amerigo Vespucci]

'When can we go home?' tsunami survivors ask
Prefab homes rise but that's little comfort to 400,000 displaced

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42201148/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan — Yukiko Yamaguchi wants to go home.

But like more than 400,000 others staying in shelters since a powerful tsunami plowed through their homes 10 days ago, the 73-year-old has no idea when she'll be able to. Rebuilding Japan's northeast coast is expected to take years, and the monumental effort is not even close to beginning.

Instead, another phase is slowly getting off the ground: the construction of prefabricated homes as temporary housing for the displaced.

"We're anxious to leave here," Yamaguchi said, sitting with her husband on a woven mat in a middle-school gym that has been their home since the town of Rikuzentakata was flattened by the raging torrent of water on March 11.



Lunch is served Monday at an evacuation center where hundreds of homeless are staying in Rikuzentakata, Japan.

[Little Star]

1. I pray that their government helps them more.....

than ours did the survivors of Katrina.

How do people even begin to get their lives back together after something like this? I don't know if I could do it at my age. I wouldn't even know where to begin.

So dang sad. :cry:

[Auntie Bush]

2. Look how neat the place is...no litter on the floors and everything

organized in an orderly fashion. Amazing! Good for the Japanese!

[msongs]

4. nobody waving their guns nt

[SoCalDem]

3. When you consider the ages of many of the people, the govt needs to

build some communal living centers & staff them with some of the younger folks who have lost their way to make a living.


The massive clean up will take a LONG time, and anyone who grew food for a living, may have unusable soil for a very long time as well:(

[Sky Masterson]

5. People can still donate.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/11/6246445-japans-earthquake-how-to-help
Many links here.
I gave to Mercy corps https://www.mercycorps.org/donate/japan