March 18th, 2011
Thank you everyone for your emails! To those of you have have donated, your generosity is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!
There have been many aftershocks but the damage has been minimal. People are doing their best to get back to their normal lives, but it will take a very long time especially in the damaged areas.
“Surreal” doesn’t begin to describe what has happened. This isn’t a movie by Roland Emmerich — it’s the real thing.
At times I feel very guilty. I’ll be sitting at my table in my warm house eating a good meal. But on the TV are nothing but images of thousands of people stranded in evacuation shelters with no heat, electricity, and minimal food. I often think “how can I be enjoying these simple things when so many don’t even have the basic necessities of life?”
And yet through it all, the Japanese people have remained civil. There have been no reports of looting. In the disaster area where some stores still have sellable goods, people make single-file lines and patiently wait their turn to get into the store. People are limited to only 10 items each and yet many choose to buy even less. Why? Because, as one person puts it, “there are people who need them more than we do.”
A personal request
I’ve heard that many people overseas have been buying up potassium iodide pills, which are known to prevent cancer from radiation exposure. Just to let you know, unless you live within a 100-200 mile radius of the Japanese reactor, then you don’t need these pills. It has been confirmed by doctors and scientists worldwide that even if a major meltdown occurs (which it hasn’t) the amount of radiation reaching the United States and Europe will be next to nothing. You’ve got a better chance of being struck by lightning then being effected by radiation in the event of a meltdown.
Many pharmaceutical companies in the United States had been donating those pills to Japan. But due to the mass hysteria in the US and in other countries, these pills have almost completely sold out. No longer can these companies donate the pills to Japan where they are needed. And there is a major shortage of potassium iodide pills in Japan.
Even here in my city (about 300 miles away from the reactors) no one is rushing out to the stores to buy these pills. When I asked a Japanese friend of mine why people around here aren’t buying those pills he said, “Because there are people who need them more than we do.”