Misery in a rich Asian nation: No gas, no water

TAKAJO, Japan—“I’m giving up hope,” construction industry worker Hajime Watanabe, 38, said as he lined up at a closed gas station in the quake-ravaged Sendai City. “I had a good life before. Now we have nothing. No gas, no electricity, no water.”

At a Red Cross hospital in Ishinomaki, a city also engulfed by the tsunami, no space was left unused as exhausted medics slept side by side with the wounded and droves of more injured people streamed in, hospital officials aid.

In Japan’s devastated coastal towns, rescue workers used chain saws and hand picks on Monday to dig out bodies.

In one of Asia’s richest nations, misery seemed almost everywhere.

Three days after a massive earthquake and tsunami that police said possibly killed more than 10,000 people in one province alone, the world’s third largest economy faced a mounting humanitarian, nuclear and economic crisis.

About 590,000 people have been evacuated, UN officials said.

The badly wounded nation has seen whole villages and towns wiped off the map by walls of water, triggering an international humanitarian effort of epic proportions.

Coffins running out

In Iwate Prefecture, one of three hardest hit areas, rescue officials said they were running out of body bags and coffins and may have to turn to foreign funeral homes.

“It’s just overwhelming,” said Hajime Sato, a government official in Iwate.

“I never imagined we would be in such a situation,” said the construction worker Watanabe.

He was first in line at the closed gas station in Sendai but was later told that if the station opened at all, it would pump gasoline only to emergency teams and essential government workers.

Watanabe said he was surviving with his family on 60 half-liter bottles of water that his wife had stored in case of emergencies.

He walked two hours to find a convenience store that was open and waited in line to buy dried ramen noodles.

In cities and towns, millions of people spent a third night without water, food or heating in near-freezing temperatures along the devastated northeastern coast.

Tsunami scare

A Japanese police official said 1,000 washed up bodies were found scattered on Monday across the coastline of Miyagi prefecture.

This raised the official death toll to about 2,800 but the Miyagi police chief has said more than 10,000 people are estimated to have died in his province alone, which has a population of 2.3 million.

Friday’s double-headed tragedy has caused unimaginable deprivation for people of this industrialized country that has not seen such hardships since World War II.

In many areas, there is no running water, no power and five-hour waits for gasoline. People are suppressing hunger with instant noodles or rice balls while dealing with the loss of loved ones and homes.

“People are surviving on little food and water. Things are simply not coming,” Sato said.

The pulverized coast has been hit by more than 150 aftershocks since Friday, the latest one a 6.2-magnitude quake that was followed by a new tsunami scare on Monday.

Sirens wailed and soldiers barked out orders: “Find high ground! Get out of here!” The tsunami warning turned out to be a false alarm.

Rolling blackouts

Search parties arrived in Soma for the first time since Friday to dig out bodies. Ambulances stood by and body bags were laid out in an area cleared of debris, as firefighters used hand picks and chain saws to clear an indescribable jumble of broken timber, plastic sheets, roofs, sludge, twisted cars, tangled powerlines and household goods.

Helicopters buzzed overhead, surveying the destruction that spanned the horizon. Officials said one-third of the city of 38,000 people was flooded and thousands were missing.

Aid workers and search teams from across the world have joined 100,000 Japanese soldiers in a massive relief push, while temperatures plummeted.

At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck and some 1.9 million households were without electricity.

Planned rolling blackouts of about three hours each were meant to help make up for a severe shortfall after key nuclear plants were disabled.

‘There’s no food!’

Within the dark and fetid wards of Senen General Hospital in Takajo town near Sendai, some 120 patients lay in their beds or slumped in wheelchairs, moaning incoherently.

“There is no food!” an old man in a blue gown cried, to no one in particular.

The earthquake and tsunami heaped untold new misery on those already suffering—thousands of elderly, infirm and sick people in hospitals that were laid to waste by the violent shaking and the walls of water that followed.

Sam Taylor, the spokesperson for Doctors Without Borders, an international group that has sent a team to Japan, said there were longer-term concerns about the elderly, many of whom are fragile and may be living on little food and water without their lifesaving medicines.

Senen hospital had about 200 patients when the earthquake hit, tossing its medical equipment around and collapsing part of the ceiling.

All of its food and medicine was stored on the first floor. Everything was lost in 30 minutes when the tsunami came.

Panic buying

Store shelves and gas stations emptied across the country as panic buying took hold.

“The main humanitarian needs are food, drinking water, blankets, fuel and medical items which the government and private sector in Japan are urgently mobilizing and sending to the affected area,” said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Rolling blackouts began across the nation in a bid to save power.

The United Nations said power and gas supplies were critical, with the Japanese winter bringing sub-zero temperatures overnight and snow and rain forecast for coming days.

Soldiers were distributing heaters, emergency rations, blankets and water, and the military said some 10,000 people had been rescued.

There had been landslides in dozens of regions and roads, bridges and railways had been washed away. Boats, planes and helicopters were being used to ferry supplies and effect rescues. Reports from Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse