After the Disaster -to make your emotional feelings sustainable-

<This is a translation of a Japanese blog entry written 1 week after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. It's not my blog, but the entry is quite interesting so I translated it with the author's approval. Original entry in Japanese: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Asmodeus-DB/20110318/p1 >

16 years ago, 17 January 1995, I had experienced the Great Hanshin Earthquake.

My house was in Amagasaki-city at that time, which is in the same prefecture with the most affected area but not close to there. However, even so, my house was partly broken and essential utilities were all terminated. Electricity recovered the earliest but it took a few days, and a few months were needed to get water and gas supplies back.

Kobe, the capital city of our prefecture, was really terrible. I had never imagined the highway could turn upside down, but it did. Tall buildings were pushed over sideways. Transportation systems were disrupted, obviously. Three train lines connecting Osaka (another big city) and Kobe were all stopped. In addition to that, Hankyu-Itami station's building, my nearest station, was completely destroyed. I almost fainted.

Do you remember how long it took to restore the transportation network? Half a year since the earthquake, affected train lines from Osaka to Kobe were restored finally. To build the new Hankyu-Itami station, 3 more years were needed. It's completed in November, 1998. So, almost 4 years were spent just to restore the train network. Imagine the rest of the recovery process.

After the Great Hanshin earthquake, 'temporary houses' were spotlighted. Because most of the affected houses were made of wood, they were burned by fires after the quake. For people who lived in these houses, lots of 'temporary houses' were built. A maximum of 46,000 families were living in the temporary houses provided by the city/government. I heard the last family left there after 5 years from the earthquake. It means they couldn't get their houses back for 5 years.

Well, what I want to tell you at first is, how long it takes to complete an earthquake recovery process. It takes a lot of manpower, too. Buildings and infrastructure are never grown naturally. Somebody must work for it. It takes years to rebuild cities, sometimes we bring them back better than before. Take a look at Kobe city today, you will not find remains of the disaster. It proves that people, my parents' generation, worked hard and put effort for a long time.

Now, let's go back to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Because the epicenter was on the side of Pacific ocean which is denser than the other side of Japan, the large number of things were attacked by Tsunami. The Tsunami washed away everything including buildings and people in a moment. It has also affected power stations and oil factories so electricity and oil are in shortage. It's really terrible.

The Tokyo area is also affected by this disaster. Transportation networks were largely affected and most trains were stopped on the day earthquake happened. People were panicking slightly. Thanks to that, lots of people have interest in this disaster and its damages. What I want to tell you next is about how you feel, yes, your emotional feelings.

It's impossible to keep particular emotional feelings like sympathy, interest, curiosity, excitement, and good/bad intentions for a long time. Your current emotions, especially your sympathy for affected area, will last 2 month at most. For the Great Hanshin Earthquake, most sympathy for the disaster vanished when a Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway happened in March, in the same year. When the mass media shifted their main topic, people except ones in the affected area lost their sympathy.

It's not always negative to forget things. Human cannot think many things at the same time. Too many heartbreaking events and thoughts will mentally hurt you. So I encourage you to forget bad things. However, please don't forget that a LONG TIME and HUGE MANPOWER are CRUCIALLY NEEDED to REBUILD CITIES after an enormous natural disaster.

In very near future, the mass media will start treating the disaster as a showbiz. (note from the translator: I think they've done it already.) A few months later, no mass media will report about it anymore. Even if no media reports about it, people working for the recovery and people suffering from injuries or sickness will NEVER gone. Please, please don't forget about it.

I'm assuming two things will happen in the near future.

Firstly, electricity will be in desperately shortage for at least half a year. Now people in the Tokyo are slightly excited about the disaster and younger generation make an atmosphere made of good intentions to save electricity. However, what will happen when the mass media stop reporting about the disaster including the nuke problems? They might start complaining "why we need to endure such inconveniences?" I'm sure they will. When summer starts and people have forgotten about the disaster, what will they think about? Summer in Tokyo is terribly hot. Do you think you can bear the long hot summer without something cold to drink? I think most of them will not accept it. Probably I can't.

Secondly, the shortage of blood will also happen. Blood for transfusion cannot last long. Fresh blood will be good for use less than a month. I'm not an expert, so if remember correctly, whole blood lasts about 3 weeks, and platelets last only 4 days. It's great many people are donating their blood so that there's enough blood for transfusion now. However blood donated now will be not available after a month. It's not possible to cure all the injured and the patients in a month. It takes a long time to cure human being as well as to rebuild cities. Blood are needed until they all recover from the damage.

I admit it is natural to forget your sympathy/good intention for the affected area. No emotional feelings will continue for long. It's understandable people will complain about inconvenience (occurred by the disaster) in the near future. However, again, I sincerely hope you will remember you could be patient and you did have good intentions when the disaster happened. When you remember that, and if you feel like so, please join blood donation or volunteer work.

If you agree with me, I encourage you to create a sustainable system to make your emotional feelings sustainable. If you really wish to help affected people/area, please set a reminder for you in future.

Do you have a mobile phone? It will have a scheduling function. What you need to do is just to add a note like "Go blood donation", "Think 10 min what can I do to help the affected area?", "XX months passed since the disaster", "Tweet to save electricity", "Remember my good intentions", "Donate just 5 dollars" in the scheduler. Web applications such as Remember The Milk will also help you. These reminder notes will help you to change 'current excitement' into 'continuous actions'.

In my opinion, an act of kindness is a kind of hobby.

Since it's a hobby, you shouldn't be absorbed in it, you need to enjoy it. You can't support others if you can't support yourself. You can't continue doing it if you can't enjoy it. Continuing something not enjoyable will not benefit you, even if you are full of good intentions. Sacrificing yourself is precious and venerable, however you shouldn't sacrifice yourself continuously. Self-sacrifice is a little similar to alcohol, it's easy to be out of control. I don't suggest you to do that, as there are many other ways to support people in the world today.

So, if you can't adopt to the reminder system I suggested, you shouldn't continue, I think. You can continue supporting someone only when you can enjoy it.

Dear everyone who have sympathy and good intentions after the disaster, Please be considerate to keep up your emotional feelings. Please do something, setup your reminder system for example, to continue your support.

Thank you.