Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on Wednesday visited evacuees from the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake at a temporary shelter at Tokyo Budoh-kan in Adachi Ward.
Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on Wednesday visited evacuees from the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake at a temporary shelter at Tokyo Budoh-kan in Adachi Ward.
The emperor, in a green jacket, and the empress, wearing a blue jacket, got down on their knees and talked with evacuees in their temporary living quarters on tatami mats and partitioned with screens or cardboard boxes.
Asked by the emperor how his family members were, 80-year-old Tadao Sugi from Minami-Soma in Fukushima Prefecture, near the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, said everyone in his family survived.
"We left home in the evening of March 11. This is the fifth evacuation center we have stayed at," Sugi said, adding in tears, "My family members are fine, but many people were victimized."
The emperor replied: "The tsunami caused tremendous damage. I hope everyone will take care of themselves."
Empress Michiko talked to Yurina Suzuki, a 20-year-old student from Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, who took refuge with her 7-month-old daughter. "Do you have enough milk and water? Are you sleeping well?" the empress asked.
Suzuki, whose husband had returned to Fukushima for work, said, "I felt relieved by the empress' sympathetic and warm words."
The empress smiled and waved goodbye to children as she was leaving the shelter, saying, "Take care!"
A 43-year-old evacuee from Iwaki received words of encouragement from the emperor.
"I was very happy. I wish I could meet him again, next time in a normal situation and not in such a setting," she said.
About 590 people from disaster areas are now staying in three evacuation centers set up by the Tokyo metropolitan government. Two-hundred and eighty-nine people from 125 households are staying at Tokyo Budoh-kan.
The imperial couple's visit is the latest gesture of consideration for victims of Japan's worst natural disaster since the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 that killed more than 100,000 people.
On March 16, five days after the earthquake and tsunami, the emperor delivered an unprecedented video message for a natural disaster. In the five-and-a-half minute address, the emperor said that he was hurt by the catastrophic damage and that he was worried about the situation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The video message was created at the emperor's initiative. Video recording was done March 16 at the Imperial Palace. Sources quoted the emperor as saying, "Please interrupt the televised message in case urgent news breaks."
The imperial family also provided its facility in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, to earthquake and tsunami victims on March 26.
One evacuee at the facility said he was happy to have taken a bath "for the first time in many days."