Tohoku Pacific Earthquake: Report 7 on Medical Activities on the ground - Médecins du Monde Japan

[Great Eastern Japan Earthquake： Report 7 on Medical Activities on the ground‘Like the sakura’] It is almost 3 months now since the disaster. We first arrived in the area on the 3rd of April so as of today (3rd of June) we have been here for exactly 2 months. The town and the people are slowly showing signs of improvement. Thanks to the enormous efforts of the self defense forces the rubble that covered the streets has been cleared and separated into piles of wood, steel and so on. Many of the badly damaged houses that are no longer safe for dwelling have also been torn down. The scores of local volunteers who covered their own travel costs and worked without pay have helped clean up the first floors of many houses which were damaged by flooding, enabling the victims of the damage who were living on their second floors to live downstairs again. The sakura were also overwhelmed by the floods, but their tenacity meant that at the beginning of May they burst into flower and then shed their blossoms as they would any other year. We can see the deep green of the mountains intensify with each passing day. As we go around the evacuation shelters and local homes providing care, these are the small changes in the town that we can see.