Tohoku Pacific Earthquake: Report 9 on Medical Activities on the ground - Médecins du Monde Japan

I have participated in the first, second and now the third month of Doctors of the World’s emotional and psychological care team here in Ohtsuchi. During the first month, the town was so devastated that it looked like it had suffered from a blanket airstrike and I was pained by witnessing the countless victims being packed tightly into evacuation centers. Local government, care systems, schools – everything had ceased to function. When visiting these evacuation centers, we followed in the wake of the emergency care medical teams, quietly listening to the accounts of those who, besides their physical injuries, had suffered such terrible loss that they found it difficult to even put into words. It was as if the sorrow we were sifting through was so great that it had manifested itself physically in the victims. Medical teams which had been dispatched from all over Japan worked hard together, compiling reports on the situation.