(Update) Japan's clear-up likely to take three years

After the tsunami: Japan's clear-up likely to take three years

source: www.mediastar.net.ua

Masayuki Yamazaki takes a camping chair out of his car, unfolds it outside his home of 20 years and sits down to watch his street reduced to rubble in what is likely to become the world's biggest demolition operation.
He is not alone. Several neighbours have also returned for wrecking day. They look on as buildings erected over decades are torn down in hours by a fleet of mechanical diggers.

A mix of sentimentality and hope has brought them back to this tsunami-damaged corner of Kamaishi city, which is unlikely to be used again as a residential area.

"My house has moved about 30 metres along the street," says Yamazaki, as he gazes on. "We have to check what's left of the old building and where it used to be. There were a lot of valuables inside. We have come to look for them."

     Two months after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the north-eastern coast of Japan, the clear-up that will last years and cost billions has finally swung into gear. Fleets of bulldozers, dumper trucks, drills and cranes are clearing the wreckage. More than 25,000 people are dead and missing. Bodies are still being recovered, but the focus of the clear-up is to remove the corpses of dead cities and towns.
     It is a phenomenal engineering and waste management challenge. The government estimates it will take three years to deal with the 25m tonnes of debris, which will have to be scrapped, burnt or recycled. This includes at least 16 towns, 95,000 buildings, 23 railway stations and hundreds of kilometres of roads, railway tracks and sea walls.
     The World Bank estimates the cost at $235bn (£144bn), making it the world's most expensive disaster. With charity pouring in from overseas, EU diplomats believe Japan – formerly the world's biggest donor – may become the world's biggest aid recipient this year.
     The government has just passed a budget to deal with the crisis. More than 250bn yen (£1.9bn) has been earmarked for clearing the debris alone.
"There is an enormous amount of debris. We are steadily running out of places to put it. We need to find new locations," says Yutaka Sasaki, at the disaster relief headquarters in Kamaishi. "We try to sort it into wood, metal and so on, but we haven't decided yet what to do with it all. Some will probably be burnt. Some may be re-used."
     People have grown used to the sound of sirens, bulldozers, helicopters and crying, but music is also returning to other parts of Kamaishi. Outside the culture centre, the high school choir and community orchestra gave their first performance since the quake. Yamazaki was the conductor and he and his wife joined in with the singing of "Look up, walk on and don't let the tears fall".
     Yamazaki says he is grateful for the support he has received from friends. "That makes me happy. It makes me want to do my best for the future," he says. "We can't do anything about the destruction. Let's think of tomorrow."

source: guardian.co.uk

writer's opinion:

From the information above we knew that now Japan is struggling to retrieve their destructed area by any means. Any form of assistance is needed to contribute rectifying the formers area of tsunami disaster 

(3/13). The fortunate thing is that Japan itself is a developed country that had been used to such disaster so the recovery of those areas will certainly be fast and efficient.