Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture Most of the proccessing facilities in this fishing port were destroyed by the Tsunami, which also washed huge fishing boats up the river and left them aground. The Tsunami reached up to the 4th floor and 71 people who could not be evacuated to the roof, lost their lives.
Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan Shizugawa Hospital is now operating in prefabricated facilities. There are 9 different clinics and it receives about out-patients per day. It also has an emergency room. While rapid progress has been made towards helping communities to recover, the future remains uncertain for thousands of survivors, particularly those displaced by contamination from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor.
In the wake of the tsunami, the Japanese Red Cross has played a key role in emergency response and recovery efforts. With a network of 92 hospitals across the country, the Red Cross has been a leading provider of medical care in tsunami affected areas.
Since the disaster, a total of medical teams have been deployed to run mobile clinics for survivors. The Red Cross is continuing to provide psychosocial support to people in the shelters and those who have moved in to temporary homes, especially the elderly. One of the priorities has been to restore a sense of normality in the lives of people who have lost family members, homes and livelihoods. The Japanese Red Cross has already provided a package of household electrical appliances to 91, families who have moved in to temporary homes.
The programme, which is funded from donations received through Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies worldwide - and other donors such as ECHO, the humanitarian arm of the EU - will be expanded to reach around , families. The Red Cross has been a major recipient of public and corporate donations from within Japan. These funds are being distributed to survivors in the form of a series of cash grants, which go some way towards compensating families, all of whom have suffered significant economic losses.
In some areas the tsunami wiped out 85 per cent of local businesses and now, many people are struggling to find work. Meeting the needs of families evacuated from the vicinity of the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima continues to be a major challenge. Ayako Yamada and her family have started a new life in a temporary house provided by the government.
They have been able to pay one brief visit back to their house, now within a 20 km exclusion zone, dressed in protective clothing to retrieve items such as a photo of her deceased father. But that is it. Red Cross volunteers are organising regular events to make life for survivors like the Yamada family more sociable, helping them get to know their neighbours and preventing a sense of isolation.
Japanese Red Cross teams are also offering medical assistance and first aid for those in Fukushima who are making temporary visits back to their homes in the exclusion area and there are also plans to provide hospitals in the area with whole-body radiation measuring equipment. Another key part of the Japanese Red Cross reconstruction plan is to support the building of temporary hospitals.
Six months on from the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated huge areas of The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is the world's largest humanitarian network and is guided by seven Fundamental Principles: Humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, universality and unity.
Key role in response In the wake of the tsunami, the Japanese Red Cross has played a key role in emergency response and recovery efforts. Fukushima needs challenging Meeting the needs of families evacuated from the vicinity of the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima continues to be a major challenge. Temporary hospitals Another key part of the Japanese Red Cross reconstruction plan is to support the building of temporary hospitals. Press release. Japanese Red Cross helps tsunami and nuclear disaster survivors to face up to an uncertain future Six months on from the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated huge areas of About the IFRC.
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