One year later, Japan mourns tsunami dead

With a minute of silence, tolling bells and prayers, Japan will on Sunday mark the first anniversary of an earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis that shattered public trust in atomic power and the nation's leaders.

A year after the magnitude 9 earthquake unleashed a wall of water that hit Japan's northeastern coast, killing nearly 16,000 and leaving nearly 3,300 unaccounted for, the country is still grappling with the human, economic and political costs.

Along the coast, police and coast guard officers, urged on by families of the missing, still search rivers and shores for remains even though the chances of finding any would appear remote. Without bodies, thousands of people are in a state of emotional and legal limbo.

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Koyu Morishita, 54, lost his 84-year-old father, Tokusaburo, as well as his home and family-run fish factory in the port of Ofunato. Tokusaburo's body has not been found.

"I do cry a little bit every once in a while, but my true tears will come later, when I have time," Morishita said while visiting a memorial for his father at a hilltop temple above Ofunato, accompanied by his dog, Muku.

Like the rest of the country, Ofunato will observe a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m. (0546 GMT) when the quake struck and then again, 33 minutes later when a 23-meter (75-foot) wall of water hit the town, killing 340 of its 41,100 residents and leaving 84 missing.

A "bell of hope" will toll and mourners will sail out to sea to release lanterns.

The Japanese people earned the world's admiration for their composure, discipline and resilience in the face of the disaster while its companies impressed with the speed with which they bounced back, mending torn supply chains.

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As a result, the economy looks set to return to pre-disaster levels in coming months with the help of about $230 billlion in rebuilding funds agreed in rare cooperation between the government and the opposition.

"In recent history, Japan seized rapid economic expansion from the ashes and desolation of World War Two, and we built the most energy-efficient economy in the world in the aftermath of the oil shock," Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in an article published in the Washington Post.

"On the anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, we remember that today we face a challenge of similar proportions."

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'100 people, 100 opinions'
Yet people are increasingly skeptical about whether the political establishment is up to the task.

Politicians and bureaucrats drew fire for the chaotic response to the crisis at the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant and their failure to seize the moment and tackle a myriad of ills that have dogged Japan for two decades.

"If there are 100 people, there will be 100 opinions," said Morishita. "We are hoping that someone can lead us and show us hope and dreams. But that doesn't exist."

After a brief truce, politicians resumed business as usual: parliamentary squabbles that gave Japan its sixth leader in five years and now threaten to block important tax and welfare reforms and stall progress in dealing with other business.

"There is no leadership," said Hiroaki Oikawa, 56, another Ofunato resident who lost his two fish factories and his home.

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Nine people from three generations of his family now live under one roof in temporary housing. Oikawa resumed operations at one of his factories last September and he is leading efforts to rebuild a shopping arcade.

"There are no politicians to whom we can leave things."

Anti-nuclear demonstrations planned across the country for the anniversary also serve as a reminder that many want bolder action than the government's preferred scenario of a gradual reduction in reliance on nuclear power.

Not a single community has agreed to restart reactors taken off line since the disaster, meaning all of Japan's 54 reactors may be shut by the middle of the year.

Slow progress in drawing up plans for the tsunami and radiation tainted region is deepening the misery of survivors, about 326,000 of whom are still homeless, including 80,000 evacuated from the vicinity of the Fukushima plant.

While the government declared the plant's reactors had reached "cold shutdown" in December, its dismantling and the cleanup will take decades at an incalculable cost using technologies yet to be developed.

Taxpayers, facing proposed sales tax increases to help fund the country's debt, will need to cough up tens of billions of dollars to prop up Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power -- widely attacked for ignoring the possibility of a disaster and for what critics say has been arrogance since.

Still not prepared?
If the calamities that unfolded on March 11, 2011, were to be repeated today, hundreds of thousands of lives would still be at risk, according to mayors, hospital administrators and disaster response officials interviewed by The Associated Press. They say little has been done to fix systemic planning shortfalls and communication problems between government agencies that compounded that day's horrors.

"We have set a terrible precedent for the rest of the nation and for any town in the world where nuclear plants are located," said Katsutaka Idokawa, the mayor of Futaba, one of two towns straddled by the devastated Fukushima facility. "I see this disaster as a meltdown of Japan itself."

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Akinori Kahata, a nuclear disaster management official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said the government was reviewing its contingency plans ? extending the regulations to cover up to 18 miles (30 kilometers) from a nuclear plant ? because of the problems with the Fukushima evacuation, particularly with hospitalized and handicapped people.

But officials in several towns around Japan where nuclear plants are located told the AP that they are not confident their emergency plans would work any better than Fukushima's. They say it could take months and require a complete re-examination of how to approach evacuations for significant improvements to be made.

The breakdown in Japan's crisis response was most striking in the evacuation of Fukushima's sick and elderly.

According to a 400-page report released last month by the Independent Fact-Finding Committee on the Fukushima Nuclear Accident ? a panel of scholars, lawyers and industry experts ? 784 patients were evacuated from six Fukushima hospitals within the 12-mile (20-kilometer) no-go area. Of 435 at Futaba Hospital and a related senior care center, 21 died either in buses en route to evacuation centers, or in the centers themselves, before they could be admitted to another medical facility.

The government does not dispute that the evacuations may have caused deaths, but has not included them in its official death tolls. Doing so would open the door for compensation claims, which the power company that runs the plant is "open to consider," according to company spokesman Osamu Yokokura. He could not confirm if any such claims have been made yet.

Officials in several Fukushima-area towns, including Minami-Soma, told the AP that they had no nuclear evacuation plans before the disaster, because Japanese regulations only require towns within 6 miles (10 kilometers) of a nuclear plant to make them. A 12-mile (20-kilometer) evacuation, involving nearly 80,000 people, was imposed on Fukushima.

Tokyo's failure to update local leaders and health officials on the situation at the plant further heightened their sense of isolation.

"The government repeatedly issued evacuation advisories and then changed them," said Dr. Akira Isaka, a surgeon who heads the Futaba District Medical Association. "Administrators had to find out through the media what was going on. This posed a huge problem for hospitals, which had to make plans on the spot and then completely change them as the zone widened."

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46691428/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/

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