地震のあと、海外の木工仲間から安否を問うメールが届きます。
こちらの状況を知らせるついでに、被害の大きさを伝えるために日・米・英・豪を同じスケールで並べた地図を作ってみました。
Dear my friends,
I received emails from many of you who lives abroad after the disaster in Japan.
Many of you are worried about me, my family and our country. Thank you very much for your concern.
I would like to let you know that my family and myself are safe, not affected by the disaster.
We live in Gifu, more than 300 miles away from where the earthquake hit.
I made a compound map of Japan, US, UK and Australia with the same scale to show you where I live, and how vast the disaster area is.
I work as a woodworking teacher at a two-year-course college in Gifu.
It was the final day of the school year and I was tidying up the workshop with the students when the earthquake hit. The tremor was so subtle here that we didn't even notice.
But from that day I keep checking the news on TV, radio,newspaper and web.
It is very strange that I feel devastated to know about the detail of the disaster, but at the same time I feel as if watching a daydream because our life here is so normal so far compared to what is happening in the eastern part of Japan.
Thousands are dead, tens of thousands lost their houses and evacuated to the shelters. Millions around Fukushima are in fear of radioactive contamination, but we live too far to reach. Scheduled blackout is taking place in and around Tokyo which affects tens of millions of people, but we are outside of the area.
It is clear that this is going to be the worst disaster in my lifetime. The situation is getting even worse because of the trouble of nuclear plant. It will take a long time to recover from these.
So far the only thing I can do is to donate some money to aid organizations. I am thinking what I can do to the people in the suffered area in the future.
I will let you know about the situation around us from time to time through this website.
Regards,
Masashi Kutsuwa
