Haiku by Tada, Chimako. Artwork by myself.
I made this haiga before i left for Tokyo four days ago. It is about wind, but now, after seeing the video of tunami that hit northern coast line of Japan (about 400km long), I feel that it could be about the tunami waves. Where do the waves take Japan from now? The damage is only beginning to show, and it will surely be huge, especially the human loss.
At the time of earthquakes, I was at a train station near Shinjyuku. The train came in, stopped, doors opened, and just as I stepped in the car, the shakes began. The shakes were the strongest ones I had experienced and lasted long minutes. The annouce said the epicenter was somewhere near Sendai, and I knew right way that the damage was huge. All the trains in Tokyo stopped and we were shooed away from the train station. There were already long lines for bus, taxi, and land telephone (mobile did not go through). I finally found someone who gave me a ride back to my lodging. All the streets, major and side, were packed with cars, and it took us about 4 hours to move 10 miles to the lodging.
Though I was within a big confusion in Tokyo, I was able to return home in on piece. I am fine now, but I cannot whole heartedly feel happy because of so much damage and so many people under tremendous suffering.
4 comments:
Nice to see you back, Kuni-san,
it's hard to see the aftermath...the human loss...we have the difficult memories of the 2004 tsunami --
wishes,
devika
Good that you are safe. Some reports say that the main island has been moved on the world's surface a distance of 2.5 meters.
I am concerned regarding the fact that there are so many nuclear reactors (45) within a country situated in an unstable area. I live quite near Chernobyl so I know what can happen. You too know the effects of radiation from WWII.
Maybe wind energy is part of the answer?
Dear kuni_san,
A masterful haiga! I like all the aspects of this, and how it creates a new image out of the haiku.
re Gwilym's comments re nuclear power and wind power: if the big corporations released what they know about fusion and other cheap energy sources we'd all be safer.
I think Japan would need several million windmills to compare with the power stations alas. Something very longtime indeed, but maybe possible in time?
Alan
Alan’s Area 17 blog
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Just to Alan's comment - I heard on a report that the 50 reactors (as opposed to 45 in an earlier report) provide only 30% of Japan's energy. They are obviously inefficient apart from the danger they pose. Countries like Japan and Great Britain are surrounded by sea. This means that somewhere the tides are always coming in and going out. The city of Cardiff (capital of Wales) and on the River Severn Estuary has the 2nd highest tides in the world. So why have politicians desecrated Ynys Mon (a Holy Island) with their nuclear reactor when they could have used the strong currents of the Menai Straits to drive the turbines. I'll tell you why. It's for their 'honorarium'. One well-known politician here in non-nuclear Austria (home to the IAEA HQ and a land where 20%-25% of our electricity is imported from nuclear sources so that we can sell our own hydro electricity at a higher price and thus make a profite and at the same time have a clean vest is in receipt of €107,000 annually from the nuclear industry. There are currently 167 nuclear reactors in service in Europe. Some of them have passed their sell-by-date. Some of them, in East Anglia for instance (an area of major coastal erosion where churches and villages are falling into the North Sea are literally built on sand. And,for example, in Slovenia they have also built in an earthquake zone.
Portugal have not built any. In Portugal they remember the Lisbon earthquake.
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