At a store

This store is located near my office (Yotsuya in Tokyo), having poor stock to sell.
The photo was taken at 8 am.

Scheduled black out

As of 2008, approximately 23% of electric power comes from nuclear power plants in Japan.
Therefore, if the nuclear power plants are damaged, it would be likely for power companies to cut the supply in order to meet the balance between demand and supply.

This is occurring in Japan.
The nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture in Japan was heavily damaged by the quake on 11th, March.
Though the company as well as the government is trying to cool the plant, this does not mean the recovery of the nuclear plants.
This means the prevention effort from nuclear disaster.
Power supply is now short to meet the demand.
The company has decided to cut the power supply to some extent.
This is called "the scheduled black out".
They have divided the Kanto area (the south of the nuclear power plant, 200 km away) into 5 groups.
Day by day they decide what group should be cut the power supply and how long.

No exception about customers.
The trains would be shut the operation. Many stores would be forced to close.
Poor electric power supply might affect manufacturing of food, water,etc.
People those who are afraid of the shortage of foods rush to stores, supermarkets.
People tend to buy more than they need. This cause the real shortage of foods.
The goverment has announced that there are enough foods and people don't need to be afraid.
Worse than this, evacuatee can not buy the foods they need due to the shortage caused by non-evacuee.

This shortage is occurring on the gasoline (petroleum).
People drive around for it but gas stations don't have it to sell !

So the life like this goes around here in Japan.

good things and bad things about the disaster

Good things:
- To understand that we are not alone.
- To know that many friends are concerning about us.
- To understand that many countries are sending troops, helping the quake area.
- To see the politicians stopped futile political fight temporarily.

Bad things:
- The nuclear plant is in danger.
- The scale of tsunami was more than you could have imagined in height, velocity.
- Tsunami will be able to kill more people than earthquake.
- The magnitude of the earthquake this time was the biggest on record.
- The quake could damage the power plants and caused the shortage of electricity supply.
- The public transportations even in central Tokyo are affected due to this shortage.

The life here

Today, I drove my car to a gas station to buy petro but they have stopped selling it due to no petro they have.
So the life without petroleum, LPG, electricity,etc will start soon even here in the central Tokyo.
We will see.

Tsunami

Now I understood very well that tsunami is more dreadful than the earthquake itself (its magnitude was 9.0 from recent report. This is the first value on the record.)

This time tsunami caused by the quake has swallowed the whole town and robbed the life of many people living near the sea.

Reportedly 200 people were found near the sea after tsunami was gone.

Tsunami was faster than you can imagine to evacuate.

You MUST go out of your house as sooner as possible and evacuate to higher places as soon as the official alert was given.

This time reportedly tsunami was 10-meter high, easy to climb over the sea bank or floodwall and left many people died.

The earthquake is not died down yet and keeping Japan shaking continuously.

The next is nuclear power plants in Fukushima prefecture.

They are in danger now.