The immigration officer at Chennai Airport asked me whether it is safe to go to Tokyo now. I told the situation is getting improved. That might be what anybody could have said on 26th March. Things were uncertain when started to Tokyo. Uncertainty prevails even now to a ceratin extent. Today’s live radiation levels in Tokyo showed a higher value, but still well below the permitted safety levels.
More than three weeks from now, the disaster had shaken the world’s second strongest economy. The fear of nuclear radiation has not gone and an uncertainty prevails all over. The Japanese televisions presents the actual facts on a daily basis. There is bilingual service available in NHK that helps foreigners to understand the situations in Japan.
Looking back three weeks, it is a pure coincidence that we planned our vacation on 11th March to leave to India to perform my father’s 10th annual death anniversary rituals. With kids we left Tokyo at 11:00 AM on 11th March. We heard the news after landing at Chennai Airport and by seeing the scenes at the hotel television we were literally terrified. With teary eyes, we went to bed. Next day, while traveling on domestic flight to Kochi, we could read the headlines on a leading Malayalam daily about the earth quake and tsunami in Eastern Japan. The heading conveyed the magnitude of the tragedy happened in Japan, the country we left hours before. We could read the heading as ‘Japan was swallowed by tsunami’.
More than three weeks from now, the disaster had shaken the world’s second strongest economy. The fear of nuclear radiation has not gone and an uncertainty prevails all over. The Japanese televisions presents the actual facts on a daily basis. There is bilingual service available in NHK that helps foreigners to understand the situations in Japan.
Looking back three weeks, it is a pure coincidence that we planned our vacation on 11th March to leave to India to perform my father’s 10th annual death anniversary rituals. With kids we left Tokyo at 11:00 AM on 11th March. We heard the news after landing at Chennai Airport and by seeing the scenes at the hotel television we were literally terrified. With teary eyes, we went to bed. Next day, while traveling on domestic flight to Kochi, we could read the headlines on a leading Malayalam daily about the earth quake and tsunami in Eastern Japan. The heading conveyed the magnitude of the tragedy happened in Japan, the country we left hours before. We could read the heading as ‘Japan was swallowed by tsunami’.
