Mr Sawada's body was found yesterday during the huge national three day search for the remaining dead. His body will be cremated on the 7th April. As of the 5th April, central kamaishi will be off limits to the general public as they begin demolishing the entire harbour area. There are many buildings still standing, although they will all be structurally unsound.

The Shinkansen has not resumed since the 11th between Morioka and Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture. They are doing foundation repair work close to Shin Hanamaki - as a well as other places I am sure.There are some local trains, but basically we have been stranded in Iwate. The pertol queues are shorter, but still exist. The earthquakes and tremours contunue. naoko was uder the kitchen table with the children of the house yesterday. naoko's mother and I were outside talking with a neighbour. Basically bouncing up and down on the ground we stood on. The helocopters have never stopped from hanamaki airport to the coast.

Information maps.

Right: radiation levels( in black) recorded on the 28-29th March as opposed to the previous recorded average from earlier weeks. It would appear from this map that we are about 200kms from the Fukushima plant and not 300kms as i stated earlier.

Left: costal map showing principal affected areas in Iwate. The pink areas show major affected areas, although in reality the whole coast and evefy small town and village has been affected.

1 Ostuchi 2.Ofunato

3. Rikuzentakada

Newspaper photograph from the 28th March showing Rikuzentakada.

All sandy coloured areas have been affected. The dark area in the centre is cloud cover. In the foreground is aflattened small forest area by the river.

Left: death, missing and injured figures updates on the 29th March. Town/village name order is the same as listed below.

Photographs taken from todays front page Iwate(regional)newspaper. The image (left) shows an aerial view of Yamada town, located north of Otsuchi town. The table lists all known numbers of affected people in Iwate Prefecture by costal town. These list the dead( blue column) the still missing ( pink column) and those reported as injured (green).From top to Bottom the towns are: Rikuzentakada; Ofunato; Sumida Cho; Kamaishi; Otsuchi Cho; Yamada Cho; Miyako; Iwaizumi Cho; Tanohata Village; Fudai Village; Noda Village; Kujishi; Hirono Cho; Other towns and villages. The total counts are the bottom row. The combined totals, of dead or missing, acounts for 43% of the current estimated total number of deaths in Japan from the tsunami/quake, believed to be 18,000 at present.

Spent another morning queuing for petrol in anticipation of a trip to Otsuchi town on Saturday. It was -4C last night. Again, probably a bit warmer on the coast.

Parked the car in a queue last night 20:00, about 100 cars back from the petrol station, 10kms from our house. Went there this morning to sit in the car andwait for the 07:00 pump opening. The first 400 cars would get fuel. Relatively hassle free to fill up with 2000 yens worth ( 13.7 litlres). As we have enough fuel again we may make another trip to the coast - to connect with the officials in Otsuchi town - north of Kamaishi - in a few days. Video still being edited!

It was -4c last night and snowed a lot. Many earthquakes/tremours( some big ones)throughout the night and all today.

I have been caught up editing video and arranging the subtitles. It wont be finished for a few days yet. We have forgone waiting in another petrol queue yesterday. On a first come first serve basis, 1000 cars were given 2000 yens worth of fuel each today The queuing began at 18:00 the evening before. This was the only petrol ration for the entire hanamaki area, (pop. over 100,000). There will be an additional 400 cars allocated petrol tomorrow morning. We will join that queue tonight. Thyere are sone foods in the shops - no milk however. I hope this is because the Gov are holding it for screening. We dropped dairy from our diet. I see the half life of this disater is about 10 days in the outside press. The Bio-deisil group made a run to Ofunato yesterday. Kazue Sato was brought some more Eggs!

There are many things that people need, once food and warmth have been secured - for example, there are an enormous number of people who have not cleaned their dentures( if they still have them) since the 11th March.

Thursday 17th March 2011

06:40 queuing for petrol to be given out at 10:00

Tokyo/Osaka this is not.

We live in a community of approximately 10,000 people, mostly farmers, scattered over a wide area. We are under the jurisdiction of Hanamaki city, a town of about 80,000 people, which is located approximately 10kms away. Hanamaki is about 300kms north of the Fukushima nuclear facility that is in trouble. We (Naoko, Moira, Naoko’s Mother and I) are currently housing Naoko’s sister’s family (Keiko & Ko-chan Ito, and there two children), who have come to stay with us for the time being. Their house, located in our main town of tsuchizawa/Towa-cho, has suffered foundation damage in the initial quake. The house may not be about to fall down, but the quakes and tremours are still occurring – another big one last night around 23:00. Another one just now as I type. At the moment we are eight in the house.

Supermarket Shopping on the morning of the 16th

I went into Hanamaki with my brother-in-law (Ko-chan) to do some shopping, as we needed the basics. Until then I had not ventured beyond the downtown Tsuchizawa area of Towa-cho since Friday.  On the outskirts of Hanamaki we had to queue for about half an hour to get into Big House (a kind of discount supermarket) and were allowed only 2 litres of milk and two packets of Tofu per shopping group! We split up, and so, got 4 of each item we were allowed. There was some fish (frozen Salmon from Chile) and vegetables (carrots potatoes, various mushrooms, cabbage, pumpkins etc), although the tomatoes were definitely on the turn. We went to a further two supermarkets to get some more milk and tofu, but everything was sold out. Dried foods, canned foods and all those lovely chocolate biscuits are still in abundance, as is cheese, always rubbery and outrageously overpriced at the best of times.There were long queues for petrol in Hanamaki, all along Route 4.

12:30:A friend of Naoko’s has just phoned asking if I know if the shops are open and selling food in Hanamaki today? Anyone here in Towa now needing food essentials will have to drive 20kms round trip.
13:00:Ko-chan has said that there will be a delivery of basic produce at Sun Life today from 14:00. All fresh produce will have gone by this evening, I expect – except those avocados.

18:00: As I passed this evening, Sun life is closed for business.

As you can see its not as bad as it might sound, also most people will have stocked up. However, there is little fuel in everyone’s cars, and in a rural community almost everyone drives to work. The Kamaishi-Hanamaki train line has been out since Friday and will not be resuming any time soon. I guess everyone within Hanamaki is walking to work. Naoko’s mother was told that the main petroleum supplier for the whole of Tohoku, north of Sendai, was damaged in some way and so they are not able to deliver petrol to this whole region. Iwate, Aomori and Akita are the three most northern prefectures, all predominantly rural. The combined population total is around 15 million people. I guess we are all being rationed petrol and fresh produce at the moment, although I can only verify what we are experiencing here in Towa Cho.

During this morning I spotted a large truck arriving at the Japan Agriculture warehouses around 08.30 and went to speak to the driver. He told me the truck contained fertilizer for rice growing, not any food or other practical supplies. I asked some people how long they had been queuing for petrol and they said the have been waiting for fuel since 21:00 the night before.

Fukushima Dai-Ichi power reactors.