Update from Japan

Memo received today from the COO of my company here in the US. We are a wholly owned subsidiary of them:

A week passed since the biggest earthquake happened on March 11^th in the afternoon.

The northeast Japanese coastal area was heavily damaged and the first couple of days have been spent mainly to try to rescue people in trouble on top priority, then entering this week, the aid/care of refugees such as supply of food/water/blanket/heating oil etc have been a key concern as well as an on-going and growing problem of Fukushima Daiichi power plant trouble. It is among 5 nuclear power plants in the northeast coast of Japan and damaged worst among them while the other 4 plants (from north to south : Rokkasho, Onagawa, Fukushima Daini, Tokai no.2) are now under control and fortunately not in an immediate risk of radiation problem.

Japanese government, TEPCO (a power supply company who operates Fukushima Daiichi), the metropolitan police, Jieitai (Japanese self defense force) are trying their best to control the trouble in Fukushima Daiichi by injecting sea salt water into damaged units in pursuit of refraining nuclear fuel from melting and also trying to restore power supply line to the units to let the electrical water cooling system resume. So far no significant sign of improvement of the situation yet appeared but the desperate efforts are going on. Japanese citizens thank for the support and sympathy from other nations such as USA and also well recognize how keenly the citizens of those nations are concerned about the situation. I would like to provide you with the following Japanese websites through which you may get to know how they are struggling. 

http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/index.html

(Japanese government : the Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/index.html

(Nuclear and industrial safety agency : An organization in charge of nuclear power plant operation and safety under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry)

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html

(Tokyo Electric Power Company : Operator of Fukushima Daiichi)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_Nuclear_Power_Plant

(Wikipedia : Fukushima Daiichi)

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/freetop.aspx

(Nikkei : Japanese leading paper )

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv

(NHK : Japanese leading broadcast system)

This is a worldwide concern, in the meantime, if this situation turns worse, it will be Japanese citizens who suffer most so I would like to ask you for trusting the desperate efforts to avoid the worst case by Japanese parties concerned and kindly hope for the best outcome."

Pray for them! Help if you can!