• 余震
• Mon. Apr, 11 2011

Today, it has been exactely one month since the big earthquake occured. As a good(?) reminder, we enjoyed two nice aftershocks separated by maybe 3 hours only. Those (7+ on Richter scale) came after a nice 7.4 on Thursday night that brought me back to what was going on when I left...

At least, in the light of the big 9.0, my trust in Japanese building has been tested and the buildings passed, I can tell you. So, this is definitely an additional comfort when those 余震 hit 東京, we simply have to remember what we went through without damages to cool down and just wait for them to pass.
Where the problem now emerges is the consequences of the nuclear incident. Despite the guilty silence of the media on the effect in a mid/long term of the leaks and all that water pumped in there that was going everywhere, food contamination was one of the topic I was very worried about. Logically that has emerged once the situation got somehow "under control" and the initial panic faded away. But now, I really wonder on the state will manage this, given that:
- domestic agriculture and fishery is a huge lobby in Japan
- there is a lot of producers/fishers in the 東北 region.
That is for the political portion of the drama. But, going down the road, I realise that it is very hard to identify where food is coming from. If vegetables is fairly well indicated, it becomes much more difficult for transformed products...

At least, the government adopted a much more local policy. The downside of it is that we realised that the some of the products from 千葉 were actually more contaminated than some in 宮城...

So, all in all, things start getting back to normal. Still a lot of foreigners haven't returned and you get some looks from the local which you didn't get before the crisis. People seem surprised to see you there and when you talk to them and you say that you are French and back, they have the same 2 remarks:
- I thought all the Frenchies have left the country (thank you the media)
soon followed by:
- Why did you come back?

So, behind the big lines of the tabloid, it is always interesting to see that locals are reacting in a very Japanese way. They chew on their misery and they apologise for the mess. Even after 6 years, still amazing.