Japan has not yet recovered, said the Hong Kong South China Morning Post in an editorial. It was a year ago this week that the country was hit by the “triple whammy” of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, a monster 128-foot tsunami, and a nuclear reactor meltdown. Entire cities were swept into the ocean. Nearly 20,000 lives were lost, and hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless. Nobody could expect a country to bounce back in just a year. Still, one could expect more than the Japanese government’s “chaotic, fumbling response.” Hundreds of thousands of evacuees are still living in shelters, and the wreckage of smashed and splintered houses, boats, trees, and cars still forms unsightly mountains of debris across the land. The people are doing their best to resume their lives. “If only their politicians and bureaucrats were not so incompetent.”
Ordinary citizens have stepped into the breach, said the Tokyo Mainichi Daily News. Volunteerism first began to flourish here 17 years ago, after the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck Kobe. Now, the Great East Japan Earthquake has mobilized the whole country in an “unprecedented” display of civic-mindedness. The Japanese aren’t waiting for the government to come to their rescue. Nonprofit groups have sprung up everywhere to haul off debris, collect and distribute clothing, and even create camps for children displaced from the disaster area. “With politics at a standstill, each and every one of us must take action and do what we can.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Malaysia: Hiding something or just incompetent?feature It is “painful to watch” how Malaysia has embarrassed itself before the world with its bungled response to the missing plane.
-
Tunisia: The only bloom of the Arab Spring
feature After years of “stormy discussions and intellectual tug-of-war,” Tunisia has emerged as a secular democracy.
-
Australia: It takes two to reconcile
feature To move beyond Australia’s colonialist past, we Aborigines must forgive.
-
Israel: Ariel Sharon’s ambiguous legacy
feature Ariel Sharon played a key role at every major crossroads Israel faced in his adult life.
-
South Africa: Trying to live up to Mandela
feature That South Africa was prepared for the death of Nelson Mandela is one of his greatest legacies.
-
China: Staking a claim to the air and the sea
feature China has declared an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea that includes a set of islands claimed by Japan.
-
China: Is our aid to the Philippines too meager?
feature China donated $100,000 to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan, but later increased the amount to $1.6 million.
-
Philippines: A calamitous response to calamity
feature “Where is the food, where is the water? Where are the military collecting the dead?”