Friday, March 11, 2011

Quake casualties expected to be high

I can’t tell what they are saying, but the news reports are frantic here. More and more footage of the quake damage keeps coming in. A map of Japan shows a flashing red line around the eastern Japanese seaboard where the Tsunami concern is the greatest.  I don’t have details, but there are expected to be many deaths and significant property damage.
I’m sitting in my hotel room in Okinawa right now. It’s well south of the epicenter. If we had not left Tokyo this morning the story would be much different. We first got news of the quake as we were getting a briefing on the US forces in Japan at Kadena Air Base.
We later had a meeting with the governor of the Okinawa state.
“I’m concerned about the situation,” Susuma Matayoshi, said through an interpreter. He said he had dispatched helicopters to monitor the shores for the effect of the Tsunami.
He said the “the resulting number of casualties will be very high.”
I'm also told that flights to Narita, the main airport in Tokyo have been canceled.
I’m late to meet with some local journalists so this ends this dispatch.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for word of your safety and first-hand reports. For now, we read and we pray. Take care!

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  2. hey Ed, We have a live chat running at http://sacbee.com/live if you want to jump in.

    @seanemcmahon

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