| The Kumamoto Quakes | ||||||||||||
| By Chen Jing-hui and Wu Hui-zhen Translated by Tang Yau-yang Photos by Wu Hui-zhen | ||||||||||||
For three weeks in April and May 2016, Tzu Chi volunteers provided support to survivors of the devastating Kumamoto quakes. Hot tea, hot food, a little music, and group exercise sessions helped calm the victims and inject energy into their lives.
In April 2016, a series of earthquakes struck Kumamoto Prefecture on the Japanese island of Kyushu, the most southwesterly of Japan’s four main islands. A 6.5 magnitude foreshock on April 14 was followed on April 16 by a magnitude 7.3 mainshock. More than 75,000 buildings were damaged, 68 people died, and more than 1,600 people were injured. One month after the quakes, 11,000 people were still taking shelter away from home. Tzu Chi volunteers directly provided material and emotional support from April 22 to May 14 in Kumamoto Prefecture. We focused our efforts specifically in a sports complex in Ozu, which was near the most heavily damaged town of Mashiki. The complex was being used as a shelter for about a thousand quake survivors. Japan Self-Defense Force soldiers distributed rice balls twice a day at the shelter, and an Indonesian volunteer group in Kumamoto provided hot vegetable soup once a day. The latter service lasted until April 24. We decided to pick up where they left off and we started providing hot food that very day. We invited local residents to join us in cooking the food. That afternoon, many housewives in Ozu brought their kitchen knives, cutting boards, and aprons and gathered with us to prepare the food. We made 150 rice balls and enough soup for 400 people for that first meal. Because of the temblors, schools remained closed through May 9. As a result, many students also joined us and volunteered after they learned of our service. They washed cabbages, carrots, and Napa cabbages. They chopped the vegetables to size the best they could, which wasn’t always very well, but that made no difference so far as safe consumption was concerned. The energetic, vibrant voices of the youngsters added vitality to the scene. Aside from providing hot food, we also offered black and oolong tea at the shelter. The tea was very popular. “We’ve been drinking plain water every day since the quake,” some said. They apparently preferred tea to the plain water that they had been drinking. Others added, “For us Japanese, happiness begins with a cup of tea.”
Young among the old The shelter grew less crowded as the days wore on. People checked out to go stay with family or friends or move into rental places. Those who stayed were mostly older people whose homes had been badly damaged. They felt stuck with nowhere to go, and their days at the shelter became longer and harder to pass. Young students went with us to serve tea. We reminded them to give the elderly their warmest smiles, which we believed was what the older people longed to see most. Two sisters, both in junior high school, knelt before shelter residents and bowed as they offered cups of tea. When we were leaving, one of the girls said to an old woman, “I hope you live to a hundred. I’m pulling for you! Cheers!” The students learned from us to speak softly to the quake victims and bow as they offered tea. The young people all hoped to do something to help out after the quake. They were indeed little angels at the shelter.
Strike up the band Haruyo Kunitake and her mother-in-law were residents at the shelter. One day, she accepted a cup of hot tea from volunteers. That act unleashed a wave of emotion. She began to cry uncontrollably on the shoulder of a volunteer. Over ten days had passed since the quake, but it was the first time she had cried. Her home was damaged, the quake and its aftershocks had been terrifying, and the future of her family was up in the air. She had until then kept all of her emotions bottled up inside, but the hot tea melted the levee with which she had held her fears and frustrations in place. A local television station had sent a crew to cover the volunteers’ interactions with quake victims, and how they cooked hot food for them. After seeing Kunitake crying on the shoulder of a volunteer, the TV producer said that he finally understood why Tzu Chi volunteers had taken the trouble to fly in and offer their services. He could feel that the sincerity of Tzu Chi volunteers had allowed love to permeate among everyone there. Between April 22 and May 14, volunteers worked 284 shifts and served 3,360 hot meals. The menu included soups, rice balls, and other vegetarian food. Student volunteers gathered outside the shelter, and they would sit or lie on their stomachs to design and draw menu posters based on what volunteers had planned to cook for the day. When the day’s work was over, we asked each of the students to take home some tea, offer it to their mothers, and tell them how much they appreciated their mothers’ love and care.
One day, tenth grader Yukino Koyamada’s mother came to the shelter to thank the volunteers for allowing her daughter to volunteer. “The opportunity for my daughter to work with international volunteers will help round out her character. She’s made many friends too.” The shelters in the area were slated to be consolidated on May 1, so on April 29, while washing vegetables, we persuaded the students to give a concert of sorts the next day at the shelter. “A performance? Really? Are you serious?” the kids moaned. “You know that the elderly would like some merry noise around here, and they love to see your smiling faces,” we pleaded. The students eventually agreed to our request. Some of them brought their musical instruments from home after lunch. We bought a few more at a nearby variety store. Our emphasis for the performance was not on the quality of the instruments, but on something else that the kids had plenty of: high spirits. The young people gathered in a corner of the shelter to practice. Volunteer Wang Mei-ling ($}،|،آ), who had played wind instruments for a long time, acted as conductor. With the performance scheduled for the next day, the group practiced in earnest. The moment came soon enough. On the 30th, the students played their instruments as they filed in two lines to a small crowd of senior citizens. That they had practiced only very briefly did not seem to matter in the least. Their three-minute performance added a lot of liveliness to the otherwise quiet, subdued air of the place. The audience smiled and applauded after the performance had ended. The youngsters then spread out and gave massages to the old folks. Some of them were overheard saying, “That’s enough, thank you. Your hands must be sore.” The students earnestly replied, “No, no, not at all, I’m not tired,” and continued kneading their backs. In this warm atmosphere, one grandma belted out a folksong called “My Hometown.” For them, this place was now their hometown, and we were one big family. Thank you, grandma. Thank you, little angels.
THE KUMAMOTO EARTHQUAKES Time: At 9:26 in the evening of April 14, 2016, a magnitude 6.5 quake struck near the town of Mashiki, Kumamoto Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. This was followed by the mainshock, a magnitude 7.3 temblor, at 1:25 in the morning of April 16. Damage: 68 dead, one missing, 1,652 injured; over 75,000 buildings damaged. Due to ruined buildings, broken roads, and power and gas outages, over 11,000 people were still taking shelter away from home a month after the quakes began. Tzu Chi efforts: Volunteers arrived at the disaster area on April 22 to assess the damage. They decided to focus their efforts on the town of Ozu, not far from the most heavily damaged town of Mashiki. Volunteers from different areas of Japan took turns serving quake victims from April 22 to May 14, 2016.
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