West Highland Free Press - Donations to Japan from Skye

A slight twist of fate during my recent visit to Skye, saw me stop off in Broadford at the offices of the West Highland Free Press, the local newspaper for Skye and the surrounding Highlands and Islands. Reporter Keith MacKenzie was keen to learn of the situation in Japan 1 year after the terrible earthquake and tsunami. Keith was also impressed that almost GBP 600 was raised mainly from current and former residents of the Isle of Skye.

The feature in the April 27th edition (which takes up the whole of page 15!) reads:

Aid from Skye to Japan - one year on from quake

The aid team which featured Kane Davidson, pictured in the sunglasses. Also in the picture (grey tee-shirt, middle of front row) is Alan Stewart, a former Portree Primary pupil whose parents live in Wester Ross.

Last month, the world paused to remember the horrific earthquake and tsunami which devastated Japan one year previously. Lending his support to an aid mission, Kane Davidson - originally from Portree but now resident in Japan - recently visited some of areas worst affected by the disaster. Fukushima was a region where, on his arrival to the country eight years ago, he had spent time working as an English teacher. In recent conversation with KEITH MACKENZIE, Kane reflects on what he witnessed and looks back on what has been a distressing year for the Japanese people.


Destruction is still visible everywhere - gutted houses, scrapped cars piled high, mountains of timber. But for Kane the most haunting sight came when he was just walking in an empty field.


"It's the small, personal possessions you notice. Identity cards, CDs - just little fragments of people's lives scattered around. For me, this was the saddest thing," he says of his recent visit to the town of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture where, even one year on, the duty of the charity worker still involves the clearing of dead fish from the lofts of houses. It could almost be funny, if it wasn't so tragic - the full scale of the horrors revealed in these two accounts told by Kane.


"A guy I was working with digging out ditches told me that when the tsunami hit he managed to make it up the steps of his house but his mother, coming just behind him, was caught and washed away. He made it on top of his roof, and was stuck there for four days. Below, he could see the body of his dead mother floating past on the water."


Another harrowing tale concerned the fate of a nearby junior high school. "The teacher evacuated the kids, but they took a wrong turning. They had to double back to the school, and with that mistake 200 kids were gone."


For some parts of the countryside, which have seen their fortunes decline in recent years, the tsunami simply represented their final death knell. A lack of investment by the central authorities, coupled with the brain drain of talent drawn towards Tokyo (sound familiar to a boy from the West Highlands?) had seen rural populations plummet. Many people, says Kane, now fear that the communities left in the tsunami-affected areas will simply wither away in the coming years.


In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Kane made the decision to flee his home in Tokyo. It may have been 250 miles from the epicentre but a quake that measured 9.0 on the Richter scale could still be felt - terrifyingly for the millions who experienced it - throughout the Japanese capital.


More worrying still was when news filtered through that the tsunami has caused meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.


As uncertainty raged, Kane and his daughter Clara flew out of Tokyo and headed for Hong Kong to stay with his brother for a week. It's a decision he still feels was the right one.


"I laughed it off at first, but the news just got gradually worse to the point where I found myself looking at the internet for maps measuring the distance of the Chernobyl fallout," he added. "I wasn't too worried about myself, but the thought of my daughter tainted by radiation was not a nice one.


"As we left and the plane was rising up I could see Mount Fuji and I did wonder - I may be back here in a week, I might not be back for months."


Geiger counters have now become common accessories in Tokyo and the fear that another "big one" - this time hitting the metropolis directly - is never far away. 


"There is always this tension and everyone's guard is up. It's a sort of post traumatic stress situation," Kane adds, pointing out that Government projections estimate a Tokyo quake of magnitude seven or above could cost some 30,000 lives. "Guaranteed it's going to happen, and I suspect it's going to be quite soon. Before March 11th last year it was very rare to get a quake, but since then the aftershocks have been fairly regular. It's just a matter of time, I think."


In north-eastern Japan, meanwhile, the death toll stands at about 15,000 with a further 5,000 or so still missing. The full impact of what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi plant could take years to assess, as Kane found out in conversation with one of the area's medics.


"I was told that on regular patient X-rays, spots are noticed on the film. That's background radiation, and I'm certain there will be leukaemia cases coming up."


Despite the horrors, Kane feels the Japanese government have failed to fully heed the lessons from March 2011.


"Daiichi will now be a write-off - the land will probably be a no-go area for centuries," he said. "The official word is that it has reached a cold shutdown, but other people are saying that's not quite correct.


"I'm more angry that is ever got to this stage. Those plants shouldn't have been built where they are and the way they are. Lots of landowners in rural Japan cashed in, sold up to the nuclear power companies and became very wealthy.


"There has to be a big question-mark over Japanese reactors and there technology. But Japan is still going ahead and selling reactors to Vietnam. How can they do that?


"Surely there should be a moratorium on any sales, at least for a few years."


In terms of rebuilding efforts, Kane sees stoicism and resolve as qualities not lacking in the Japanese as a people. After a year the focus is now gradually shifting from remembrance to recovery.


"It's best not to get too morbid. That time is now over," he says, adding that he intended to head north from Tokyo soon for a second visit to help with the reconstruction efforts.


Working for "Team Tsukuba" and the "JEN" charity Kane recently collected about £600 in the space of a week - most of it coming from folk in Skye - following an online appeal.


And as the gloom of the past year slowly begins to lift, he says he's confident Japan can eventually bounce back from the trauma.


"It's a lot of work, and the place will never be the same again, but if anyone can do it the Japanese can. They're a determined lot.


"It's been terrible, but the Japanese are best in times of crisis. I'm sure they will step up to the plate."

One building still standing amongst the destruction

More on Kane in Japan and how to contribute to the relief efforts can be found on his blog at www.kanedavidson.com