2857 GIA Vice Provincial visits earthquake zone
austraLasia #2857
 

Japan: Salesian Vice Provincial visits earthquake and tsunami zone

VATICAN RADIO: 19 May 2011 -- Some two months following the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the Salesian Vice Provincial, Fr Mario Yamanouchi, has visited the places where the disaster took place, including the city which has become a symbol of nuclear peril, Fukushima. The first stage of his visit, Saturday14 May, was to Fukushima, 220,000 inhabitants, just 60 km west of the atomic-powered centre seriously damaged after the tsunami. Radioactivity in the city is still high (1,6 sieverts) and the people, seeking to limit the need to move around outside, always wear a protective mask when they have to go outside.
     On Sunday, 15 May, Fr Yamanouchi went to Shiogama – 100 km from Fukushima – and celebrated Mass there. Salesian Brother Francis Fukagawa had been sent there by the Provincial, Fr Aldo Cipriani, with a view to working with the Sendai diocese helping to coordinate and support volunteers coming from all over Japan to help the local population.
    Later that evening Fr Yamanouchi joined the visit by Cardinal Robert Sarah, President of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, sent by the Pope to Japan to express the Pope's closeness and affection for the people.
    At the conclusion of his visit Fr Yamanouchi also went to Ishinomaki, which like other places along the coast now looks like a ghost town filled with ruined buildings and still affected by the odour of the disaster. Around 100,000 soldiers are still working tirelessly in the area, and in just two months one can note the progress made. “Whoever sees places like this changes the way of looking at things in life, of our very presence in the cosmos” Fr Yamanouchi said at the end of it all.
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