Japan – In General

From several sources, including the Doctors Without Borders site [I donate what I can there, because I like their work, and they start immediately]: The basic problem would seem to be logistics. The government has the necessary supplies, but they did not plan for a situation where they lost the ports, the landing fields, the railroads, and the roads. They haven’t yet come up with a plan to distribute the supplies on anything more than a hit and miss basis.

There is no gas or diesel available in the affected area, so private efforts have to take enough fuel with them to make the round trip, which severely limits their reach. Approximately 100,000 people are in shelters, and they can get medical care, but they can’t get enough food and water. The area back from the coast that wasn’t wiped by the tsunami is relatively intact but the transportation systems and power grid are broken.

Food, water, and warmth are the primary concerns.

The US military can solve this problem, as they did in Haiti, but they can’t do what they aren’t asked to do, and they haven’t been asked. The same airdrops by C-17s would work, but they have to be coordinated on the ground, and it is not clear that the Japanese government understands what can be done. [Note: The US is the best in the world when it comes to logistics. We have more practice than any other country, and the rest of the world just assumes that we will do it.]

The overall problem would seem to be that the situation doesn’t match the plan for disaster response, and they are very slow to adapt to the facts.

Doctors Without Borders does not have a Japan fund started, as they are still assessing the situation, and are not sure that it will be necessary. They have no plans to be involved in the radiation exposure cases, as the Japanese are probably the best in the world in that area. They have not been able to reach the northern-most section of Honshu island.