Patrick Fuller by phone from Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan
02:00 local time
I arrived at the Japanese Red Cross hospital today in Ishinomaki. It is a beacon of light, literally, in a city without power. Half of Ishinomaki, a city of about 165,000 people, was engulfed by the tsunami.
The Red Cross hospital is the main medical facility in the region providing crucial health services for a population spread over a radius of about 100 kilometres.
The big focus is still on search and rescue in a desperate race against the clock to save those who may be trapped and wounded beneath colossal mounds of debris.
Nobody here is talking or speculating about how many may have lost their lives. We know the number is going to be high, but for now it is about saving those who may have survived. Collecting the remains of those who have died will be the next major phase of this relief operation.
There is a real concern for the elderly who have been particularly hard hit and are extremely vulnerable to hypothermia. Japan is a country with a high proportion of elderly people and the Red Cross will be doing all it can to support them through this dreadful experience.
At the Red Cross hospital, no space is left unused. Exhausted Red Cross medics sleep side by side with the wounded. Trained volunteers have come from all corners of Japan to support the effort and are working round the clock in four-day shifts. And still droves of injured people in need of medical help arrive – the wounded arrive on foot, by helicopter or carried by their fellow citizens.
I am about 5 kilometres from the area that was hardest hit. I’ll be heading there at daybreak to assess the situation and learn from my Red Cross colleagues what major challenges they are facing.
As if things weren’t grim enough here, news is surfacing about a nuclear power facility in Onagawa, only 15 kilometres east of where I am now, that is reported to be severely damaged with excessive levels of radiation being recorded.
It’s all almost too much to comprehend, but I’ll take a leaf from the book of my Japanese Red Cross colleagues and keep fully focused on the job at hand – saving those who have survived by treating the wounded, the displaced and the orphaned.
Patrick Fuller is the IFRC's communications manager for Asia Pacific. He can be contacted on the ground via the following:
Mobile: +81 90 9820 8697
Sat phone: +88 16 2241 0824
E-mail: patrick.fuller@ifrc.org