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More than 1,500 volunteers are taking advantage of the five-day Silver Week holiday to help residents of the flooded city of Joso in Ibaraki Prefecture clean up and try to get their lives back to normal.
On Sept 10, torrential rain caused the Kinugawa River to burst its banks, flooding homes, forcing about 2,250 people to move to 33 evacuation centers.
Volunteers started arriving in droves on Saturday. The local government is providing free shuttle buses from the train stations to take volunteers to homes where they are helping to remove mud and other debris from homes, Sankei Shimbun reported.
In some cases, whole families and groups of friends have come, complete with shovels and tents. One woman from Iwate Prefecture told local media she had come to repay the help her town had received after the March 11, 2011 tsunami.
One of the biggest problems the city is facing is where to store garbage. Residents have been forced to throw out damaged furniture, appliances and tatami mats, with lines of trucks arriving constantly at two newly opened dumps.
© Japan Today
7 Comments
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zones2surf
Now THIS made my day! Well, OK, right after the Japan rugby win, but only because the rugby win happened first.
My hats off to all of these volunteers! A real credit to the nation! I hope they are able to make some difference. If nothing else, it will convey a message of compassion and caring to those residents impacted.
PTownsend
Echo zones2surf. Well done, volunteers!
TheGodfather
Love your neighbour like yourself!!
Now who says that Japan is not a caring, compassionate, Christian country? ;-)
TrevorPeace
A much better idea for Silver Week than sitting in gridlocked traffic, overcrowded trains and planes, I must say!
Raymond Chuang
Good for these volunteers. The area was devastated by unprecedented flooding and to see all these people show up to clean up is heartwarming, to say the least.
Peeping_Tom
And how many JT "experts" went there to help???
Guess it's much easier to just sit down and lambast the place, rightly or wrongly!
yoshisan88
Faith in humanity restored. By the way same thing happened here in Brisbane, Australia a few years back, too.