Let me just start with the following: Anytime you’re feeling down about the US government, and need to be reminded about how happy you are (or could be) to be living in the US, just read the below:
I became even more happy to live in the United States after reading about the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 that occurred on August 12, 1985. Read this:
The Japanese government claims that because of the rain, unfavorable terrain, and lack of sunlight, rescue crews were unable to reach the crash site until the following morning, twelve hours after the crash. Most of the passengers’ remains were identified, and were enshrined at
the nearby village of Ueno.
There was some confusion about who would handle the rescue in the immediate aftermath of the crash. A U.S. Air Force helicopter was the first to the crash site, some 20 minutes after impact, and radioed Yokota Air Base to assemble rescue teams and offered to help guide Japanese forces to the site immediately. But Japanese government representatives ordered the U.S. crew to return to Yokota Air Base because the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) were going to handle the rescue. Although a JSDF helicopter spotted the wreck during the night, it said poor visibility prevented it from landing at the site. JSDF forces did not arrive until the following morning. It is not known whether any survivors of the crash died in this interval. The off-duty flight attendant who survived the crash recounted from her hospital bed that she recalled bright lights and the sound of helicopter rotors shortly after she awoke amid the wreckage, but that nothing further was seen or heard until the JSDF arrived the next day.
It is believed that a substantial number of people survived the initial crash, but succumbed to hypothermia before they could be rescued. The apparent lack of urgency and bungled response to responding to the crash have led to rumors in Japan that the Japanese government was hoping that there wouldn’t be any survivors of the crash, reportedly because the airplane was carrying some kind of secret cargo. But, there is very little evidence to support this theory over the more plausible theory that basic, bumbling bureaucracy slowed the Japanese government’s and military’s response.
As an FYI, this is (not the first) but the second time that I know of, where the Japanese Government sent Americans trying to aid in a disaster back to their posts.
A special report; Japan Reluctant to Accept Help From Abroad for Quake Victims
“The Japanese bureaucracy is very good when there’s time for nemawashi,” a senior Japanese official said. “But it’s weakness is that it works poorly in an emergency, when decisions are needed fast. We already knew that this problem existed, but it became much more obvious
after the earthquake.”The Foreign Ministry emphasized the logistical difficulties of responding immediately to the offers. Terusuke Terada, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, noted that the central Government had to check with the local authorities and then arrange transportation to the disaster area as well as interpreters and accommodation.
“Our method took a bit too much time,” Mr. Terada acknowledged, adding that Japan is in fact very grateful for all the offers of foreign assistance.
The Government, to be sure, was lethargic in the earthquake’s aftermath about using domestic
resources as well as foreign ones. Its slowness in calling in army troops to dig people out was blamed by one Japanese magazine for one-third of the 5,243 deaths in the quake, and another magazine accused the Government of a “massacre.”“This red tape was known by the Japanese people, but now people have come to see it more clearly,” said Yuriko Koike, an opposition legislator from the Kobe area. “It’s not just the bureaucrats, but also the regulations. They don’t want to make any exceptions, even in emergencies, because that would threaten their raison d’etre.” Red Tape Bureaucrats And Gift Horses
Foreign donors were often taken aback by the penchant of these bureaucrats for peering into the mouths of gift horses.
I find this to be repulsive. I was living in Japan at the time of the Kobe Earthquake and also remember that the US wanted to send aid in hosing down some of the fires. The Japanese government rejected that as well. The words “stubborn” and “arrogance” come to mind. I believe it to be a crime in the way the Japanese officials react to emergencies. The Prime Minister didn’t even hear about the quake until he turned his TV on!?
And yet another outrageous decision:
The Japanese subsidiary of Motorola rushed 150 cellular telephones to Kobe after the earthquake, when regular telephone service was disrupted. Motorola offered to lend the telephones free of charge and pay for all the calls, but the Kobe city authorities replied that the phones could not be given out unless they had Kobe City stickers on each of them.
Is the above not enough to describe the word, “despicable”? Read on.
Dr. Masanori Matsumoto, for instance, said — after being told of the issue — that he would not use Tylenol even if it were on hand in the refugee clinic where he works.
“I would use the medicines that I’m familiar with,” he said. “I think the Health and Welfare
Ministry is right to keep out foreign medicines with different dosages.”
So…. I guess we can safely deduce from this that Mr. Matsumoto would have found it more appropriate to allow the quake victims to die a slow death, instead? Again, if you ask me, this is criminal behavior and nothing that any country should be proud of.
I would like to conclude that if you’re going to be in a “National Emergency” situation, just don’t be in Japan at the time.
Outside that and the discrimination against foreigners that prevails, Japan is an amazing place to live.
