[PPRAANet] First hand report

[DickT-W0RAA]

I have a very good and long time friend who is a ham in Japan.  He is Mac 
Maekawa, JK1TOJ.  I was finally able to reach him on Skype, but e-mail 
attempts prior to that were undeliverable, as I suspected they would be. 
Mac & Kay have been here in Colorado Springs to visit us on 4 different 
occasions and are a delightful couple.  We will always cherish their 
friendship.  Mac has not been real active on the bands of late due to work 
commitments.

I am sending this so that you can read a first hand report from a ham in 
Japan.  Mary & I were relieved to get this e-mail report and felt it was 
worth sharing.  The death toll is higher than Mac mentions and will probably 
rise.  It's devastating for the Japanese people and the rest of the world.

One thing I have noticed on TV is that the people in Japan seem to be truly 
concerned about their peers.  I have not seen any news reports showing 
looters in action, although I realize there probably are some "bad guys" in 
Japan as in the rest of the world.  But I don't think there has been the 
looting activity we all observed in the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans.

I hope you all enjoy reading what Mac has to say.  I wish my Japanese was as 
good as his English.

73,

Dick
W0RAA


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mac S. Maekawa" <jk1toj at oregano.ocn.ne.jp>
To: "DickT-W0RAA" <dickt at w0raa.com>
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2011 6:42 AM
Subject: Re: Your welfare


> Hi, Dick and Mary,
>
> How are both of you? We're fine.
> Thank you very much for your e-mail, we really pleased to know you are 
> concerned us.
>
> Yes, it was quit terrible Earthquake and a tidal wave I never know in my 
> life.
> I was driving my car in Friday afternoon, suddenly I felt very strange 
> feeling on the car.
> Usually we don't realize a Earthquake on the moving car, but this time I 
> felt  different motion of my car.
> Then I watch the out side, and saw the electric light poles and power 
> lines are swinging.
> It was hard to control the driving, then I stopped my car on the shaking 
> road.
> Ordinary Earthquake is shaking less than 30 seconds, but this time was 
> about 2 minutes.
> I thought this is a very big Earthquake I never seen.
> When, I was coming back to my home, it was very heavy traffic jam on the 
> road, because traffic lights
> were off  by a power failure, and we had no lights at our home either.
> We waited about 20 hours for recovery electricity, because many power 
> plants were destroyed by a
> Earthquake, it will be continued about a month or more the electric power 
> shortage maybe.
>
> Fortunately, we're located about 130 miles of the center of the 
> earthquake, then we had not so  seriously problems at our home, only few 
> picture flames were broken dropped down to the floor
> from the wall, and a LCD TV was broken too, but this is my job, I repaired 
> it already.
> Kay cried "Hey Mac, I was so scared in the shaking house and couldn't call 
> you up on the phone,
> I was very helpless ", when I was back.
> Sure, several times I tried to call up Kay on the phone,  but telephone 
> service had been broken off
> not only the land line but  the cell phone also.
>
> According to the TV news, about 1,600 peoples killed, about 10,000 peoples 
> missing and 50,000
> or more houses were destroyed by this happenings, and 7 nuclear power 
> plants are under the
> seriously condition, the electric company can't control thermal activity 
> of the plant completely yet.
> We hope it will not leak the radioactive of the nuclear any more.
> This is terrible triple crisis, Earthquake, Tidal wave and the nuclear 
> power plant problems.
> We hope they will be survived who are lived in there soon.
>
> Say again, we're both fine, but we need more prayer for the victim in 
> there, thank you.
>
> your,
> Mac and Kay
>
> PS: Thank you very much for the photos, we remember the good time with you 
> to see them.
>