Japanese face hardships at disaster relief centres

Large numbers of people carrying plastic canisters and baskets full of empty bottles are lining up in front of the drinking water tank. A woman pulls a woollen blanket over her head to keep out the cold when a helper suddenly appears, bows, and tells the crowd apologetically: "I'm sorry, the tank is empty. Please be patient."
Nobody complains and the queue remains motionless, waiting for supplies to resume. Even in times of dire need, the Japanese remain polite and keep their calm. In the background a television is showing footage of the damaged reactor in nearby Fukushima, but a small child is the only one looking at the pictures. Aid workers, carrying blankets and cartons of food, scurry past, barely paying attention.
It is early morning at the relief centre in Tome, north of Sendai, where those affected by last week's earthquake and tsunami are doing their best to cope in the icy conditions. It is so cold that the hoses from the tanks holding drinking water have frozen. "We've just fired up the last heater, there's no fuel left for any more," an old man told a reporter from Japan's NHK television network at an emergency accommodation centre in Sendai.
Supplies are also running low in the few petrol stations still open. It is particularly hard for old people, like the woman who complains: "I can't walk any more. My entire body is aching." An old man said he could not sleep during the night, despite being wrapped in three blankets.
Another long queue forms outside a stand distributing food, with people in it trying to cover themselves from the snow that is starting to fall. Poor hygiene is another problem. Frozen pipes have led to blocked toilets, causing diarrhoea in some children. "Better sanitary conditions," is the most common wish of people questioned on their wants by NHK reporters.
Fourteen senior citizens who were evacuated from a hospital in Fukushima because of the danger of radiation contamination did not survive the move to emergency accommodation, officials said Thursday. Two of them died on the bus taking them to the centre. The disaster has unleashed a wave of sympathy and co-operation. Children from a Sendai school are making rice balls for the homeless. "We want to help them," said one young girl. The people in the relief centres share their scant food rations, while suggestions are offered on the internet on how best to help people in the worst-affected regions.
But this is not always easy. "It's still too early for ordinary people to come," said a Japanese motorcyclist who came to help a friend in the devastated city of Kesennuma. "It's complete chaos. We can't do anything."
The man said the situation was much worse than the impression given by television footage. There was no place for volunteer helpers to stay because everything was in ruins. Communication is another problem, even for Japanese, because of the strong dialect spoken by those in the stricken region, the motorcyclist said. There are shortages of virtually everything almost a week after the magnitude-9 quake struck. "We need food, petrol and medicine," said one aid worker.
Supplies provided by food companies and other firms have not made it to their destinations, in many cases because of poor co-ordination between the government and regions concerned, media reports said. Complicating matters is the fact that many roads leading from the greater Tokyo area to the badly affected prefecture of Miyagi are damaged. Other areas are flooded, making it difficult for fuel tankers to get through.
There are also disruptions to oil supplies because of an earthquake-induced fire and explosion at an oil refinery in the adjacent prefecture of Chiba. A government spokesman also appealed to Tokyo residents to avoid panic buying of food, saying it was needed to feed the earthquake and tsunami victims.