Natural calamities destroy all sorts of standards of prestige and ultra-nationalism created by human beings over time. A powerful nation could expect from a developing nation to assist it and vice versa. In the past, however, Japan has a history of not accepting any kind of foreign assistance and donations in the wake of natural calamities. The 1996 Kobe earthquake was one example.
Nevertheless, the Great Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and the Fukushima nuclear crisis on 11 March led the Japanese government to accept assistance and donations from various countries. Hitherto, Japanese quarantine regulations had put a ban on food items import from many Asian countries and others for Japanese consumption. The ground situation has been reversed now.
Following the deadliest earthquake and unprecedented tsunami, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani sent a condolence message to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan swiftly on the same day by expressing solidarity with the government and people of Japan and offering assistance to help the victims. Later, next day Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar sent condolences to Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and reiterated Pakistan's generous commitment to help the Japanese people in this natural calamity.
No causality was being reported about two hundred Pakistanis living at the most-hit areas of Fukushima, Sendai, Miyagi, and Iwate. Two separate teams, one from the Pakistan Embassy in Tokyo and the other from the Pakistani community visited the area on 15 March to assess the situation and to supply food to the victims. Many Asian, European and American airlines sent special flights to evacuate their nationals, including US soldiers based in Japan for fear of the radioactivity spreading all over the country. There was an exodus of people at Narita and Haneda airports in Tokyo besides the Kansai airport at Osaka and other airports.
Once again, as ever, helpless Pakistanis were found stranded. Airfares went beyond their purchasing reach as airlines started charging full price tickets instead of discount and one-way fares. Practically speaking, the Pakistani Embassy in Tokyo did not assist their own countrymen.
The exodus at the airports was huge. Just in the first three days over 600,000 people left Japan. The stranded Pakistanis faced the same fate: there was no transit way out for them from Japan to any destination nearby Asia to save themselves from the nuclear radiation. They had to get a confirmed returned ticket onwards from Pakistan before entering any destination in Asia.
In emergency situations there should be some relief but the bureaucracies worked as usual during the disaster. In disaster situations helpless Pakistanis continued to face the so-called stigma of terrorism not only in America and Europe but all over Asia. The Japanese natural calamity and nuclear crisis has demanded a reversal of the immigration policy for all nationals, including Pakistanis.
Following the disaster, Pakistan became a donor country of food assistance to Japan. It was not the first time that Pakistan assisted Japan. Soon after the creation of Pakistan, the country assisted and made an offer to Japan in a number of ways, including the donation of 60,000 tons of rice, the offer of the rehabilitation of the atomic bomb victims. Such a benevolent role of the newly-created State of Pakistan was never highlighted and generally the Japanese side has not acknowledged Pakistan's generosity toward Japan. This time again, Pakistan did not leave behind other nations in assisting Japan at this hour of need and urgency.
A special flight from Islamabad carrying relief goods such as biscuits, milk, blankets, and drinking water for victims left Pakistan for Japan on 23 March. On next day two C-130 aircraft loaded with 24 tons of relief supplies left Chaklala Airport for Tokyo.
Pakistan has great expertise in nuclear safety. The country joined international efforts aimed at overcoming Japan's nuclear crisis after a formal request by Tokyo and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Pakistan decided to send a team of nuclear scientists to control the four and potentially six nuclear reactors which exploded at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Pakistani nuclear scientists suspect that radioactivity has already touched the seventh of a total of nine alert levels. The Pakistani scientists will work with the IAEA's emergency response network center and will provide equipment and manpower to help monitor radiation levels. The scientists will also join efforts to detect sources of radioactivity. They will also help analyse possible solutions in reducing the radiation levels in the activity zones.
Pakistan's assistance would be critical in this regard and in cooling down the six electricity-generating power plants at Fukushima. Ensuring safety of the Japanese civilian population and devising evacuation strategies would also be among the major tasks for the rescue teams that the Pakistani scientists would join. Pakistan is a signatory to the Convention on Assistance in Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency and a registered member of Response Assistance Network (RANET) and IAEA. RANET is designed to provide a compatible and integrated system for the provision of international assistance to minimise the actual or potential radiological consequences of an emergency for health, environment, and property.
Pakistan also consumes three percent of the nuclear energy from its three nuclear power reactors. Lately, the Chinese have been assisting Pakistan in setting up nuclear reactors. China, however, should not supply Pakistan with its outdated nuclear reactors. These concerns have risen after the Fukushima nuclear crisis. The mantra of solving our energy needs through nuclear power is not acceptable any more after the Fukushima event, as pointed out by A. H. Nayyer, a visiting professor of physics at LUMS in Lahore. 'If an industrialised Japan could not cope with the nuclear reactors' disaster, how can Pakistan cope with it if it happens. Pakistan cannot handle a Fukushima-like disaster', says Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, a nuclear physicist at the Quaid-i -Azam University, Islamabad. He says that Pakistan must dump its nuclear energy plans. The Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) is now 40 years old (like Fukushima) based on Canadian technology. It is rated among the worst functioning reactors of the world. The Chashma reactor site is known to be on top of a series of tectonic plates. The Fukushima crisis caused the nuclear industry great shock. This might lead India to cancel its potential deal with Japan to receive nuclear reactors. Pakistan also must reconsider its nuclear energy options and needs to go back to hydroelectricity, renewable, wind, solar, and coal energy, and to import hydroelectricity from the Central Asian Republics.
(The writer is Fellow of the Tokyo-based Japan Foundation and now resides at Islamabad)