This is a disaster relief update from Pastor Yoshiya Kondo in Morioka city, Iwate, in northern Japan.
A building in the coastal area of Taro district that’s left only with its framework was a “childcare center”. It’s horrifying even to imagine what happened here on March 11, around 3pm… This afternoon, I gathered my courage to ask at the Taro District General Office, “What happened to the children at that childcare center…?” “The children who were left at the center were all safe” …..! I visited a place where the childcare workers and children are with Pastor Otsuka from Morioka Minami Church and the EMS team from America.
When the siren sounded, the workers took the children, some just woke up from their nap, others still sleeping, to a designated evacuation location. They didn’t go into the building because they were afraid of aftershocks. And as they looked back, they saw a wall of water almost reaching where they stood. The thirteen workers picked up the children frantically and ran and ran… and they saved 37 children. But some of the children who had already been picked up and gone home are gone… They shared with us in tears.
They told us their need was story books and toys that got swept away along with the building. It is such a wonder that the IBF team, which arrived late at night, happened to have brought storybooks. We will deliver these books tomorrow, hoping that there will be smiles on the faces of children and childcare workers as they open up the books even in the midst of such grief.