Tsunami takes grim toll on Japan’s elderly
| FEATURE |
 |
MIYAKO — Japan’s quake and tsunami disaster has taken an especially harsh toll on the elderly, who have seen their lives of peaceful retirement shattered into a nightmare of homeless desolation.
Bewildered, bereft and often cut off from any family support, they have suffered more than most from the terrible deprivation wrought by the wall of water that engulfed the coast of northeast Japan a week ago.
Like many towns and villages in the region, the quiet port of Miyako had a large elderly population as, over the years, an increasing number of younger people had moved elsewhere in search of work.
Helpless in the face of the speed and destructive power of the tsunami, they figure highly in the ever-growing estimates of the dead and missing..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110320com6.html
0 comments
Post a Comment