Hojo Town Tornado Aftermath

Colleagues have taken pictures of the aftermath of the tornado in Hojo Town, at the North of Tsukuba municipality. The destruction is enormous. Below are images showing where Hojo town is in Japan, and a view of the tornado path. It still is hard to believe this is the same place we visited just three weeks back. Many former possessions are already stacked away as trash, and people are fixing their roofs. The Self Defense Force was also assessing damage. Even stone statues of the temples are broken and concrete power lines pushed into the ground.

Tsukuba City Homepage now also had information available in English:

There was a Tornado in Tsukuba City on May 6th (12:45pm)(Updated May 7,2012)

• Evacuation Places
  1) Oda elementary school
  2) Tai elementary school
• Where to dispose waste,rubbles, garbage, etc.
  1) Tsukuba community center (South parking area)
  ■8:30am - 17:15pm　(every day for the time being)
  • wood/timber, heat insulating material, concrete walls, roof tiles are acceptable.
  2) Clean center
  ■weekdays 8:30am - 16:30pm, Sat 8:30am - 11:30am
  • burnable garbage, non-burnable garbage, home electric appliances are acceptable.

※Please bring the garbage directly to the Clean Center (Tsukuba Mimori 2339, Tel:029-867-1379)

• Traffic Information
  Bus stops have changed around the Hojo area and around the Tsukuba community center.

The Japanese version of the website shows much more detailed information, including the following table (translated by Google Translate):

Human suffering (human)				Dwelling damage (buildings)
Dead	Missing person	Injured		Hojo district	Daisuna district	Nishigoya district	Yoshinuma district
		Serious injury	Minor injury
One	Zero	Zero	37	170 destroyed, 207 partially destroyed, 450 damaged part, a total of 827 (Some of them are also included non-residential buildings such as warehouses, barns)

Almost immediately after the event the emergency volunteer website started to organize volunteer activities (translated by Google Translate):

We will begin registering volunteers to affected areas at this time a tornado occurred in Tsukuba City on May 6. Future, you will be asked to go to activity according to the needs of subscribers from the victims. Asked to perform activities according to your needs, so you may not be able to ask their activities are registered, please understand. Contact Volunteer Center disaster ◆ Tsukuba 　 Address: (place of study painting two school district town D32) 2530-2 Karima Tsukuba 　　　　　 , Tsukuba City Hall second floor 　 Phone :029 -883 -1370 ※ Registration time volunteers, 9:00 to 17:00 will be. 　Addition, if you know of anyone who made ​​the request of the volunteer activities in Shakyo, we will join the (plan A natural disaster) insurance Shakyo volunteer activities at their own expense. 　In addition, households are limited to local areas and, unlike when the earthquake affected areas, many are not coming up still needs volunteers. In addition, the site is located at inconvenient traffic, crowded with a vehicle such as debris removal and restoration work, and had been suffering from traffic congestion. Volunteer coordination, so you will be a request from more activity in accordance with the circumstances and needs of victims of the disaster area, familiar with regional conditions, please register it understands.

The JMA is being cautious and have issued a warning, according to the mainichi: The weather agency cautioned that similar atmospheric conditions that gave rise to the tornados on Sunday could develop over a wide area between Thursday through Friday. 

Let's take care riding our bicycles to work.

More scientific information can be found here.