Shigeru Ban giving shelter

Posted by zichi Lorentz

 
 

pps4otsuchi

 

The Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is well known for his innovative use of recycled cardboard paper tubes to quickly house disaster victims. He provided emergency refugee shelters for post-civil-war Rwanda, as well as to the homeless after Japan’s Kobe earthquake in 1995 and the 2010 Haitian earthquake. He is currently working on a cardboard tubing cathedral for post-disaster Christchurch, and his Container Temporary Housing project for Onagawa in Japan was recently announced.

The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of March 11 left half a million people displaced. In Onagawa, 3,800 of the costal town’s 4,500 homes were severely damaged or completely destroyed, and for this area Ban’s firm proposed pastel-coloured multi-story housing made from stacked shipping containers and steel frames that could be quickly erected, as pictured below. Furniture and cooking equipment is being donated by MUJI, and the grounds surrounding the homes will provide the residents with a market and library. Provisional housing like this often ends up going to waste, but Ban is determined that these transportable units will be reused for future disasters.

Currently under construction on the town’s baseball field, the 188 homes are set to be completed on October 15. Future residents are currently sheltered in a nearby gymnasium where Ban installed cardboard tubing partitions as an immediate intervention after the earthquake (pictured above). Since the March disasters, he has set up over 1,800 individual partitions for homeless Japanese families, all funded by donations: the Container Temporary Housing project is receiving government funding, but donations for Shigeru Ban’s relief work are still needed and can be made to the following bank account:

Bank: The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.

Branch: Higashi Matsubara Branch

Account Name: Voluntary Architects Network

Account No: 3636723 (Futsuu)

Swift Code: BOTKJPJT

Bank Address: 5-2-18 Matsubara, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan

If you make a contribution, you are asked to send your contact details to van[at]shigerubanarchitects.com so that you will receive updates on the project.

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Temporary housing in stacked shipping containers welcomes first residents

Posted by zichi Lorentz

 
 
Kiyono Matsushita carries futons to her new apartment in a temporary housing complex in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, on Oct. 11. (Mainichi)
Kiyono Matsushita carries futons to her new apartment in a temporary housing complex in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, on Oct. 11. (Mainichi)

ONAGAWA, Miyagi -- Temporary housing here built of stacked shipping containers began welcoming residents in earnest on Oct. 11, offering homes to many who have been without a place to call their own since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

There are now three two-story blocks built of the modified containers, totaling 45 residences. The country's first three-story block built using the technique is also now under construction at the site on the town's athletics field -- chosen to host the buildings for lack of level ground elsewhere in Onagawa -- and is expected to be finished by the end of October. The two-story blocks, expected to house a total of 108 people, were finished on Oct. 9.

One of those to move in on Oct. 11, 64-year-old housewife Kiyono Matsushita, had been living in a disaster refugee shelter in a gymnasium next to the site, and spent the day hauling futons and other personal possessions to her and her husband's new second-floor apartment.

Looking at the 30-square-meter dwelling with a wooden storage rack, Matsushita said, "We have a home here for the time being. The first thing I want to do is cook my husband's favourite vegetable dish."

According to the Onagawa Municipal Government, as of Oct. 11 there were still six refugee shelters in the town serving 215 people. Of the 1,294 temporary housing units planned by the town, only the three-story container-based building with its 144 units remains uncompleted. When it is finished, construction on all of Miyagi Prefecture's 22,043 temporary housing units will have been completed.

via mdn.mainichi.jp

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What’s happened to Japan’s tsunami survivors?

Posted by zichi Lorentz

 
 
Satsuko Yatsuzaka (L), and Ayako Shizo play with therapeutic robots at the Suisyoen retirement home about 30km (19 miles) south of the tsunami-crippled nuclear plant in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, July 28, 2011. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Satsuko Yatsuzaka (L), and Ayako Shizo play with therapeutic robots at the Suisyoen retirement home about 30km (19 miles) south of the tsunami-crippled nuclear plant in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, July 28, 2011. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

A visit by the U.N. secretary-general to Japan's tsunami-hit northeastern region may draw valuable international attention back to the survivors of the Asian nation's triple disaster.

Nearly five months after a 9-magnitude quake triggered a huge tsunami that devastated towns and villages along the coast and sparked a nuclear crisis in Fukushima, tens of thousands of homeless survivors are still living in evacuation centres in schools, sports halls and hotels, waiting for suitable accommodation.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon leaves on Saturday for Japan, where he'll visit Fukushima to see the devastation firsthand.

Ban will go to an evacuation centre and meet students at a high school in Fukushima city, his spokesman said on Tuesday. In Tokyo, he'll meet Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto.

Soon after radiation began leaking from Japan's quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the U.N. chief called for a stronger international nuclear safety regime.

The quake and tsunami killed more than 15,500 people and left nearly 5,000 missing. But since the world's media flooded into the country, beaming back horrific pictures of the destruction, international coverage of the lives of those affected has pretty much dried to a trickle.

These days it's more about the impact on the economy - especially car companies and farming - and the ongoing battle to make Fukushima Daiichi's reactors safe. 

via trust.org

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Japan urges 180,000 to evacuate flood area

Posted by zichi Lorentz

 
 

TOKYO (AFP) – Japan Friday issued evacuation advisories for more than 180,000 people in central Niigata region and tsunami-hit Fukushima, as heavy rains triggered floods which left five missing, reports said.

Sanjo City in Niigata, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Tokyo, advised all 104,000 residents to go to flood evacuation centres, Jiji Press news agency said.

Rain had topped half a metre (20 inches) at several points since Wednesday, it said.

"There are no immediate reports of injuries or deaths, but we urge our citizens to evacuate to the designated shelters as soon as possible and stay on alert," said Ayaka Hoshi, a Sanjo City spokeswoman.

In the prefectural capital Niigata, some 72,000 people were asked to evacuate.

In neighbouring Fukushima prefecture, the town of Tadami advised all its residents, some 4,900 people, to evacuate, Jiji said. Two men, both in their 60s, were missing, it said.

Police in Niigata said three members of a family in Tokamachi city had been swept away in a river. Two were recovered safely but the third, a 93-year-old woman, was missing, the agency said.

Two men were missing in other parts of Niigata prefecture.

Officials had requested the Self-Defence Force dispatch troops to join the search for missing people and help those stranded by mudslides and floods, Jiji and Kyodo News said.

More than 70,000 homes and buildings in Niigata and Fukushima prefectures were hit by power blackouts, Kyodo reported, with many houses flooded.

Fukushima is home to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant which was crippled by the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

via old.news.yahoo.com

More disasters in the previous disaster zones.........

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