Japan's Slow Rebuilding Effort

Reading the following article on the lack of progress from the March 11th Tsunami Disaster makes me wonder just how bad the Tribulation will be as described in the book of Revelation.  The same slow political response was seen after the disaster that struck New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Can one imagine when disasters strike strike all continents and upheaval such as a third of the population dying due to cosmological events?  If we are looking to our leaders now and the response is inadequate, imagine a disaster a hundred times worse.  The world will look toward to leadership, and the antichrist will be there always offering promises and hope. 

  

Six Months After Waves, Rebuilding Eludes Japan Town 

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan—Efforts have largely stalled to rebuild cities and towns along Japan's northeast coast that were smashed six months ago by a cataclysmic tsunami, as renewal efforts are crippled by political wrangling and the task's sheer complexity.

Six Months Later: Little Progress

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Patrick Barta/The Wall Street Journal

Wreckage and abandoned buildings continue to litter the landscape of Rikuzentakata, Japan nearly six months after the March 11 tsunami disaster.

In Rikuzenatakata, where rampaging waves on March 11 carried off nearly one-tenth of the population and obliterated the downtown, the city center remains a desolate plain. Studding the landscape are the gutted concrete shells of City Hall, a hospital and other buildings.
Workers have pushed most of the splintered wood, tangled steel and other debris into piles several stories high. But there has been no real rebuilding in the low-lying areas that were once the heart of the community. It is unclear when such work will begin.

"Without a plan, we can't do anything," said Eiko Kanno, a 56-year-old housewife whose home, near one of Rikuzentakata's main fishing ports, was obliterated by the tsunami. She now lives in a prefabricated temporary dwelling on a hill overlooking the wave-swept flats.


Up and down the tsunami-wrecked coast, residents and municipal officials blame politicians in Tokyo, who they say have failed to make critical decisions that would let them move forward. The biggest immediate issue is a lack of money, they say. Also impeding progress are diverging views about what to rebuild, and how.

For the rest of the story from the WSJ and pictures click here.