By Eric Bellman and Miho Inada
Sendai, Japan- When a tsunami blasted through Kirin Brewery's seaside facilities here, it tipped over giant beer-storage tanks and spread a blanket of beer bottles, barrels and other goods across the port. The beverages that spilled out were then hit a second time: by a surge of thirsty residents.
Witnesses say hundreds of people carted off beer, coffee, juice and other goods that had escaped Kirin's warehouse when the tsunami waters receded.
"all kinds of people came and were taking things away, they kept coming until everything was gone," on Saturday, said Makoto Igarashi, who manages a gas station across the street from the brewery. "some even tried to enter the Kirin grounds, but the guards stopped them."
Despite the lack of food, water, medicine and gasoline, few Japanese in the hardest-hit areas have complained, and there has been little signs of looting. However, as more stories of struggle and survival trickle out of smashed seaside communities, there is some evidence that the chaotic circumstances may have proved to much of a temptation for a small minority. Most of the looting incidents appear to target necessities in tight supply, such as food and gasoline, rather than durable goods.
In at least two convenience stores of Ishinomaki up the coast from Sendai where waves pushed cars into the front windows and cleared products from the shelves, ATMs were pried open by someone with tools to remove the cash within. Other convenience stores that survived the waves also had their front doors broken by people desperate for food and water.
In one deserted self-service noodle shop in Sendai, a food-ticket vending machine had also been forced open to get at the cash inside. Nearby, holes had been punched into gas tanks of cars flipped upside down, apparently by people unable to wait for gasoline stations to reopen.
Japan's National Police Agency acknowledges there has been some looting, but says it doesn't yet have data on how widspread the phenomenon is. "There haven't been many reports, I would guess only in the dozens, said Nobuhiro Kato, a chief of the National Police Agency. But "there must be more lootings that are not reported up to police,' he said.
Some people may feel they can't stop people in such difficult circumstances from looting. Mr. Kato said Tokyo and some other perfectural police plan to send more patrol cars to affected areas to prevent further problems. "If we keep ignoring such acts, the place is going to turn into a lawless area," he said.
Looting is common after some disasters. New Orleans slipped into near-anarchy after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and there were scattered reports of theft in areas affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, including villagers arrested with trucks full of refrigerators, furniture and washing machines in Sri Lanka. Japan experienced only scattered reports of looting after one of its most recent disasters, the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
But while Japan has escaped serious crime problems so far this time, the emerging reports of unlawful activity have under-scored the need for authorities to further speed up relief in affected areas, where some 318,000 people remain in shelters and freezing temperatures are adding to the misery.
Aid supplies have moved more quickly in recent days, but relief agencies say they remain concerned that aid isn't getting through to everyone.
At some evacuation centers, residents have spread rumors that gangs of robbers were breaking into homes and cars. But police said in the heavily damaged state of Miyagi that they have investigated more than 200 robbery calls only to find it is almost always the actual owner of the home or car that is trying to break in.
Miyagi prefecture police said looting hasn't been their top priority. A spokesman said the state police hadn't been notified about problems around the brewery, but that any people taking drinks are breaking the law. Kirin said it couldn't comment on what happened near its plant, as its employees have been busy trying to figure out how to restart operations of the brewery.
_Patricia Barta
contributed to this article.
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Wednesday, March 23rd 2011 at 10:40AM
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