Sendai, Japan, Mar 18, 2011 / 01:23 am
Officials of the Catholic relief agency Caritas Japan have met with clergy of the Diocese of Sendai to discuss plans for relief and rehabilitation work in an area devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The northeastern Japanese area of Sendai, near the earthquake's epicenter, is only beginning to reestablish communication with the rest of the country. On March 16, Caritas Japan president Bishop Tarcisius Isao Kikuchi joined the agency's executive director Fr. Paul Daisuke Narui, and other clergy in meetings at the Sendai chancery office, to discuss Caritas' ongoing response to the crisis.
Fr. Narui described the extensive damage to the Sendai area in an online report for the Catholic relief agency Caritas.
“There are long walls of wrecked cars and destroyed houses,” he said. “Towns and villages have been flattened and destroyed, and life has been stopped in its tracks.”