Japan earthquake and tsunami: How to help
Japan was hit by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded on March 11. The magnitude-9.0 quake spawned a deadly tsunami that slammed into the small island nation, leaving a huge swath of devastation in its wake. Thousands of people are dead and many more are still missing or injured; almost half a million people are homeless.
In addition, the country is facing a nuclear crisis that some experts warn may be much worse than the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster.
Japan has often donated when other countries have experienced disasters, such as when Hurricane Katrina impacted the United States. Below are organizations that are working on relief and recovery in the region.
AMERICAN RED CROSS: The American Red Cross is currently supporting and advising the Japanese Red Cross, which continues to assist the government in its response. You can help people affected by disasters, like floods, fires, tornadoes and hurricanes, as well as countless other crises at home and around the world by making a donation to support American Red Cross Disaster Relief. Donate here.
GLOBALGIVING: Established a fund to disburse donations to organizations providing relief and emergency services to victims of the earthquake and tsunami. We are working with International Medical Corps, Save the Children, and other organizations on the ground to provide support. Our partners on the ground are working hard to provide immediate relief. Donate here.
SAVE THE CHILDREN: Save the Children, which has worked in Japan since 1986, has an immediate goal of $5 million to launch longer-term recovery for children affected by Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Save the Children has opened the first child-friendly space in Japan, protective environments where children can gather to play and share their experiences under the supervision of trained, caring adults. Donate here.
SALVATION ARMY: The Salvation Army has been in Japan since 1895 and is currently providing emergency assistance to those in need. Donate here.
AMERICARES: AmeriCares and its relief workers in Japan are working to deliver medicines and supplies to hospitals, shelters and health responders to treat and care for survivors. The AmeriCares team began mobilizing within hours of the first reports of the dual disasters, dispatching an emergency response manager to Tokyo to direct the efforts of our relief workers in Sendai, the largest city closest to the impact zone. Our team is in direct contact with local officials, evacuation shelters and hospitals treating the injured in Miyagi, Fukushima and Iwate to determine health needs. Donate here.
INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS: A team of doctors flew to Sendai, where they will be delivering supplies, assessing needs, and identifying communities that have not yet been reached. We continue to coordinate with local health authorities and partners on critical gaps, providing technical expertise and assisting with logistics. Donate here.
SHELTERBOX: ShelterBox responds instantly to natural and man-made disasters by delivering boxes of aid to those who are most in need. The box includes a tent for a family of 10, cooker, blankets, water purification, tool kit and other items survivors need to rebuild their lives in the days, weeks and months following a disaster. Donate here.
France fires on Libyan military vehicle
PARIS – A French fighter jet fired Saturday on a Libyan military vehicle, the first reported offensive action in a international military operation against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces, a French defense official said.
French Defense Ministry spokesman Thierry Burkhard says the strike happened at 1645 GMT Saturday.
Burkhard says the target was confirmed as a military vehicle, but it was not clear what kind. He said no hostile fire on the French jet has been reported.
It was the first reported offensive military action against Gadhafi's troops, since the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution on Thursday, authorizing operations to protect civilians in Libya.
France sent a dozen Mirage and Rafale jets Saturday to survey the one-time opposition stronghold of Benghazi and the 150 kilometer-by-100 kilometer no-fly zone, Burkhard said.
"All aircraft that enter into this zone could be shot down," he said.
The strike came less than two hours after top officials from the United States, Europe and the Arab world agreed in Paris to launch a risky military operation to protect civilians from attacks by Gadhafi's forces.
It also came after Libyan government troops forces attacked Benghazi earlier Saturday, apparently ignoring a proclaimed cease-fire.
The United States, Britain, France and 19 other participants in an emergency summit in Paris on Saturday "agreed to put in place all the means necessary, in particular military" to make Gadhafi respect a U.N. Security Council resolution Thursday demanding a cease-fire, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
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Officials: US missile attack on Libya prepared
WASHINGTON – The U.S. prepared to a launch a missile attack on Libyan air defenses, but American ships and aircraft stationed in and around the Mediterranean Sea did not participate in initial French air missions Saturday, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the unfolding intervention.
One official said the U.S. intends to limit its involvement — at least in the initial stages — to helping protect French and other air missions by taking out Libyan air defenses.
An attack against those defenses with Navy sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles was planned for later Saturday, one official said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of military operations.
The official said that depending on how Libyan forces responded to initial intervention by the French and others, the U.S. could launch additional attacks in support of allied forces. The intention was to leave it to other nations to patrol a no-fly zone over Libya once air defenses are silenced, the official said.
President Barack Obama, on an official visit to Brazil, mentioned the Libya operation only briefly. He noted that U.S., European and other government officials met in Paris Saturday to discuss the way ahead in Libya.
"Our consensus was strong and our resolve is clear," Obama said. "The people of Libya must be protected and in the absence of an immediate end to the violence against civilians our coalition is prepared to act and to act with urgency."
After the Paris meeting, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi continued to defy the will of the international community that he halt attack against rebels. She said the U.S. will support the international military coalition taking action to stop Gadhafi.
Clinton said "unique" American military capabilities will be brought to bear in support of the coalition, and she reiterated Obama's pledge on Friday that no U.S. ground forces would get involved. She was not more specific about U.S. involvement.
"We will support the enforcement" of the U.N. Security Council resolution that was passed earlier in the week, she said. That resolution authorized the imposition of a no-fly zone and use of "all necessary" military force.
Among the U.S. Navy ships in the Mediterranean were two guided-missile destroyers, the USS Barry and USS Stout, as well as two amphibious warships, the USS Kearsarge and USS Ponce, and a command-and-control ship, the USS Mount Whitney. The submarine USS Providence was also in the Mediterranean.
Clinton: Fears of Libyan `unspeakable atrocities'
PARIS – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that the U.S. will bring "unique capabilities to bear" in Libya as a global coalition began enforcing a U.N.-authorized no-fly zone to protect civilians from Moammar Gadhafi's forces.
The world will not "sit idly by," she said at a news conference, amid fears that Gadhafi will commit "unspeakable atrocities" against his people.
"We have every reason to fear that left unchecked Gadhafi would commit unspeakable atrocities," she told reporters after an international conference at which world powers launched enforcement of the no-fly zone.
Clinton said there was no evidence that Gadhafi's forces were respecting an alleged cease-fire they proclaimed and the time for action was now.
"Our assessment is that the aggressive action by Gadhafi's forces continue in many parts of the country," she said. "We have seen no real effort on the part of the Gadhafi forces to abide by a cease-fire."
"Further delay will only put more civilians at risk," she said. "So let me be very clear on the position of the United States: We will support an international coalition as it takes all necessary measures to enforce" the no-fly zone and protect Libyan civilians.
She said that Gadhafi must put the cease-fire into place immediately, stop advancing on the opposition-held city of Benghazi, turn on water, electricity and gas supplies to all areas of the country and reopen hospitals and clinics.
She made clear that the U.S. has no intention of sending ground troops into Libya and insisted that the Obama administration was working only in collaboration with the coalition.
"We did not lead this, we did not engage in unilateral actions in any way," Clinton said. She emphasized that "we are standing with the people of Libya, and we will not waver."
Despite U.S. support for the operation, Clinton said the United States had not yet decided on whether to follow France's lead in recognizing an opposition leadership council as the legitimate government of Libya. She said U.S. officials were in constant contact with opposition figures but would wait for developments to play out before deciding how to deal with the council.
At ground zero, the future finally appears
NEW YORK – The noise at ground zero is a steady roar. Engines hum. Cement mixers churn. Air horns blast. Cranes, including one that looks like a giant crab leg, soar and crawl over every corner of the 16-acre site.
For years, the future has been slow to appear at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But with six months remaining until the national 9/11 memorial opens, the work to turn a mountain of rubble into some of the inspiring moments envisioned nearly a decade ago is thundering forward.
One World Trade Center, otherwise known as the Freedom Tower, has joined the Manhattan skyline. Its steel frame, already clad in glass on lower floors, now stands 58 stories tall and is starting to inch above many of the skyscrapers that ring the site. A new floor is being added every week.
The mammoth black-granite fountains and reflecting pools that mark the footprints of the fallen twin towers are largely finished, and they are a spectacle. Workers have already begun testing the waterfalls that will ultimately cascade into a void in the center of each square pit. The plaza that surrounds them has the potential to be one of the city's awesome public spaces once construction is complete. Some 150 trees have already been planted in the plaza deck, even as workers continue to build it.
The memorial plaza won't be complete when it opens on Sept. 11, 2011, and a tour of the site last week makes clear that work around it will continue for years. Mud is still plentiful at ground level, and for now the site is dominated by the same concrete-gray shades that blanketed lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks.
But the agency that owned the trade center and has spent nearly a decade rebuilding it is aiming to deliver a memorial experience on 9/11/11 that closes one chapter — marked by mourning — and ushers in a new experience, where ground zero again becomes part of the city's everyday fabric.
"We want people to be able to see that downtown does have this incredible future to it," said Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. "The work will not be done on that day. What we hope will be done is the sense of frustration."
For now, the complexity and scale of the construction is evident in every corner.
Workers labor around the clock. During the busiest shifts, around 2,800 people — mostly men — labor amid tangles and ravines of steel. In one steel cavern that will become a transit hub concourse, showers of orange sparks fly as welders install trusses weighing up to 50 tons.
From the top of One World Trade, the view is spectacular, as it was from the twin towers, even though the building stands at 680 feet, less than halfway to its planned 1,776-foot height. Visitors to the upper floors can see the grand sweep of the Hudson River and New York Harbor, dotted with container ships, all the way to Sandy Hook at the northern tip of the Jersey Shore. People at ground level can now see the tower, too, from a growing number of places in the city and across the river in New Jersey.
High in the tower, safety is a big concern. There is netting everywhere to keep pieces of this or that from falling into the void below.
On the 29th floor, men preparing to install window glass last week were tethered to the building by safety cables as they worked near the ledge. Even their hard hats were attached by a safety line, in case they were knocked over the side. A yellow line, painted on the concrete deck, marked how close workers are allowed to stand without wearing a safety harness.
The building's glass curtain wall now rises to the 27th floor. After initial slow progress, the crews are getting better and faster at getting each pane in place, while managing wind that pushes each big sheet around like a sail. By Sept. 11, the building is expected to be 80 stories high, making it the tallest tower downtown.
A huge portion of the reconstruction of the trade center is taking place below ground. The underground halls that house the memorial are cavernous, and in their unfinished state look like some unexplored temple in an Indiana Jones movie.
The 60-foot-high slurry wall of reinforced concrete on the western edge of the site, meant to hold back the Hudson River, is two-thirds taller than Fenway Park's left field fence, and bears similarities in size and appearance to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
The huge boxes that hold the waterfall pits visible from the surface are somehow suspended from the ceiling, held up by pillars that don't seem big enough to support the blocks' massive weight.
A maze of tunnels, catwalks and narrow, temporary staircases connect the various underground levels.
The complexity of the project is evident everywhere, but the choreography involved in keeping the place going is best demonstrated by the engineering feats that have been performed to prevent construction from disrupting the city's subway system.
The tunnel holding Manhattan's No. 1 subway tracks was buried beneath a mountain of rubble after the attacks. The tube now runs right through the middle of the site, hurdling thousands of passengers through ground zero every day.
To rebuild, work crews needed to excavate nearly 100 feet down below it, but rather than reroute service and demolish the tunnel, they merely propped it up on huge pilings and dug beneath it. The tracks, still encased in their old concrete tube, now sit suspended in mid-air as work takes place below, above and on either side.
Ward said he hoped people will be able to see in six months that, despite the ongoing construction, the site's days as a disaster zone are ending.
"It will be a place where you meet a friend for lunch. Where you meet a date. Where you race across the plaza and beneath the trees to get out of the rain," he said. "We want New Yorkers to make their own narrative there."
For years, the future has been slow to appear at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But with six months remaining until the national 9/11 memorial opens, the work to turn a mountain of rubble into some of the inspiring moments envisioned nearly a decade ago is thundering forward.
One World Trade Center, otherwise known as the Freedom Tower, has joined the Manhattan skyline. Its steel frame, already clad in glass on lower floors, now stands 58 stories tall and is starting to inch above many of the skyscrapers that ring the site. A new floor is being added every week.
The mammoth black-granite fountains and reflecting pools that mark the footprints of the fallen twin towers are largely finished, and they are a spectacle. Workers have already begun testing the waterfalls that will ultimately cascade into a void in the center of each square pit. The plaza that surrounds them has the potential to be one of the city's awesome public spaces once construction is complete. Some 150 trees have already been planted in the plaza deck, even as workers continue to build it.
The memorial plaza won't be complete when it opens on Sept. 11, 2011, and a tour of the site last week makes clear that work around it will continue for years. Mud is still plentiful at ground level, and for now the site is dominated by the same concrete-gray shades that blanketed lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks.
But the agency that owned the trade center and has spent nearly a decade rebuilding it is aiming to deliver a memorial experience on 9/11/11 that closes one chapter — marked by mourning — and ushers in a new experience, where ground zero again becomes part of the city's everyday fabric.
"We want people to be able to see that downtown does have this incredible future to it," said Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. "The work will not be done on that day. What we hope will be done is the sense of frustration."
For now, the complexity and scale of the construction is evident in every corner.
Workers labor around the clock. During the busiest shifts, around 2,800 people — mostly men — labor amid tangles and ravines of steel. In one steel cavern that will become a transit hub concourse, showers of orange sparks fly as welders install trusses weighing up to 50 tons.
From the top of One World Trade, the view is spectacular, as it was from the twin towers, even though the building stands at 680 feet, less than halfway to its planned 1,776-foot height. Visitors to the upper floors can see the grand sweep of the Hudson River and New York Harbor, dotted with container ships, all the way to Sandy Hook at the northern tip of the Jersey Shore. People at ground level can now see the tower, too, from a growing number of places in the city and across the river in New Jersey.
High in the tower, safety is a big concern. There is netting everywhere to keep pieces of this or that from falling into the void below.
On the 29th floor, men preparing to install window glass last week were tethered to the building by safety cables as they worked near the ledge. Even their hard hats were attached by a safety line, in case they were knocked over the side. A yellow line, painted on the concrete deck, marked how close workers are allowed to stand without wearing a safety harness.
The building's glass curtain wall now rises to the 27th floor. After initial slow progress, the crews are getting better and faster at getting each pane in place, while managing wind that pushes each big sheet around like a sail. By Sept. 11, the building is expected to be 80 stories high, making it the tallest tower downtown.
A huge portion of the reconstruction of the trade center is taking place below ground. The underground halls that house the memorial are cavernous, and in their unfinished state look like some unexplored temple in an Indiana Jones movie.
The 60-foot-high slurry wall of reinforced concrete on the western edge of the site, meant to hold back the Hudson River, is two-thirds taller than Fenway Park's left field fence, and bears similarities in size and appearance to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
The huge boxes that hold the waterfall pits visible from the surface are somehow suspended from the ceiling, held up by pillars that don't seem big enough to support the blocks' massive weight.
A maze of tunnels, catwalks and narrow, temporary staircases connect the various underground levels.
The complexity of the project is evident everywhere, but the choreography involved in keeping the place going is best demonstrated by the engineering feats that have been performed to prevent construction from disrupting the city's subway system.
The tunnel holding Manhattan's No. 1 subway tracks was buried beneath a mountain of rubble after the attacks. The tube now runs right through the middle of the site, hurdling thousands of passengers through ground zero every day.
To rebuild, work crews needed to excavate nearly 100 feet down below it, but rather than reroute service and demolish the tunnel, they merely propped it up on huge pilings and dug beneath it. The tracks, still encased in their old concrete tube, now sit suspended in mid-air as work takes place below, above and on either side.
Ward said he hoped people will be able to see in six months that, despite the ongoing construction, the site's days as a disaster zone are ending.
"It will be a place where you meet a friend for lunch. Where you meet a date. Where you race across the plaza and beneath the trees to get out of the rain," he said. "We want New Yorkers to make their own narrative there."
