I spent the day walking slowly and carefully around my neighborhood, checking the old brick and rock walls in front of empty houses and scouring the streets for damage from Monday’s earthquake. Though quite removed from the epicenter, less than five kilometers from my house, there was considerable damage: large sinkholes, collapsed houses, buckled roads, broken walls, etc. Luckily for me, and many others, the area where I live appears to be mostly unscathed.
The one thing I noticed on my patrol today was that I couldn’t tell if the cracks I was seeing in the roads and the walls and in various spaces were new or if they had always been there. While everything seemed to be in much worse condition than I remembered it being, I couldn’t say for sure if this or that pothole had always been there, or always been so deep. Most of my memories are left over from 14 years ago, when I first came to Japan. At that time, I was amazed by how well kept all of the infrastructure was and how none of the cars had rust on them. Today, though, I noticed for the first time, that the roads are getting to be in pretty bad condition and that quite a few cars are beginning to show signs of rust.
Maybe these are things I just never noticed before. Maybe they are signs that people and local governments are feeling the financial pinch.
This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io