PodcastTurkish volunteer serve up meals for Japan's earthquake victims
The Turkish national Aydın Muhammet's 10-person volunteer team from a construction company in the Japanese town of Wajima has been offering victims their first hot meals since a magnitude 7.6 earthquake leveled much of the city on New Year's Day.
Reuters
On a chilly Friday morning in the quake-hit Japanese town of Wajima, Aydın Muhammet and his employees served steaming bowls of soup and rice in front of a community center for evacuees.
The Turkish national's 10-man volunteer team from the construction company he owns in central Japan has been at work since Jan.4 afternoon, offering victims their first hot meals since a magnitude 7.6 earthquake leveled much of their city on New Year's Day.
(Photos: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon)
Rushing to disaster zones to lend a helping hand has become Muhammet's second calling since the massive temblor and tsunami on the other side of the Japanese archipelago killed roughly 20,000 people in March 2011.
Muhammet, who has been living in his wife's native land for the past 30 years, said he was restless to bring aid since seeing the news of the devastation on TV. He sprang into action as soon as he learned the roads to Wajima had opened up.
Furiously working the phones in search of stores to stock up on supplies, Muhammet and his team - seven other compatriots and two Vietnamese - left their home in Nagoya around 3 a.m. on Thursday, shoving aside worries about driving through snow country without proper tyres.
"I just had to do something," he said.
The five-truck team finally arrived 11 hours later for a 300-km (180 miles) trip that would normally take half that time, and immediately got to work handing out everything from water and diapers to ready-made meals.
"We should have been exhausted but once we got here, we were energized," he said.
Muhammet, 46, said his motivation comes from knowing the despair and loneliness people can feel when they see no help arriving.
"I've been to other disaster zones so I sense the happiness of the victims when we're here. And that makes me feel I want to keep doing this," he said, speaking in Japanese.
Wajima, a city of about 30,000 best known for its lacquerware craft, has seen some of the worst destruction, with scores of homes and businesses collapsed or burnt down.