I cannot recall ever attempting to take gasoline from a car by sucking through a rubber hose. But on Monday last week there I was, standing in a dirt parking lot while contemplating proper tube diameter to access the tank of our Toyota Belta sedan in the town of Kawasaki, a small suburb just west of disaster-ravaged Sendai.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that occurred off the coast of this city in Miyagi Prefecture at precisely 2:46 p.m. three days earlier set off a string of events that the city and its citizens are still struggling to overcome.
One of the more crucial concerns is the shortage of gasoline. The destination for the fuel pumped by mouth was a van carrying a group from the local Sendai-Finland Wellbeing Center.