Looking For Your Car? Members Of Your Family?

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

“Cars mangled by the massive wall of water that destroyed into Japan’s northeast coast are being removed by construction equipment, placed on trucks and laid to rest by the thousands on flood plains once covered with water. The cars, many of which are marked with spray paint to indicate if bodies needed to be removed from inside, are laid in neat rows with license plates easily visible for owners or family members hoping to find lost vehicles.”

Read the complete gripping Reuters article here.

PS: Despite more than 20,000 dead, you won’t find pictures of them in the Japanese media. It is against Japanese custom to show pictures of the dead. Japanese are shocked when foreign media do not respect this custom.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Detroit-Iron Detroit-Iron on Mar 26, 2011

    I have been amazed at the slow pace and incompetence of the response. I guess, to paraphrase Kanye, Naoto Kan doesn't care about Japanese people.

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    • Jimal Jimal on Mar 26, 2011

      I don't know that I'd call the problem at the nuclear plants a "side show". The quake and tsunami were catastrophic on their own, but the very real potential for meltdown (if it hasn't happened already) has a huge effect beyond Japan.

  • Disaster Disaster on Mar 26, 2011

    I'm with the Japanese on the dead. Some things should be respected. I wonder how long before these cars make it to the U.S. on reclaimed titles?

    • See 1 previous
    • Lorenzo Lorenzo on Mar 26, 2011

      Most of America was once "with the Japanese" on showing pictures of the dead. In the 1920s, according to my older relatives, major newspapers that printed such photos were assaulted by howls of protest. Only sleazy tabloids like Police Gazette would print them, and they were then sold "under the counter", as Playboy would be in the 1950s and '60s.

  • Jmo Jmo on Mar 26, 2011

    I was very surprised to read in the New York Times that 99% of Japanese drivers don't carry tsunami riders on their car insurance. Some very high percentage of all those cars that were washed away weren't covered. So, when that big chunk of Canary Island slides into the Atlantic and sends a massive wall of water racing towards the East Coast of the US - am I covered? http://www.rense.com/general56/tsu.htm

  • Robert.Walter Robert.Walter on Mar 27, 2011

    To the extent that the bodies are not mangled or decomposed beyond recognition, pictures should be made of their faces, and records of their fingerprints, teeth, DNA should be recorded. Such that any potential survivor can identify the decedent and or the authorities can match these to any extant databases scattered throughout the country. I would expect that someone is/has created a database on these cars, listing make, model, MY, color, plate number, owner's name, location found, current location, comments whether any bodies inside and if so, where bodies now reside. For me a massive database of houses destroyed, cars (boats), people registered in shelters (or other registered survivors), identified fatalities, etc. compared against census / voter's records would be helpful for identifying dead.

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