March 13, 2011

Dear members of the DAISY Consortium and all those who are concerned:

Thank you very much for your kind notes and concerns on the mega-earthquake in Japan and aftershocks followed by giant Tsunami and nuclear reactor accidents caused by them.

The Japanese DAISY members are not located in the severely hit zones so far but some of us including JSRPD, ATDO, JBL, Shinanokenshi (Plextor), and Olympus experienced grade 5 earthquake without serious damage.

Tens of thousands of people are missing or dead due to up to grade 7 quake and more than 10 m high Tsunami which hit within 10 minutes after the quake in the Pacific Coast of North Eastern area of Japan. The hit are blacked out and temperature goes down to -3 to -5 in the evening. We expect tens of thousands of victims of Tsunami but could not search them effectively because the Tsunami warning was lifted just a few minutes ago.

A massive rescue team is organized in all hit zone. Thousands of people who were stranded on top of the building were rescued by helicopters. People are very collaborative and no plunderers. I thank international communities for emergency rescue teams sent to Japan immediately.

A series of earthquakes around grade 5 near Nagano Prefecture where Shinanokenshi locates is reported. I hope there is no serious damage but will contact them on Monday.

We are concerned with the situation of nuclear reactors located in Fukushima, 350 km North East of Tokyo, where some radiation leak is reported. I don’t think that we are facing “melt down” but I keep my eyes on the situation of reactors and plan to disseminate necessary information on how to protect from radiation in particular for children and people with print disabilities in multimedia DAISY format through the internet because it is extremely important but not well known. Unfortunately some people living nearby the reactors are found exposed to radiation so far. Without knowledge, people don’t know even the fact that they are exposed to fatal radiation.

People in Urakawa, collaborators of the Urakawa Project to identify use cases for accessible multimedia in particular based on Tsunami evacuation of persons with severe psychiatric or cognitive disabilities including all members of the Bethel’s House reportedly showed a good model of Tsunami evacuation in the community. They are users of their home-made evacuation manual in multimedia DAISY format that show their own group-home, exact evacuation route and good smiles shown when they reach the safe zone identified for each group-home with a narration of familiar member’s voice. Bethel members conduct Tsunami evacuation drill 4 times per year including in the evening in winter. The evacuation target we set out is “reaching higher than 10 m from the sea level within 4 minutes after the earthquake” to save everybody.

With the devastating giant Tsunami, I now reconfirm that the use case development of the Urakawa Project to save everybody in potential Tsunami zone in Urakawa was valid. The Urakawa Project greatly contributed to SMIL 3.0 which is the basis of the “media overlays” of the EPUB3. Since accessible information for knowledge is essential to save lives in disasters, DAISY4 and EPUB3 accessibility features must contribute to develop accessible disaster preparedness/response/reconstruction information.

DAISY Consortium members in Japan will do our best to save human lives and reconstruct our inclusive society in collaboration with friends and colleagues around the world including those who are suffering from disasters in their own community.

Best regards,

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Hiroshi Kawamura,
President of the DAISY Consortium
http://www.daisy.org/