A Canadian medical team based in British Columbia is en route to the worst part of the Japan earthquake and tsunami zones near Sendai in the Miyagi prefecture.
Taking tonnes of medical supplies, water purification systems and trauma gear with them, the five Canadians and two Americans left Vancouver International Airport at 2:30 p.m. PT on Sunday, and were expected to land in Tokyo late tonight. Three more Americans flying out of Portland, Ore., will rendezvous with the advance team.
Dave Johnson, an air traffic controller and team leader with the Canadian Medical Assistance Teams (CMAT), said they are part of the first wave of humanitarian aid workers heading to Northern Japan from North America.
“We’re a rapid deployment assessment team, part of a larger group of people that will go ahead of the main team,” Johnson said. “Once we reach Narita [airport in Tokyo], we’ll either get ground transportation or an air lift up to the northeast and the more affected areas.”
The Canadian contingent includes three paramedics, a search-and-rescue expert and a photojournalist.
Over the course of the next two weeks, the team expects to be working in or near the city of Sendai. A larger part of their role is to report back to the main teams in North America and help co-ordinate further waves of help – field hospitals or larger groups of the 1,000 or so volunteers who are currently registered.
“The media is reporting a lot of information, but there are still areas that are affected that haven’t been found yet,” Johnson said.
Johnson said one of the biggest challenges for these experienced aid workers – who have been traveling to major disasters since 2003 – is dropping their daily lives in a heartbeat.
Kevin Sanford is a member of the team who did just that.
“I didn’t actually know I was going before yesterday afternoon,” he said. “I didn’t have time to look up radiation poisoning – but I grabbed a bunch of salts. The iodine will help.”
"That's the scary part,” said Nathan Blackstock, another volunteer who is leaving in a future deployment. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with those reactors."
Kelly Churchill, a paramedic from Squamish, left with the team on Sunday. Before departure, she said she had slightly different anxieties.
"For me it's going to be the aftershocks. That was something I was not prepared to deal with in Haiti,” she said. “I’m a little nervous about dealing with that and the potential for larger aftershocks.”
But Churchill said she feels much more prepared this time to deal with the scenes of devastation that await them.
Ryan Thorburn, a paramedic from Courtenay, B.C., also left with the team on Sunday. He was also a responder in Haiti, and said he’s less naïve than he was before that experience.
“I’m a lot more emotional this time,” he said. “I do know to expect stuff that hasn’t been on the news. Stuff that’s been edited and not shown to the families.”
Kathy Harms, an advanced life support paramedic in B.C. and a director for CMAT, saw the team away at the airport.
She’s not part of this first deployment, but will likely go and provide medical services in the near future in Japan, as she did when an earthquake stuck Haiti.
“Somebody needs to do it,” she said.
Harms is working to line up ground transportation in Japan for the team leaving Sunday, and then will arrange for air transport for more volunteers to go once the assessment team tells her where they’re needed – in the earthquake zones, or in the tsunami zones.
“It’s almost two disasters in one,” Harms said.
Ian Burkheimer, a part of the American contingent in this mission, was recruited by his cousin, a U.S. Army Special Forces medic, but it didn’t take much persuasion for him to join as a translator and guide. He lived in Japan for many years and his extended family lives and works in Sendai and in the seaside community of Miyako.
“It was very actually very difficult to watch this on TV. I saw buildings that I knew. My own in-laws’ house was destroyed. There’s no sign of it left after the tsunami,” Burkheimer said.
He has been in contact with his mother-in-law, father-in-law and sister-in-law through Facebook and Skype, he said.
“When the earthquake happened, my in-laws were in the city,” he said.
But many cousins and extended family are missing and Miyako is in a barely-functional state, he said.
“Electricity is on and gas is on, but it’s impossible to get gasoline or motor fuel. You can’t get in or out of the city yet. The downtown is mostly destroyed,” he said. “It doesn’t sound like they’re able to get much help yet.”
His father-in-law is resourceful, Burkheimer said. He can fish and hunt mushrooms, and knows where the streams are in the mountains.
Burkheimer plans to help the CMAT team to get where they decide to go, but then he might strike out on his own to reach his extended family.
“It is definitely a goal of mine.”
Canadians and Americans can follow the team’s progress on the CMAT web site.
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