The horror of Japan’s tsunami has raised concerns over the long-term impact on children, some of whom are already displaying signs of trauma, from screaming nightmares to silent withdrawal.
According to the charity Save the Children, around 100,000 children were displaced by what has become Japan’s worst natural disaster since 1923, with nearly 20,000 people dead or missing.
The potential for lasting trauma is compounded by the unusual multiple nature of the event: a massive 9.0 earthquake, a devastating tsunami and a nationwide scare over a possible meltdown at a nuclear plant.
Experts say the scale of the loss and disruption for some children would have been almost inconceivable: homes destroyed, friends disappeared, one or both parents maybe killed, or siblings and other close family members missing.
Initial efforts to help them come to terms with the tragedy can only be made in extremely stressful circumstances, with families packed into ill-equipped evacuation shelters, suffering bitterly cold nights and frequent terrifying aftershocks.
“We found children in desperate conditions, huddling around kerosene lamps and wrapped in blankets,” said Save the Children spokesman Ian Woolverton, who visited a number of evacuation centres in the coastal regions of northeast Japan that bore the brunt of the March 11 tsunami.
“They told me about their anxieties, especially their fears about radiation,” Mr Woolverton said, adding that several youngsters had mentioned the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which they know from school books.
Parents, many traumatised themselves, have struggled to keep their own fears in check as they try to soothe their children and provide them with some sense of normality and security.
Atsushi Takahashi, 36, said his two-year-old son Haruto has been terrified by the constant, sometimes powerful aftershocks. “He’s been very scared, crying out ‘the house is shaking. I don’t like the house’,” Mr Takahashi said, holding his son as he waited in a queue for a truck bringing fresh water to his neighbourhood. “I always tell him that everything is okay and I hug him,” added Mr Takahashi. “I think we just have to let time heal the wounds.”
Mr Woolverton said the priority for his group was to set up “child-friendly spaces” where children of a similar age could interact and start to play together again.“I know from years of experience that if children play, it can ward off the chance of major long-term emotional trauma,” he said.