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Life Gets A Little Easier For Residents Of Sendai

STEVE INSKEEP, Host:

We are also keeping watch on Japan, where the largest city to take a direct hit from the earthquake and tsunami was Sendai. It's still reeling form the disaster. There are shortages of food and gasoline. Damaged buildings, including the main train station, remain shut. But NPR's Jason Beaubien reports that residents are working to rebuild their lives.

JASON BEAUBIEN: But downtown Sendai is further inland. The modern high-rises along Sendai's wide commercial streets were untouched by the tsunami. If it wasn't for the caution tape around some buildings and the closed signs in many storefronts, a visitor might not immediately realize that the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan struck near here less than two weeks ago.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)

CHIKA SATO: (Foreign language spoken)

BEAUBIEN: Chika Sato is just getting off a bus arriving from the North. She'd been staying with relatives and is now returning to Sendai for the first time since the March 11th disaster. Sato works in a dentist's office. She says her clinic is reopening this week but things are still not entirely back to normal.

SATO: (Foreign language spoken)

BEAUBIEN: Unidentified Woman: (Foreign language spoken)

(SOUNDBITE OF CROWDED MARKETPLACE)

BEAUBIEN: Mami Wako and her friend Tomoe Kosaka are leaving with several bags of groceries.

MAMI WAKO: (Foreign language spoken)

BEAUBIEN: The earthquake and tsunami disrupted distribution networks across northern Japan. Ports were destroyed, rail lines severed and roads closed. Most gas stations are still shut and the ones that do have fuel also have long lines snaking out of them for blocks.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)

BEAUBIEN: Most of the people wait in their cars. Takahiro Kikuchi completely ran out of gas. He's in the line on a bicycle, an empty red gas can propped in the basket on his handlebars. He's been in the line for two hours and calculates that he's got another hour or so before he reaches the pumps.

TAKAHIRO KIKUCHI: (Foreign language spoken)

BEAUBIEN: Adding to Sendai's woes, it's relatively close to the crippled nuclear power plants. There are new concerns about locally grown food after the Japanese government said they've found elevated levels of radiation in spinach and milk produced in the area. Sendai is just outside the 50 mile exclusion zone set by the U.S. government. Despite this, many foreign countries have encouraged their citizens to evacuate and many foreigners have left. But not all.

AIMEE MCFARLANE: My name is Aimee McFarlane. I'm from Seattle and I'm just finishing my second year teaching English at an international school in Sendai.

BEAUBIEN: McFarlane says more and more stores are re-opening everyday. She has water, electricity, even internet access at her apartment. She says she's staying because she feels safe here.

MCFARLANE: My neighborhood is filled with children. And I feel like - I mean, children have moved in to stay with their grandparents. So I feel like if it was really dangerous, these people would be taking their children and leaving.

BEAUBIEN: Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Sendai, Japan.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Jason Beaubien is NPR's Global Health and Development Correspondent on the Science Desk.