The National Police Agency announced that, as of 14 March, about 1,800 people
have died and 2,400 are missing. More than 10,000 may have died, according
to police and news reports.
A spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan told ENInews that
a Catholic priest, the Rev. Lachapelle Andre, 76, of the Quebec Foreign Mission
Society, had been killed in Sendai, one of the cities hardest hit by the
quake and tsunami. The priest “went back to see the conditions of the
damages to the Shiogama Church that he was in charge of,” said the
spokesman. However, there were conflicting accounts from diocesan officials
as to whether he died of a heart attack or was caught in the tsunami that
devoured towns on the coast.
The Anglican Christchurch cathedral in Sendai is badly damaged, according to
a statement from Archbishop Nathaniel Makoto Uematsu. “While there were
still so many aftershocks, the church carried out their first Sunday after
Lent service in the diocesan office,” he said. It has been difficult to
reach many churches, and Uematsu said there is particular concern for two churches:
Isoyama St. Peter’s Church in Fukushima Prefecture and Kamaishi Shinai Church
and the kindergarten in Iwate that were close to the sea.
The United Church of Christ in Japan reported on its Japanese Web site that a
chapel of its Shinsei Kamaishi Church in the coastal fishing city of
Kamaishi is “drowned into the water” and filled with mud and oil. Earlier,
the church had reported that the chapel had been “washed away.” The pastor
and his wife were evacuated. Built in 2000, the chapel was known as a
pioneer “eco-church,” with a solar-power system and transparent glass roof.
The church grouping also reported that the tsunami reached the Miyako Church
in the city of Miyako, north of Kamaishi. “[The church is] contaminated by
heavy oil. The chapel cannot be used,” the United Church reported.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Saitama, north of Tokyo, reported “severe
damage” to a monastery in the coastal city of Mito. “The wall of the
church’s chapel fell down, with the ceiling of one of its rooms broken
down,” the diocese said on its Web site. The Orthodox cathedral in Sendai was
not damaged, according to several Orthodox Web sites.
The Japan Baptist Union said that eight of its local churches in the eastern
coastal part of Japan have not been in touch to confirm their safety
situation. No casualties have been reported from the rest of its churches in
that area, but some of them have not been able to confirm the situation of
their members.
The Sendai-based Northeastern District Centre Emmaus of the United Church of
Christ in Japan, the country’s biggest Protestant denomination, has reported
that some of their buildings and other properties, their local churches and
manses as well as kindergarten and nursery schools in the district and
Ibaraki Prefecture next to Tokyo have been partially damaged. No casualties
among their members have been reported.
The Japan Evangelical Church Association, a grouping of evangelical
Protestant churches based in Kawasaki, said the Rev. Thomas Rod, pastor of
Sendai Evangelical Christian Church, was evacuated out of the town of
Shichigahama.
Reports from church headquarters in and near Tokyo and regional church
offices in Sendai show that many local churches and their members in the
affected areas in northeastern Japan were still out of touch 72 hours after
the disaster.
