Japanese doctors fear flu wave in quake areas

Japanese doctors fear flu wave in quake areas

KOBE, Japan (Reuter): Doctors warned of a looming flu epidemic
among refugees shivering in freezing temperatures and tempers
flared yesterday over relief efforts following Japan's worst
earthquake in more than 70 years.

With the dead and missing now numbering more than 5,000, Prime
Minister Tomiichi Murayama came under fire on 1995's opening day
of parliament for what the opposition said was a slow response to
the tragedy

Not even an unprecedented parliamentary prayer for the victims
deflected opposition demands for an explanation of why one of the
world's most technologically advanced nation could not cope
better with a natural disaster.

But mixed with the anger and fears of what lay ahead were
stories of hope. Rescuers pulled out seven elderly women who
survived three days entombed in the debris of their homes. An
anonymous man gave US$200,000 for relief work.

Such victories kept rescue workers going in the grim search
for survivors and stopped authorities from declaring an end to
the hunt.

Temperatures remained at freezing point, setting off warnings
by Kobe doctors that a flu epidemic, or worse, was hovering over
nearly 300,000 people made refugees by Tuesday's earthquake,
which registered a huge 7.2 on the open-ended Richter scale.

"We are very worried about a flu epidemic, especially among
children," said Shunichi Fukuda, spokesman for the Kobe City
Central Citizen's Hospital.

"There are already a lot of children with fevers," he said.
Shigeo Kaneko, spokesman for the Kobe Steel Hospital, the medical
establishment for one of Kobe's biggest employers, said because
of a bitter winter many residents already were vulnerable before
the quake struck.

"It is incredibly cold this winter and what with the quake its
almost inevitable there's going to be some sort of flu epidemic,"
he told Reuters.

Delays in getting medicines and other supplies, including
blankets, to refugees were among criticism thrown at the prime
minister at the start of a 150-day session of parliament.

The session started with a prayer for the victims, the first
time the key lower house had offered such a prayer since the end
of World War II.

Aware that the opposition was poised to attack, Murayama
admitted there was initial confusion in his government's slow
response to the disaster and pledged a wholescale revision of the
nation's disaster policies.

"It was my first experience and it took place early in the
morning, so there was some confusion," Murayama told parliament.

"We'll revise things that need revising," he said. "It is
imperative that we rethink and restructure our disaster relief
policies for the whole of Japan."

The opposition suggested more lives could have been saved if
the prime minister had been more decisive.

"It is a shame that as the ultimate commander of the Self
Defense Forces (Japan's military), the prime minister couldn't
take faster and more positive leadership to save lives," said
Toshihiro Nikai of the main opposition New Frontier Party.

"He should feel great remorse at the absence of people taking
responsibility and the almost complete lack of preparedness," he
said.

By nightfall yesterday there were 4,393 dead, 656 missing and
22,590 injured in Japan's worst natural disaster since the 1923
Great Kanto Earthquake, which killed 140,000 people in Tokyo and
Yokohama.

Cold, hungry and homeless, the number of people in refugee
camps set up in gymnasiums and schools rose to 290,000, many of
them fearful a possible big aftershock might make their damaged
homes collapse.

Others, unable to get into the crowded and undersupplied
centers, slept in cars or out in the open.

There appeared to be growing concern among embassies in Japan
about how many foreigners might be in the refugee camps.

Radio stations broadcast appeals by the French Embassy for its
nationals to get in touch.

Police set up telephone hotlines for foreigners and the United
States Embassy, which has confirmed the death of two Americans,
sent a team to the area.

A spokesman for the Chinese Consulate General in nearby Osaka
said the death toll among the roughly 10,000 or so Chinese living
in the area was at least 10.