March 10, 2020. The Great East Japan Earthquake brought grief, deep emotion, and serious reflection. But the novel coronavirus has brought only anger: at a government always behind events, opposition parties obsessed with fault-finding, China’s information control, resale profiteers, rumors, and irresponsible remarks about the Tokyo Olympics.

March 10, 2020
At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, I was terribly depressed, deeply moved, made to think, and my various emotions were violently shaken.
But this time, there is none of that.
From beginning to end, I simply cannot help being angry.
The following is from today’s Sankei Shimbun.
Deputy Editorial Page Editor Ikuo Beppu
I cannot help being angry
On the 11th, nine years will have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake.
What remains strongly in my memory is the sight of Rikuzentakata City in Iwate Prefecture, which I visited shortly after the disaster.
Standing still in the vast disaster area swept away by the tsunami, my knees trembled and I had no words.
Could such misfortune, such a catastrophe, such a tragedy really happen in modern Japan?
The cruelty of the scars left behind was so terrible that it made one think so.
The dead and missing exceeded 18,000.
Many people lost the homes in which they had lived and left the towns they knew so well.
The Japanese archipelago was in endless sorrow.
Even so, in the disaster-stricken areas, I met indomitable people who were standing up again.
For example, in Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture, a coffee shop owner who had lost both his home and shop in the tsunami polished a mill he had dug out from the accumulated mud, ground beans roasted in a frying pan over a bonfire, and served authentic coffee for free at an evacuation shelter.
“I am a professional, so I cannot serve instant coffee,” he said.
When I visited again three years later, the owner lamented as follows.
“People who had been desperately trying to survive in evacuation shelters, the moment they were given food, clothing, and shelter, committed suicide or died alone in temporary housing.
What are human beings, I wonder?”
After the Great East Japan Earthquake, earthquakes of seismic intensity 7 also struck Kumamoto and Hokkaido.
Almost every year, damage from torrential rain and strong winds has also followed one after another.
And this year, there is the spread of the novel coronavirus.
At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, I was terribly depressed, deeply moved, made to think, and my various emotions were violently shaken.
But this time, there is none of that.
From beginning to end, I simply cannot help being angry.
A government always behind events, opposition parties doing nothing but nitpicking, testing measures that do not move forward, and China, which spread the infection through information control.
Outlaws plotting to resell masks at high prices, people dancing to rumors and causing paper products to vanish from store shelves.
A veteran IOC member irresponsibly mentioning the cancellation or postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, and commentators riding on that to treat the Olympics like a toy.
And the invisible virus.
At everything, at anything and everything, I am simply angry.
Of course, there are doctors and others who are fighting the disease with all their might.
There are companies responding to requests to increase production.
There are people involved in the Olympics who believe they will be held and are sweating over preparations.
There are athletes who continue to polish their skills for that day.
Kazufumi Onishi, the mayor of Kumamoto City, wrote on his own Twitter, “Corona, you stupidーーーーー!”
In the actual tweet, the number of long dashes is far greater.
I understand the feeling.