U.S. Forces Airlift Water for Kumamoto Quake Victims

Tokyo, Aug. 9 (Jiji Press)–The U.S. Forces Japan on Sunday airlifted a total of about 33,000 bottles of drinking water for victims of a recent powerful earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture, southwestern Japan. A KC-130 aircraft of the U.S. military transported the water, weighing about 16 tons, from the U.S. Air Force’s Yokota Air Base in Tokyo to the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force’s Vice Camp Takayubaru in the Kumamoto town of Mashiki. The water will be conveyed to relief goods management stations by land by the Self-Defense Forces and then delivered to people affected by the temblor, which struck on July 28. U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass inspected the operation at Vice Camp Takayubaru. Glass later visited Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura at the prefectural government office with Lt. Gen. Stephen Jost, commander of the U.S. Forces Japan. The ambassador told the governor that it is a great honor for his country to provide assistance for Japan, a U.S. ally and friend, and that the United States is very glad to be able to respond to a Japanese government request for support. The U.S. Forces Japan conducted a large-scale “tomodachi” operation to provide support after Japan’s Tohoku northeastern region was hit hard by a strong earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. Tomodachi means friend in Japanese. The U.S. military also delivered relief goods using its transport aircraft after major earthquakes in Kumamoto April 2016 and a powerful quake in the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan, in January 2024. Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters Sunday that the U.S. military’s assistance shows the strength of the bonds between the two countries and the fact that the cooperative relationship they have developed in peacetime is working well in the support of disaster victims. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]