It has been 3 weeks since the earthquake in North Japan. Whilst supplies are no doubt in short supply in the areas hit hardest by the earthquake we can see some footage on television of evacuation centers receiving goods and how grateful people are just to get the basics delivered.
Their was a slight shortage of some supplies in Tokyo immediately following the earthquake, but things are quickly returning to normal. The photos I took today at a supermarket were taken about 1pm, so the store had already been open for quite a while. As you can see the stocks are returning to the shelves in force.
It is good to see things slowly getting back to normal in Tokyo. It is not that far from the earthquake damaged areas to the North, but was lucky to escape any serious large scale problems. Hopefully, people and businesses in Tokyo can focus on their work but also provide some assistance to those not so fortunate in the Tohoku region.
Your shelves are rather less picked over than ours. Things are definitely filling out better than they have in the last several weeks, but milk is quite sparse, and yogurt is entirely absent (at least plain yogurt). Bottled water is in short supply as well, but there is still a little around. I’m not complaining or anything, but I’ve found that availability is rather regional and unpredictable. I think the dairy shortage is due to supply side issues rather than panic buying, though the fact that limits have been put on such products stops people from hoarding what little there is.
very true. This is just a picture of 1 supermarket and not not representative of everywhere. I was surprised on tv the newscaster was worried about the lack of natto in the supermarkets. Cant live without natto ! I heard the dairy shortage was due to there being 6 main packaging plants, 3 of which were in the affected Tohoku area. Apparently, the milk was flowing but the cartons to pack them were not getting produced.
I wish they had this in the US
I see many prices ending in 8 in this supermarket. Just like elsewhere in the world, they round down their prices, but it seems unusual because I’m so used to see “typically japanese” prices like 147 or 189 yen in conbinis where they just apply the MSRP + 5% tax.