Marina Kamimura: A long day in Japan

Marina Kamimura

Q: How was the news of the accident received in Japan?

KAMIMURA: It was really a long day here in Japan. News first broke over the airwaves around noon. The accident occurred just before 9 a.m. local time. Families were getting their information over the airwaves as pictures flooded in from U.S rescue operations.

That's how some of the relatives were able to tell that their relatives were on board the Coast Guard rescue boats. For others it was just the opposite when they did not see their loved ones and later had that confirmed, that their relatives were among the missing.

Q: Fifteen people aboard the research vessel were students or teachers at a Uwajima high school. What can you tell us about the town, and about the school?

KAMIMURA: Uwajima is a city with a population of about 66,000 people, on the southwest coast of one of the Japan's main islands, the one known as Shikoku. This town is actually famous for its pearl industry and for producing Japanese mandarin oranges.

The Uwajima Fisheries High School is basically a vocational school for high school students with a very small student body -- 202 students.

Thirteen of these students, belonging to the ocean engineering department, were on board the boat at the time the accident occurred. Four that are missing are among those 13.

To give you an idea of how this affects the school -- the 13 on board make up exactly half of the second-year class. All of those on the boat were second-year students.

Q: What was the purpose of this voyage?

KAMIMURA: Uwajima High School has a program where three times a year it arranges for the students to conduct research in the waters around the Hawaiian islands, research pertaining to their studies. In this case it was tuna.

Two teachers, and the other three crew members of this ship known as the Ehime Maru, owned by the prefecture government and loaned to the school for projects like this, are also missing.

The school has its own boats, but they are too small for trips of this nature. The boat left Kanagawa, Japan, (southwest of Tokyo) January 10 and was scheduled to return to Japan around March 23.

Ironically, Kanagawa is the same town where authorities found the body of missing British bar hostess Lucie Blackman.

Q: How is the Japanese government reacting to the incident, and to the U.S. response?

KAMIMURA: Tokyo so far seems appreciative of the efforts being made by the U.S. side in terms of both the rescue operations as well as their efforts to pass on information about this accident, which occurred in U.S. territory. The Japanese Foreign Ministry says it had first received a call shortly before 9 a.m. from the Japanese Coast Guard who had received a distress signal from the ship shortly after the accident occurred. After that, however, most of the information flowed from the U.S. side.

What we've seen so far really demonstrates the long and close ties the U.S. and the Japanese share. Of course nobody would have wanted this tragedy to occur, but it has certainly shown the depth of the level of exchange between the two nations, to see the information flowing so quickly between them.

What is also evident from the swift apologies and expressions of regret, the U.S. side is very keen to show its support to its top ally in the region. The U.S.-Japan security alliance forms the cornerstone for security in the Asia-Pacific region.

Roughly 50,000 U.S. military personnel are based in Japan, and while over the years there have been some incidents between the military and the local population -- particularly on the island of Okinawa, where the bulk of those personnel are stationed -- the relationship is characterized far more by its partnership and its close cooperative spirit, which is being displayed at this time.

Q: But good will is not guaranteed?

KAMIMURA: There are concerns, of course. The Japanese Foreign Ministry said to me earlier that they want to ensure the accident does not have an adverse affect on Japan-U.S. relations.

Just last week the head of the U.S. forces in Okinawa (Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston) ended up making a very public apology to the Okinawan governor for an incident where a private e-mail that he sent to his officers was made public. (The e-mail) revealed that he had called top local officials, including the governor, "nuts" and a "bunch of wimps."

Hailston has been credited for the way he has handled previous incidents in Okinawa, where of course tensions have occasionally been high over the years because of this high concentration of U.S. troops in one place. But the incident, coming from such a high-ranking officer, was considered a blow.

The e-mail was apparently written out of frustration with the local response to the arrest of a Marine for allegedly lifting a young girl's skirt to take a photograph.

The words were part of an e-mail which he said was intended to have his commanders reinforce discipline among "the small number of Marines whose inappropriate conduct unfairly brands all of us as lacking in discipline and respect for our Okinawan hosts and neighbors."

See related sites about Asia

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.