JAPAN VIDEO 自衛隊員による捜索 BUSCAS

100,000-strong relief operation deployment stretching SDF to limits

SDF personnel carry relief supplies through the snow in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, on March 23. (Mainichi)

The 100,000-strong Self-Defense Forces (SDF) relief operation in Japan's northeast is now facing a significant extension, putting a strain on exhausted units in the disaster area and representing a radical shift in the focus of the SDF.

To combat fatigue, the SDF is considering increasing rotations out of the disaster zone from the current dozens or hundreds of troops at a time to thousands. However, with about half the SDF's paper strength of 229,000 committed to the relief effort, there are fears that gaping holes have been left in the country's defense capabilities in other parts of Japan.

The March 11 earthquake and tsunami wiped out much of the northeast's administrative infrastructure that would normally lead recovery and reconstruction efforts, leaving the SDF to fill the gap.

Meanwhile, the Ground Self-Defense Force's Northeastern Army Aviation Group has been supplying communities still without overland supply routes with food, medicine and other daily necessities, listening to the needs of each area and hauling in the required items on the following visit. The SDF has even been supplying truck drivers, sending personnel to take the wheels of 26 privately-owned tanker trucks abandoned at the side of the road in Fukushima Prefecture after running out of gas.

While the SDF has been working hard to supply isolated communities, clear debris and search the ruins for disaster victims, another sad job has been left to its troops: transporting the dead. The SDF has already collected more than 3,000 bodies, and has been requested on many occasions to take the dead to cemeteries.

The cities of Higashi-Matsushima and Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture have asked the SDF to transport a total of some 900 bodies, and though moving the dead is not strictly a part of the SDF mandate, "We just can't tell these grief-stricken people, 'Sorry, it's not our job,'" said one officer.

Japan Ground Self-Defense Force personnel conduct a search operation following the March 11 huge earthquake triggered tsunami at Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, Wednesday, March 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Mark Baker )

However, the widening scope of the SDF's role in the disaster area has meant a relentless workload for the troops on the ground, many of whom do not even have a chance to stop for proper meals and instead make do with canned food while on the go.

"Personnel engaged in the relief operation have reached peak exhaustion," Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said during a meeting at the ministry on March 23. "Even with 100,000 troops deployed, there is no slack. With a lengthy deployment to the area looking increasingly likely, we must develop a plan for the long-term operational focus of the SDF, including how to handle troop rotations."

The SDF has never before deployed so many of its number for disaster relief, and in terms of the defense implications of the operation, particular worry has been reserved for its surveillance capabilities. Russian military aircraft have twice approached Japanese territorial waters recently -- flights one SDF officer said were "designed to test the current extent of Japan's reconnaissance capabilities, and check on how effectively Japan and U.S. forces are cooperating."

The officer also emphasized that "the SDF retains sufficient surveillance capability with the Maritime Self-Defense Force's P3C patrol planes and other meas ures. We have just enough aircraft to prevent gaps from opening up." However, Ministry of Defense officials are apparently worried that a long-term disaster relief deployment on the current scale could render the SDF unable to respond should tensions on the Korean Peninsula escalate.

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