Plenty of personal household safes have been turning up at Japanese police stations in the wake of that country’s recent catastrophe.
They have not only been recovered by save workers excavating through rubble but have also been washed up ashore, and now law enforcement is running out of room to store them.
Until recently, these safes have been kept in the station parking lot, but with each station holding onto hundreds at a time, authorities decided to try a more pro-active way of reuniting them with their owners outside of simply hoping for those people to show up.
Japanese police now hope to open these safes themselves hoping of obtaining identifying information within with which to make their own inquiries.
Under Japanese law, there’s a little more than three weeks for lost items to be claimed by their owners.
After twenty-three days, finders can become keepers – or the government takes title.
Police hope to reunite tragedy victims with their belongings prior to the finders/keepers-law can take effect.
Normally, given the special circumstances involved, extensions to the usual deadline have been made available, but any haste that can be made might certainly be welcome by the victims.
The matter is especially important given the Japanese practice, found especially among their elderly, of saving money and other belongings not in banks but at home.
Such “wardrobe savings,” as the Japanese phrase goes, is very typical but has become quite the catastrophe for disaster victims who have lost literally everything short of their lives and the garments on their backs.
Thus, any energy expedited on behalf of such people won’t simply be significantly appreciated but is absolutely necessary to ensure even their very continued survival.
Luckily, of course, it is because of the unique nature of Japan that valuables have been submitted, along with the absence of looting and other rioting – a fact not lost on envious foreign observers.
