On Monday morning we received a letter from the Japanese Embassy confirming that they are not requesting our assistance with the search and rescue effort in Japan. The main reason for this is that despite teams like SARAID being self sufficient, we still require support from the local government to operate. We would have a required a supply of fuel and raw water for the team, we would have had to arrange transportation and we would have required direction as to how best to assist the Japanese people. One particular problem in the current situation is responsibility for the location of people within Japan. If the evacuation zone around the Fukushima nuclear plants increases then teams working in the area need to be notified and responsibility for monitoring and notifying teams can take significant resources. 

The Japanese government recognises the challenges it has in dealing with the current situation, and in particular the management of the situation. For this reason it has not requested significant amounts of international assistance but has thanked the team for their offer of assistance.

SARAID has chosen to keep monitoring the situation as it may change and requests for assistance can come from other sources. Given the current situation and the time since the earthquake it looks increasingly unlikely that SARAID will deploy a team to Japan. The team does however remain prepared to deploy to any countries which may need our specialist experience and assistance.