Honest Japanese return £50million found in earthquake rubble to tsunami victims

By http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/sea...id+Gardner" class="author" rel="nofollow">David Gardner

Last updated at 9:16 AM on 18th August 2011

The Japanese have handed in £50million in cash found in the rubble left behind by the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country earlier this year.

Their honesty was revealed as Britain’s courts are clogged scores of looters following the orgy of theft that accompanied last week's riots.

In the five months since the disaster struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets and purses found in the debris, containing nearly £30million in cash.

Amidst the rubble: Police officers in protective suits searching for victims after the tsunami hit Fukushima Prefecture in Minamisoma City in March

More than 5,700 safes that washed ashore along the coastline have also been hauled to police stations by volunteers and rescue crews.

Inside them officials found about £20million in cash. In one safe alone, there was the equivalent of £600,000.

Others contained gold bars, antiques and other valuables.

Many had kept bankbooks or land rights documents with their names and addresses in their safes.

At one point, there were so many safes handed in to police that they had difficulty finding room to store them.

Even now, said Koetsu Saiki, of the Miyagi Prefectural Police, a handful are handed in every week.

It is not unusual for the Japanese to keep large amounts of money at home and at offices, particularly in the coastal regions where fisheries companies prefer to deal in cash transactions.

From early April to late July, Ofunato Police Station hired three safe specialists to help open the safes it had recovered.

‘In most cases, the keyholes on these safes were filled with mud," said Mr   Saiki. ‘We had to start by cutting apart the metal doors with grinders and other tools.

‘The fact that these safes were washed away, meant the homes were washed away too.

'We had to first determine if the owners were alive, then find where they had evacuated to.’  

Ryuji Ito, professor emeritus at Yokohama City University, said: ‘There must be some safes that were stolen after the quake.

'But the fact that a hefty 2.3 billion yen in cash has been returned to its owners shows the high level of ethical awareness in the Japanese people.