Japan

Talking to a Japanese-American colleague today, she was relieved that her family in north-east Japan are safe but their 200-year-old family home was swept away in the tsunami. Talking to her mother in LA, she lamented the loss of her grandmother's wedding kimono but it turns out an aunt who lives uphill from her grandmother had this safely with her. And the photos her granny showed her on her last visit, safely digitised at the time.

Such apparently small things - a kimono saved, photos stored, and a house lost - amidst the awful devastation and death that has swept that region.

But when everything is taken, these fragments become so important. On yesterday's news, a man was going through the wreckage of his area, saving photos - any photos - because, he said, someone will know these people.

Then I came home and our little Japanese lady in her kimono caught my eye.