Lots of personal household safes have been turning up at Japanese police stations in the wake of that country’s recent disaster.
They have not only been recovered by rescue 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 several hundred at a time, authorities decided to try a more pro-active way of reuniting them with their owners past simply watching for those people to show up.
Japanese police now hope to open these safes themselves in the hopes of discovering identifying information within with which to make their own inquiries.

Under Japanese law, there is a little more than three weeks for misplaced items to be claimed by their owners.
After twenty-three days, finders can grow to be keepers – or the government takes ownership.
Police hope to reunite tragedy victims with their possessions ahead of the finders/keepers-law can take effect.
Normally, given the special circumstances involved, extensions to the usual deadline have been offered, but any haste that can be made would definitely be welcome by the victims.

The matter is especially important because of the Japanese practice, found especially amongst their elderly, of saving money and other valuables not in banks but at home.
Such “wardrobe savings,” as the Japanese term goes, is very frequent but has become quite the misfortune for disaster sufferers who have lost literally everything short of their lives and the clothes on their backs.
Therefore, any energy expedited on behalf of such people would not simply be greatly appreciated but is absolutely necessary to ensure even their very continued survival.
Luckily, of course, it is due to the distinctive nature of Japan that valuables have been completed, along with the absence of looting and other rioting – a fact not lost on envious foreign observers.

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