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Marines are keeping\u00a0aid flowing to the victims of the two deadly earthquakes which struck southern Japan last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two MV-22B Ospreys completed four additional supply runs to the beleaguered island of Kyushu on Wednesday, the third day of disaster relief operations led by the Japan Self-Defense Force. The aircraft are with the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265, which is part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Any time you get to help out, I think the Marines are always ready to go,” VMM-265 operations officer Maj. Garret Litfin said in a Pacific Command video statement. “It give us the chance to show what we can do and what we are in this [area of operations] for.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A magnitude 6.2 quake struck the Kumamoto region April 14 and was followed by a stronger 7.0 quake only 27 hours later. Nearly 50 people were killed and almost 100,000 displaced; the area remains in critical need of basic supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over a three-hour period Tuesday, Marines delivered 18,000 pounds of food, water and other supplies, bringing the total aid to 65,000 pounds thus far, according to the 31st MEU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On their first run out of Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni \u2014 approximately 170 miles northeast of the disaster zone \u2014 the Ospreys touched down in a sports park in the devastated village of Minamiaso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JSDF troops unloaded their cargo\u00a0and the Ospreys split up for resupply: One headed out to sea and landed\u00a0on the Japanese destroyer Hyuga, and\u00a0the other to a Japanese military base at the Aso-Kumamoto airport. They reloaded and flew back in to Minamiaso to deliver a second round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
That they could so smoothly execute these missions is a direct result of bilateral training conducted in the past, VMM-265 commander Lt. Col. Christopher Murray said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n