Japanese Struggle with NCAA Brackets

New York, NY: Rocked this past week by devastating earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear meltdowns, Japanese civilians are struggling to find food, water, and computers to fill out their NCAA tournament brackets.

Many have scrambled unsuccessfully to find any source of internet or WiFi connectivity in order to complete their brackets before the Thursday morning deadline. Unfortunately, the infrastructure of the entire country has been deeply damaged, leaving many sitting atop rubble that used to be their homes without any means to contact their loved ones and discuss who they think will make it to the Final Four.

Japanese military have launched organized rescue efforts to provide citizens with laptops and WiFi connections, but the need has thus far proved too overwhelming to be effective. Experts estimate that there are still over 90,000 Japanese civilians that have not submitted their final tournament brackets.

“I always knew something like this could happen, but you never think it will happen so close to March Madness” said Katori Arioka, resident of Honshu, Japan. “My family is missing, my wife is missing, and for all I know, they are buried under the ruble, unable to reach a computer before the first games start. It’s too tragic to even think about.”

To help with rescue efforts, the Obama administration quickly responded sending US troops with shipments of laptops, ipads, and smartphones, along with mobile WiFi stations, outfitting water trucks and removing food pallets from semi-trucks in order to aide the swelling demand for online bracket submission.

“Time is of the essence. Many Japanese citizens haven’t even seen the final bracket placements yet,” said Pres. Obama in a Statement to the Press Tuesday morning. “We, as Americans, cannot and will not stand idly by. Not with so many office pools at stake.”

The speed and volume of US response has been praised by even Obama’s harshest critics, many of whom see this as a bright contrast to the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of US citizens were without means to update their fantasy baseball rosters for as many as 6 weeks.

As of press time, all US military personnel have been accounted for and turned in their final bracket predictions.