Facing "Worse Crisis From WW 2"
TOKYO, Japan — Japan is facing its worst crisis since the second world war, the prime minister, Naoto Kan, said on Sunday as tens of thousands of troops and rescue workers descended on areas devastated by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami. In a televised address to the public, Kan appealed to the country to come together in their time of crisis, and predicted the arrival of a Japanese-style New Deal sparked by huge demand as it recovers from the disaster. “This is the worst crisis in Japan’s 65-year postwar history,” Kan said. “All of the people of Japan face a test as to whether they can overcome it. Together, I think we will.”
Three days after a vast stretch of Japan’s northeast coast was shaken by an 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami more than 30 feet in height, fresh footage of the disaster zone suggested that the death toll could easily top 10,000. About 9,500 people were missing in the coastal town of Minami Sanriku — more than half its population — while hundreds were thought to have been drowned in other communities that were swept away by the wall of water that followed Friday’s quake, the biggest in Japan’s history. The public broadcaster NHK said 2,700 homes had been destroyed in Arahama in the same prefecture, while further north, 5,000 homes were under water in Rikuzen-Takata, in Iwate prefecture. As foreign rescue teams arrived to help locate survivors, officials were struggling to contain more overheating problems at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, 150 miles north of Tokyo. The country woke on Sunday to the grim news that the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had suffered a cooling system failure that, if left untreated, could lead to meltdown and the release of large quantities of radioactivity. Those renewed fears of a serious nuclear accident came a day after a building housing another overheating reactor at the plant exploded, sending the roof flying and causing the walls to crumble. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said it had started relieving pressure on the No. 3 reactor and pumping in water and boric acid in an attempt to prevent it from reaching criticality. The government’s top spokesman, Yoichi Edano, said the reactors — two of six at two plants in the area with cooling problems — had released small quantities of radioactivity, but added there was no threat to people living in the area. Edano told reporters that the core of the reactor may have been deformed due to overheating but played down fears of a meltdown. But he could not rule out the possibility of a second explosion. "At the risk of raising further public concern, we cannot rule out the possibility of an explosion," he said. "If there is an explosion, however, there would be no significant impact on human health."
At least 22 people are known to have been exposed to radiation and were being treated in hospital; Japan’s nuclear and industrial safety agency said that as many as 160 people may have been exposed.
As a precaution, the government began evacuating more than 200,000 people living within a 20-kilometer radius of two Fukushima power plants and set up a center to screen for radiation poisoning.
The automatic shutdown of four nuclear plants in the quake-affected area is already causing serious disruption to the country’s energy infrastructure.
From Monday, areas covered by Tepco will have to endure staggered three-hour power cuts to prevent prolonged blackouts. The measure is expected to stay in place until the end of April.
Edano said the government would draw on a 200 billion yen ($2.44 billion) contingency fund this month to pay for relief measures. The long-term economic costs of the disaster will be more difficult to compute, however. The Bank of Japan has vowed to do all it can to ensure market stability and the Tokyo stock exchange will open for business on Monday. The country’s big three car manufacturers, Toyota, Nissan and Honda said they would suspend all production from Monday but were unable to forecast when operations would resume. The huge effort under way to rescue survivors beneath buildings or left stranded by the tsunami is already bringing results. Kan said about 12,000 people had been rescued so far, and helicopters took emergency food supplies to three devastated areas of Miyagi prefecture. The government has sent 120,000 blankets, 120,000 bottles of water and 110,000 liters of gasoline to the affected areas, along with bread, rice balls, instant noodles and diapers. According to the official count, more than 1,400 people were killed, including 200 people whose bodies were found on Sunday, and another 1,700 were injured. At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck and some 2.5 million households were without electricity. The tragedy drew offers of practical support and aid from more than 70 countries, including the United States, Britain and China. Two U.S. aircraft carrier groups reached the affected coastline on Sunday, poised to join a multinational effort led by 100,000 members of Japan’s self-defense force. Helicopters have started flying in with deliveries of food and water from the nuclear-powered carrier the USS Ronald Reagan.

A Nuclear Horror Story

BOSTON — Japan first suffered the most destructive thing nature could deal, an 8.9 earthquake followed by a 30-foot-high tsunami on Friday, only to be afflicted now with melting nuclear reactors and seeping radiation. For the people of Japan, it all seems doubly horrifying, given that they, alone, suffered the worst that mankind can deliver: a nuclear bomb attack 66 years ago. The world first learned of the effects of radiation on a population following the dropping of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” as the first and only atomic bombs dropped in anger were code-named. The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were instantly destroyed on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945. Japan, one of the world’s most organized societies, has mobilized quickly to contain the earthquake damage to their nuclear plants. Citizens have been issued iodine to protect their thyroid glands. People near the nuclear plants have been warned to cover their skin, put wet towels over their faces, and keep their windows and doors closed. By all accounts the radiation leaks will be contained at a level well below the Chernobyl catastrophe a generation ago. But it could be touch and go. Japan knows all about the side effects of atomic radiation. The radiation released from the bombs of 1945 turned “many survivors of the initial blast into progressive invalids who suffered loss of hair, bleeding gums and debilitation until they died weeks, months, even years later,” as Life Magazine wrote. The memories of the clocks and watches frozen at 8:16, when the first atomic bomb landed are all too vivid. This weekend’s explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, and the lesser damage done at Daini, have caused nuclear skeptics to say: "I told you so," especially those who warned against building nuclear power facilities in earthquake zones. There will be second thoughts in countries highly dependent on nuclear energy, such as France, and elsewhere in countries looking for ways to reduce dependency on oil. The birth of the nuclear age took place in the cellars of Columbia University’s Pupin Physics Laboratory in 1939, where scientists succeeded in splitting atoms of uranium, which had the potential to unleash large amounts of energy. Work was in progress on similar projects in other countries, including Germany, at the time. On Aug. 2, Albert Einstein wrote a famous letter to “F.D.Roosevelt, President of the United States, White House, Washington, D.C.” In it, Einstein wrote: “some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element of uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations. “ Roosevelt set up an advisory committee with a budget of $6,000. Within a month World War II had begun. And a month before Pearl Harbor, when the United States entered the war, British and American scientists were able to advise Roosevelt that a bomb with “superlative destructive power” was possible. Life Magazine had taken a photograph of the atom-splitting process in Columbia’s lab, and wrote: “A new age of power is 50 years away or just around the corner." The story and the photograph were buried inside the Aug. 24, 1939 issue, too unimportant to be listed in the table of contents. But now the race was on, and in an unprecedented marshaling of scientific resources, the “Manhattan Project” went to work. Mercifully, the Germans turned out to be on the wrong scientific track.  Six years and four days after Einstein wrote his letter to Roosevelt, an atomic bomb was being dropped on Hiroshima. Sixty thousand people were killed in an instant. When the Japanese did not accept President Truman’s demand for surrender, a second bomb was dropped over Nagasaki. The American occupation army censors would not allow photographs of the destroyed cities to be published until the end of the occupation in 1952. Nuclear power as a source of peaceful energy would have to wait; not just around the corner, but not 50 years either. Today the world waits with baited breath to see whether a belligerent Iran will become the latest to develop the awful destruction of nuclear weapons, and looks to Japan to bring the latest nuclear power disaster under control. So far, no one has died from nuclear leaks in Japan while thousands have been killed by the tsunami. And Japanese officials have been quick to proclaim that a major health risk from radiation is not anticipated. But citizens have been exposed to radiation, and some are sure to die from it. The leaking radioactive matter and the near meltdowns of nuclear reactors hold special horrors in Japan where the creeping death of radiation sickness was first observed

Help with money, not stuff

BOSTON — The images emerging from Japan's massive earthquake and tsunami are gut-wrenching. As usual, Americans will likely respond generously. Millions of dollars will be raised. Some will hesitate because Japan is an advanced country, seemingly able to help itself. But reaching out across the globe to those in need is always a welcome gesture. Aside from the direct benefits of aid, a large-scale outpouring of support helps ease some of the deep psychological trauma that victims inevitably suffer. Donors also benefit. We feel better by participating in a gesture of mass global compassion.
Moreover, while the Japanese economy is one of the world's biggest, the country's government is broke. Its debt is about three times bigger than America's, relative to the size of its economy. This latest disaster will no doubt make matters worse. If you’re considering doing your part, that’s great. But, experts say, whatever you do, don’t donate anything but money. Under no circumstances should you mail care packages, toys, food or clothes. Don’t even think about sending drugs. The response to prior disasters shows that regardless of your intentions, you will only be making matters worse. That’s what happened in the aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami. The disaster was followed by an unprecedented outpouring of global generosity. This dramatically facilitated the grisly chore of cleaning up the tens of thousands of bodies left under the tropical sun, and it funded a reconstruction effort that, while far from perfect, provided roofs over the heads of many. But aid workers joked that the real tsunami was followed by another tsunami — of misguided goodwill. In an effort to help, people shipped boxes, often following the instructions of local television news programs. And so in Aceh, Indonesia, amid the trauma, hunger and devastation, care packages piled up containing everything from pajamas and teddy bears to birth control pills and Bibles — a hodgepodge impossible to sort through. There were boxes filled with half-used ointments and prescription drugs, as if do-gooders had cleaned out their medicine cabinets. And some unscrupulous corporations — exploiting tax write-offs for soon-to-be-expired pharmaceuticals — apparently shipped whatever had been lying around the warehouse for too long. It all amounted to a mountain of materials that confounded the efforts of the pros, and made it more difficult to deliver essential supplies on the earthquake-ravaged roads. Months after the aftershocks stopped, the French aid organization Pharmaciens Sans Frontieres (Pharmacists Without Borders) conducted a study of that second tsunami. In a world where most people lack adequate access to medicine, the results were a travesty. The group found that although officials didn’t request any medicine, they received 4,000 metric tons of it, or more than 4 pounds for each person in the tsunami-affected area. There were multiple-year supplies of antibiotics, and palette loads of drugs unknown to health care providers. Seventy percent of it was labeled in a language that locals did not understand.  Tsunamis present colossal logistical challenges, wiping out infrastructure, cutting power lines and sending entire cities into mayhem. Nonetheless, after the 2004 tsunami, officials and relief workers did their best to sort through this stock: Drugs were stored in private homes, in hospital rooms and corridors (despite a desperate shortage of space for patients). Eighty-four percent of the facilities lacked air conditioning, rendering their contents unusable, according to the study. A large depot near Aceh’s airport was so overwhelmed that mountains of pricey pharmaceuticals were dumped outside to rot under the monsoons and tropical sun. Of course, the donors were only trying to help, but misplaced intentions actually worsened the suffering. Buried under care packages and out of date antibiotics labeled in Thai and Chinese were the world’s most advanced malaria medications. Meanwhile along the coast, people who had just lost homes and families writhed in malarial fever for lack of treatment. In the end, most of the drugs had to be incinerated — you can’t simply send such a stock to the dump, where it would seep into the ground water and create another health hazard. That cost donors and the Indonesian government millions. Aceh was by no means unusual in this regard. Massive shipments of useless medicine arrived on the scenes of other heavily televised disasters, such as the Armenian earthquake in 1988 and the Albanian exodus from Kosovo in the late 1990s. After the war ended in Bosnia, 17,000 tons of inappropriate donations had to be burned, according to Pharmaciens Sans Frontieres. Aid workers struggling to ease suffering after Hurricane Mitch reportedly worked late into the night sorting through half-used tubes of Preparation H and opened bottles of Prozac. Such harmful donations will almost certainly flood Japan as well in the coming days. But if you want to help, send money to a reputable aid group instead.


Some Movie About Tsunami Wave