Japan Tsunami
10/16/2012 |
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TSUNAMI HITS JAPAN
NATURAL DISASTER KILLS THOUSANDS
Japan suffered a devastating earthquake 230 miles northeast of Tokyo on March 11, 2011 which caused a seven meter tsunami that surged through cities and villages in the countries north destroying everything in its path. According to the United States Geological Survey the Earthquake hit with a magnitude of 8.9 to 9.0, this is the largest recorded earthquake in Japans History and it moved the island by up to eight feet.
It was a tragedy of extraordinary scale and knocked Japan, one of the world’s most developed nations to its knees. The tsunami hit the coastline and swept away boats, cars , trains, homes and buildings leaving tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. The earthquake and tsunami double disaster then quickly turned into a triple disaster when the power for the cooling systems of the reactors of Fukushima’s nuclear power plant was knocked out along with the lights for the instrumentation. Workers of the power plant in a blind panic had to be innovative and use what resources were available. They went to the car park and ripped all the car batteries from their vehicles and were able to get the lights for the instrumentation working and for the next few days the employees worked hard preventing a nuclear explosion by doing the unthinkable and venting the radiation into the atmosphere releasing the pressure on the nuclear rods.2 The likes of such a disaster had not been seen since Chernobyl which with a sick twist of irony happened almost twenty five years to the day of Japans Fukushima incident. A year on and a report from the World Health Organization says that most people in Japan received low doses of radiation but estimates much higher doses in some areas that were not immediately evacuated.
Japan is no stranger to earthquakes, it has one of the most advanced early warning systems available for such disasters, a nationwide online system
| | |
TSUNAMI HITS JAPAN
NATURAL DISASTER KILLS THOUSANDS
Japan suffered a devastating earthquake 230 miles northeast of Tokyo on March 11, 2011 which caused a seven meter tsunami that surged through cities and villages in the countries north destroying everything in its path. According to the United States Geological Survey the Earthquake hit with a magnitude of 8.9 to 9.0, this is the largest recorded earthquake in Japans History and it moved the island by up to eight feet.
It was a tragedy of extraordinary scale and knocked Japan, one of the world’s most developed nations to its knees. The tsunami hit the coastline and swept away boats, cars , trains, homes and buildings leaving tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. The earthquake and tsunami double disaster then quickly turned into a triple disaster when the power for the cooling systems of the reactors of Fukushima’s nuclear power plant was knocked out along with the lights for the instrumentation. Workers of the power plant in a blind panic had to be innovative and use what resources were available. They went to the car park and ripped all the car batteries from their vehicles and were able to get the lights for the instrumentation working and for the next few days the employees worked hard preventing a nuclear explosion by doing the unthinkable and venting the radiation into the atmosphere releasing the pressure on the nuclear rods.2 The likes of such a disaster had not been seen since Chernobyl which with a sick twist of irony happened almost twenty five years to the day of Japans Fukushima incident. A year on and a report from the World Health Organization says that most people in Japan received low doses of radiation but estimates much higher doses in some areas that were not immediately evacuated.
Japan is no stranger to earthquakes, it has one of the most advanced early warning systems available for such disasters, a nationwide online system