Latest Stories: Japan's Monster Quake & Tsunami

This is the photo essay of the aftermath of Japan’s 3/11 earthquake and tsunami. Triggerd by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, the tsunami’s destruction was enormously huge. It expanded to the entire coastline of Japan’s North East, more than 600 kilometers or so. Many of villages and towns were severely damaged, submerged: some of them, such as Rikuzentakada and Minami-Sanriku, were virtually gone, eliminated. At least 15,833 people were killed, 3,671 were missing, and more than 130 thousands were displaced. Plus, the estimate of the damage could cost more than 300 billion US dollars. 

This disaster is unprecedented in the scientifically recordable history in Japan. However, lots of Japanese think many of casualties and destructions could be preventable. A certain number of Japanese geologists had already warned the possibility of the occurrence of this monster scale of earthquake and tsunami, and suggested the further preparation. Yet, the Japanese government, as well as many Japanese, was overconfident in its technology and didn’t expect the happening in such a scale. Especially in the case of Fukushima’s nuclear reactors’ accidents, the government and TEPCO, an electric utility servicing corporation which owns the nuke power plants, kept insisting the accidents were beyond imaginable, despite the fact that most Japanese thought it happened due to the negligence, arrogance and greed by both of them. 

The survivors in Japan are still enormously struggling, psychologically and physically. The rebuilding of the tsunami-destroyed communities is so hard that it would take long years, or even more than a generation. Nobody knows when the radiation leaking from the nuclear reactors is contained, though the Japanese government insists there is no health risk outside of the forbidden and restricted zones.  

The consequence of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami could be a real international matter. It is not only because of the humanitarian concern. But so many countries have oceans and/ or inland seas with the plates off the coast or inside, and huge populations preferably live along the coastlines. Japan’s earthquake and tsunami can be a significant lesson to prevent another catastrophic consequence.