No Loss for Words

From what I can tell, the emergency getting the most attention in Japan is the fear of melt-down in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex.  For sure, it warrants a lot of attention since the lasting impacts of a catastrophic nuclear failure may be around longer than the devastation from the tsunamis.  It’s ironic that the only country in history to actually endure a nuclear attack now suffers another.  Let’s hope the outcome in 2011 is kinder this time.

As we investigate the cause and scope of this perfect storm of tragedies we need to stay focused on relief for the suffering refugees; whether from shaking land, monster waves or other perils.  The legacy of this series of events will be born by real people who have to live in the aftermath.  God Help Them!  I pray that help is on the way.

When we think about the earthquake in Haiti, pictures of Port au Prince in shambles come to mind.  More recently, the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand brings to mind substantial buildings in shambles. 

 We remember the Christmas tsunami in Cambodia that killed hundreds of thousands, but who remembers whether the earthquake produced a town in rubble?

Surprisingly, the videos from Sendai that I saw showed few buildings with earthquake damage we might expect from the most powerful earthquake in modern history.  Isn’t that amazing? 

Maybe the tsunamis came so quickly there wasn’t a chance to adequately document how well the city and surrounding countryside weathered the four or five minutes of violent shaking, but I think it merits investigation. Sendai was not in ruins when the waves came ashore and it didn’t appear that the nuclear power plants were either.

The political discussions about the future of nuclear power in countries around the world should be based on events following the earthquake, not directly caused by the earthquake.  I think that is an important distinction.

Everyone wants to attribute the nuclear emergency in Japan to the earthquake but it appears that the plants survived the 9.0 temblor with few impacts.  From what I can tell, the real culprit at Fukushima Daiichi was the loss of electrical power to the pumps that cool the reactors.  It appears to me that the failure of the infrastructure in the region caused by the tsunami is the cause of the emergencies.  Or perhaps the design of the power plants without adequate internal back-up power is the cause of the tragedy.

If that is the case, then the criticism of nuclear power may be somewhat premature.

In the mean time let’s stay focused on the relief effort for the hundreds of thousands of displaced refugees of coastal Japan regardless of whether they fled from a tsunami or a nuclear accident.