Our hearts go out to the hundreds of thousands of people affected by last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and to the millions of anxious residents of that country worried that the nuclear crisis that began when the Fukushima-Dai-ichi power plant was damaged by last Friday's (March 11) quake will escalate, putting those in large population centres at grave risk.
The stories and images coming out of the country's northeastern coastal area tell a tale fit for a Hollywood disaster film - if only it weren't so real. We grieve along with those who have lost loved ones, and share in the despair that those whose family members who are still missing must be feeling.
Sure, it's happening a quarter of the way around the world, and sure, we believe our own health officials who say there's no reason to panic and start buying large amounts of potassium iodide tablets to protect ourselves should radioactive fallout from the stricken Japanese plant. We are, after all, 7,500 kilometres away, and we're told that any radioactivity that might blow across the Pacific Ocean will have dissipated to the point where it's not a threat to human health in the five or six days it takes to reach us.
But the fact that this disaster has occurred in one of the world's wealthiest, most modern and best-prepared countries is disquieting, to put it mildly. When events of a similar scale happen in Indonesia, China or other developing countries, it's a lot easier to pass them off as having been exacerbated by the lack of adherence to earthquake building standards in many areas or those countries' population density. The Japan disaster is much harder to ignore because of the country's world-leading earthquake standards and level of preparedness for natural disasters.
It's heartening to see and hear about the quiet resolve that's evident among the population. No doubt that sort of determination to get through this is at least partly a result of the fact that the country has come through so many large-scale events in the past - including World War II and a host of natural disasters.
This one, of course, is on a much larger scale than even the 1995 Kobe earthquake, mostly because it began with the sixth-largest temblor in recorded history. We've heard some experts say they wouldn't be surprised if the Earth's axis had actually shifted ever so slightly during the quake. That's staggering.
The event has also rekindled the long-simmering debate about whether nuclear energy is safe. Japan, which is not exactly awash in petroleum reserves, made the decision decades ago to make an enormous investment in nuclear. At the time of the Fukushima disaster, it had 53 reactors supplying 34.5 per cent of its electricity. Reports in the media are now starting to emerge about (as one Associated Press article stated on Thursday) "a scandal-ridden [Japanese] energy industry in a comfy relationship with government regulators often willing to overlook safety lapses."
If there's a silver lining, perhaps it's that the current crisis will lead to changes in that regard. The focus right now, of course, needs to be on averting an even worse disaster, getting help to those most immediately affected and beginning the process of rebuilding. We hope Squamish residents will open their hearts and wallets to support the fundraiser that's planned this Sunday (March 20) at Brennan Park Rec Centre.
David Burke
