The trifecta events that are under way in northern Japan are horrific. It again demonstrates how fragile humans are to the forces of nature and man made. Japan is a modern, advanced country with an advanced economy and technology, in some ways the most technologically advanced. But being that advanced, does not shield them from the devastation brought on by the 4th largest earthquake recorded since 1900 at a 9.0 and a 40 foot tsunami, one of the highest ever recorded. Then couple that with the nuclear disaster at one of their many nuclear reactors, which actually has four reactors in the single facility, that is near an unprecedented nuclear meltdown, to maybe exceed the meltdown at the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine when it was under the USSR control.
We expect wide devastation when major earthquakes and tsunamis strike underdeveloped nations like Haiti, Chile, and Sumatra. But it hits more at home when we see it in places like New Zealand and Japan.
For a moment picture in you mind that you are a patient in a hospital, lying in bed with IVs attached to your arm, oxygen to your nose and monitors wired to your body. Suddenly you are being bounced about the bed and room with a tremendous roar like a freight train running over you, the IV bags swinging violently, the monitors rolling around the floor with the blaring of their alarms echoing throughout the halls and rooms. The staff falling to the floor from the violent movement of the building, slowly crawling to patient rooms in desperate attempts to aid them. This violent movement lasts like an eternity, even if it was just 1 minute in duration. The lights have gone out then back on as the emergency generators start up. Things are a mess, but everyone is still alive. You sigh slight relief. As the staff gets to their feet and comes to grips with what just happened and running from one room to the next checking on patients the wailing of the tsunami sirens start. Panic again sets in. You are on the second floor of the hospital. Is that high enough, will the water pass by below you or will it rise to your floor? Unfortunately the elevators do not work on the limited emergency power of the generators. So staff start to carry patients from the first floor to the second or higher, but there is not enough time, just 30 minutes before the wall of water 40 feet high reaches the city. You can hear the screams and yelling of the people outside, traffic ground to a stop because there are limited two lane roads that lead out of the narrow valley up to higher ground and the thousands of cars are in total gridlock. The sound of crashing cars, building being ripped apart and banging into other buildings, the screeching of twisting metal as the water rushing through town. What can you do? You are stuck in the bed, weak and unable to help yourself. Chaos is everywhere. The sound of water and debris crushing in the windows and doors of the hospital below you. Staff are screaming that the water is rising above the first floor as they struggle to get some patients up the stairs to the next level. But the water just keeps rushing in, surround your bed, tossing the furniture around like toys. The IV lines are ripped from your arm and the oxygen line yanked from your nose and face as your bed starts to float on the rising water, then it surrounds your entire body, lifting you from the bed and pulling you in all directions and then you can't get a breath, you are under the dark muddy, murky water that tastes and smells like oil, gasoline, fish, and garbage. And before you subcome to drowning, you can see faintly many other bodies swirling about you as your lungs fill with this horrible liquid and that bright light appears as you pass over into that new dimension of death.
Equally there will be many stores of people who had their child or parent yanked from their arms from the force of the rushing water, never to see them again. The horror in their lives so immense it is hard to fathom.
Though every natural disaster is horrific in its human toll that is beyond measure. When such disaster hit major economic centers such as the gulf coast states with hurricane Katrina because of the major oils refining there, this catastrophic situation in Japan will have a major effect on the world economy since it is a major supplier of electronic parts and automobiles. This combines with the political events unfolding in Northern Africa and the Middle-East that will effect energy supply, could be just enough to push the world into an economic depression or at least send us back into a deeper recession.
This disaster is estimated to be about 100 billion dollars to cleanup and repair, not counting the total economic loss that will come from it. Japan even being a developed economy but languishing in a near zero growth recession can not afford this huge price tag. But the world is not in much better shape to help them with the cost.
It is going to take very pragmatic and reasoned people from around the globe to address these issues, as we are not isolated peoples anymore, we are all interdependent and must start work together for the good of all humanity. Unfortunately political ideology and posturing will not allow this to occur.
I don't think President Obama has the right charisma to pull the world together in a cooperative collaboration to solve these major problems, nor do I see any leader of any country that can do it also. If Obama was not facing such hard opposition here in America, he could possibly rise to the occasion, but the Republicans are so vehemently set on destroying him politically, that he will not be allowed to respond as a world leader, and will be forced to focus on the combative nature of what has become American politics.
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