Japan's Ground Zero

I'm going to take this opportunity to remind everyone of what happened and, to the extent possible, the immediate impacts to Japan and the local communities hit hardest.

Here is an excerpt from a report prepared by the Baptist Global Response days after the event (full report can be read here):

1. Major event – 9.0 magnitude earthquake (Fifth largest since 1900)
2. Secondary major event – Resulting tsunami
3. Tertiary major event – Radiation hazard from damaged nuclear power plants
4. Statistics/Numbers of interest as of 20 March, 2011:

• 8,199 people confirmed dead and 12,722 officially mission (total dead + missing = 20,921)
• Myagi prefecture hardest hit. Confirmed dead = 4,882 but authorities belief this number will rise above 15,000.
• There are currently 367,141 people living in 2,300 evacuation centers. About 10,000 per day are returning to their areas as power/water is being restored.
• Already 21,000 people have relocated to other areas of the country living in secondary places such as with family, friends, vacation houses, etc.
• Government has initiated rebuilding of 30,000 homes. Standard specs are 30 square meters and about $30,000 per house.

Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

To quickly restate what had just happened, two major natural disasters complicated by a man-made disaster combined to create a situation the world had never seen before.  The following picture shows the geographic scale of the area most impacted by these events.  (Download this map here).

The Japanese knew that such an event was imminent.  They had warning systems in place, sea walls designed to stave off the brunt of mother nature, engineering designs to mitigate the effects of a major earthquake.

Tsunami waves hit residences in Natori, Miyagi prefecture.

But you can't predict mother nature, and the combination of these two natural disasters demonstrated that for all humanities intelligence and capabilities, the raw power of mother nature is difficult to predict and contain. They had practiced and what little preparation and training had taken place allowed most of the area's population to react and evacuate within the 20 to 25 minutes between the earthquake and first waves of the tsunami.  Think about that...  You get rocked off your feet and 20 minutes later a 30-40 foot wall of sea water takes out your village.




So all of these leads to one of the most telling videos from this event.  A small town, somewhat prepared (see everyone at high ground, cameras rolling) as the first waves enter the city streets and townspeople witness a nightmare in the middle of their day.  Watch as the world that they knew ends...  is washed away in moments...  This is what we are heading into.  Obviously not the day after, but I was at ground zero for the World Trade Center in December 2011 and three months later the pile still smoldered and it was obvious that the recovery had only just begun.

I am hoping we can contribute to the recovery of this region in any way we can.

Sean