Sunday, March 13, 2011

Disaster in Japan

Disaster might be an understatement.

The pictures are unbelievable and the video is beyond that. It was bad enough that they had the earthquake but then the tsunami. You literally got to see that as it happened. To see the wave off shore and then see it smash into land and sweep everything in its path.

You also got to see people trapped and swept away by the wave. There were cars on roads. Some of the people obviously saw what was coming and tried to get out of the way. I can't imagine that many people survived that. The feel of being trapped must be terrible.

When I was at GW there was a fire in my dorm. There was too much smoke in the hall way to get out. So we hung out the windows. It was terrifying but there were people on the sidewalk telling us what to do. They also told us help was on the way. I won't say I relaxed but that made me a little less afraid.

For the people in the path of the wave, there was no help on the way. It does sound like some people were swept up in it but somehow managed to survive. As I said the video is just stunning and not in a good way.

And now they have to deal with this:

Japanese authorities said Sunday that efforts to restart the cooling system at one of the reactors damaged by Friday's earthquake had failed, a major setback in the struggle to contain what has become the most serious nuclear power crisis in a quarter century.


Here's hoping the Japanese catch a break on this one.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Very sad. I can't look at the photos or video any more. It's just so sad. I pray they can recover from this.