Cautiously Calm

[moon_custafer]

Haven’t posted anything yet about the situation on the coast of Japan, largely because the part of the country affected isn’t the part I personally know much about – a somewhat snarky but helpful post by a gaijin blogger asked the world media to get a geography lesson – he’d been answering worried emails, which was sort of like being in Chicago and having to constantly reassure friends outside the country that he was unharmed by Katrina .

I’ve been following reports on the Fukushima reactors (mostly filtered through the thread at Making Light, which tends to be a bit calmer), but overall I’m in the camp that says this was bad, but could have been way, way worse. It could have hit a more densely-populated part of the country, or a country without such a strong infrastructure (and trust me, Japan does safety codes and disaster-preparedness very well).

Comments

[crankydon.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

So many astounding pictures and footage that it really brings home to you how nature can just step in and wipe us out like so many ants in an anthill: Goofy panicking and running out of the Tokyo Disneyland parade (will all those kids now have a life-long Mickey-phobia?); the guy who was fishing off the coast and is now dodging floating houses in downtown Sendai; the ruined libraries and bookstores; yesterday's explosion at the (I think) Koriyama nuke; and so on and so on.

I wonder what the effect on the economy will be? It might provide a boost to get it out of it's death-spiral via all of the rebuilding (the biggest construction company famously stores all of its gear outside of Tokyo in preparation for the Big One) or it might finish it off. In the short term it's all bad: the Kombi supply chain through Sendai is wiped out and there'll be rolling blackouts for a month minimum so everyone will just be doing low-level survival stuff till summer.

I wonder what the insurance company fallout will be?

[leave-harmony.livejournal.com]

Mum's still deciding which organization would be best to donate to. Leaning towards Doctors without Borders, I think.
I'm finding it hard to verbalize, really...I mean, what can you say? Whole towns that just aren't there anymore. Certainly it isn't as bad as it was in 2004, thank goodness. But it's still so awful. :(

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Doctors w/o Borders are pretty good, as far as I know.

[leave-harmony.livejournal.com]

....also, I just gotta say, genius new userpic. Lol.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

The antlers? - I've had that for a while. This one is new.

[leave-harmony.livejournal.com]

Yes I mean that one :D
Default settings must be set to tell me when you upload new ones, cos it was a message and everything. lol.
I should have a Doc one. Just cos every day is better when you can see Doc Cochran as often as possible. <3