Monday morning I woke up to find that MORE snow had fallen. I knew it wouldn't last with temps getting into the mid 40's, but I was irritated none the less... after all it is March! Then I thought about what the people in Japan are waking up to.
The people of Japan have had a horrifying weekend. Friday afternoon, they are struck by a 9.0 earthquake. Evidently there had been some "foreshocks" that reached a magnitude as high as 7.2. This is the biggest earthquake Japan has ever experienced, and the 5th most devastating in the "modern era". There have been since been dozens of aftershocks, many of which were in the 6 point range. The earthquake's epicenter was more than 80 miles offshore, but effects were felt hundreds of mile away in Tokyo, where buildings swayed.
Follow that with a tsunami that wreaked havoc along the coast. People living and working in coastal towns had a 30 minute warning before the tsunami hit. I, for one, cannot even begin to imagine what would be going through my head if I was told I had 30 minutes to get as far away and as high up as possible... along with thousands of other people. The images from the tsunami and it's aftermath are incredible to say the least. Trees, cars, houses, boats, all just tossed around like children's toys. People were just swept away with no hope of survival, parent's swept away from their children, and there is nothing anyone could do. The feeling of helplessness must have been overwhelming.
As if that wasn't enough, the people of Japan are now contending with a severely damaged economy, coupled with the possibility of the spread of radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Over 350,000 people are homeless, and probably will be for the foreseeable future. 3,676 people are confirmed dead, 1,990 injured and tens of thousands are still missing.
The TEPC, Japan's electric company has begun rolling blackouts and electricity rationing that will affect 45 million customers and are projected to last up to 6 weeks.
Rescue workers from 13 different countries are in country trying to help. The US military has gone so far as to block 13 different websites from it's DOD.mil accounts in Japan to free up bandwidth for use in recovery efforts. Cell phone usage is almost impossible.
After reading about the tragedy of this situation and seeing photographs of the destruction, all I can say id if all I have to complain about is 3 inches of snow that melted within 12 hours, I am pretty darn lucky.
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