Watching CNN as I type this post, my heart goes out to those in Japan who have lost family members, their homes, and had their lives turned upside down by the horrific earthquake in Japan. One report indicates that the main island of Japan was moved eight (8) feet by the quake. The devastation is mind boggling and the damage to nuclear power plants especially troubling. Compounding the disaster is the fact that it's winter time and with disrupted utilities and in some areas a demolished infrastructure, the likelihood of more deaths is sadly increased. The Washington Post has these highlights:
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A bulldozing tsunami triggered by an 8.9-magnitude earthquake devastated the northeast coast of Japan on Friday, turning cars into driftwood, washing away neighborhoods and leaving this industrialized country bracing for an epic humanitarian disaster.
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This earthquake, the fifth-largest worldwide since 1900 and the strongest ever to strike Japan, will redefine the challenges facing a country already burdened by debt, economic stagnation and depopulation.
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A grim accounting of lost infrastructure and lives lies ahead. But as of Saturday morning, Japan remained a country reckoning with images, not numbers. Describing what could become one of Japan's deepest traumas since World War II, television broadcasters appeared on camera wearing helmets, fearful of aftershocks. People in Tokyo shared YouTube videos of downtown skyscrapers swaying and witnesses screaming.
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A series of aftershocks Saturday - the strongest measured at a magnitude of 6.8 - only increased the sense of anxiety.
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"It is snowing in Sendai, and blankets and food are not abundant," Tamotsu Watanabe, a staff member for the Sendai city government, said Saturday morning. "We haven't been able to catch up with the magnitude of things."
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It's time for the world to pitch in and recognize our shared humanity with the victims of the terrible disaster. Sadly, the cynic in me wonders how long it will be before Pat Robertson or some other "professional Christian" hate merchants lays the blame for the disaster on the Japanese for their failure to be Christians and/or gays as happened in the aftermath of the recent New Zealand earthquake.
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A bulldozing tsunami triggered by an 8.9-magnitude earthquake devastated the northeast coast of Japan on Friday, turning cars into driftwood, washing away neighborhoods and leaving this industrialized country bracing for an epic humanitarian disaster.
*
This earthquake, the fifth-largest worldwide since 1900 and the strongest ever to strike Japan, will redefine the challenges facing a country already burdened by debt, economic stagnation and depopulation.
*
A grim accounting of lost infrastructure and lives lies ahead. But as of Saturday morning, Japan remained a country reckoning with images, not numbers. Describing what could become one of Japan's deepest traumas since World War II, television broadcasters appeared on camera wearing helmets, fearful of aftershocks. People in Tokyo shared YouTube videos of downtown skyscrapers swaying and witnesses screaming.
*
A series of aftershocks Saturday - the strongest measured at a magnitude of 6.8 - only increased the sense of anxiety.
*
"It is snowing in Sendai, and blankets and food are not abundant," Tamotsu Watanabe, a staff member for the Sendai city government, said Saturday morning. "We haven't been able to catch up with the magnitude of things."
*
It's time for the world to pitch in and recognize our shared humanity with the victims of the terrible disaster. Sadly, the cynic in me wonders how long it will be before Pat Robertson or some other "professional Christian" hate merchants lays the blame for the disaster on the Japanese for their failure to be Christians and/or gays as happened in the aftermath of the recent New Zealand earthquake.
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1 comment:
Tim Lahaye is already saying that it is a sign of "the end times". Pity they forget that every prediction of the "end times" has been wrong.
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