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Sunday, March 13, 2011

Japan disaster

More than 2,000 are dead as 10,000 people are reported to be missing after the Japanese disaster. Rescue workers have found 200 more bodies from the northern parts of the country as the death toll continues to rise. According to a Japanese news agency the death toll is going to rise and rescue operations are underway. They added that more than 10,000 people are missing from a small town near the coastal area. Government officials said that more than 100,000 soldiers will take part in the relief work. Whereas a radiation leak from the Fukuoka nuclear power plant has affected more than 160 people. According to reports, cooling systems of two more nuclear power plants has failed which has created a serious risk of a radiation leak. Officials of the Tokyo Electric Power Company said that due to the cut in water supply, cooling system of the third reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant is overheating and is at the risk of exploding. Due to the radiation leak from the nuclear power plants, more than 140,000 people have been evacuated from the affected regions.  After shocks continue in Japan as rescue workers try to find people stuck in the rubble. The United Kingdom has sent a team of 63 rescue workers along with two search dogs who have been specially trained two find people stuck under the rubble. The video images of a tsunami triggered by the most powerful recorded earthquake of Japan’s history off the northeast coast, sweeping away ships, cars, houses and every other object that came in its way were a spectacle of human incapacity before the awe-inspiring forces of nature. There is no conclusive figure of the loss of human lives yet, as many people are still missing, some of whom might be buried under collapsed buildings. However, despite the scale of the disaster and the vast damage it caused to the infrastructure, the death toll is estimated to be far less than it could have been if the earthquake had struck a less developed country. According to the latest estimates, there could be more than 2000 deaths. There are three factors that have contributed to this relatively low figure. First, Japan is located at an earthquake-prone region of the Pacific Rim where the entire lifestyle of the Japanese population is moulded around this possibility. Earthquake safety trainings are part of school curricula and constructions are lightweight and earthquake resistant. Traditionally, buildings were entirely made from wood, but even after modern western architectural style and materials were introduced into Japan, the primary consideration to construct earthquake resistant buildings perfected the technique to suit the region’s particular geography. Therefore, perhaps fewer deaths have been caused by the earthquake and more by the 10-metre high wall of water sweeping vast expanses of land. The second reason for a limited loss of life could be low population density. The badly affected prefectures of Miyagi and Fukushima have as low a density as 320.86 and 154 per square kilometre respectively. Compare it to Tokyo with a population density of 5,847 per square kilometre. Had the earthquake and the resulting tsunami hit some densely populated urban centre, the death toll could have been very high. The third and an important reason is the emergency response of Japan, which is one of the wealthiest nations of the world. As analysts have pointed out, the wealthier a nation, the better is its capacity to cope with natural disasters, having invested in safety infrastructures. The cause of worry in the current disaster is something else. After the earthquake, the breakdown of power supply to a nuclear power plant at Fukushima resulted in the failure of its cooling system and has triggered fear of a meltdown. Already, there has been an explosion at the site of the power plant, which demolished the building housing it and emitted radiation. Although experts are confident it would not lead to a meltdown, a quick response is necessary to prevent a bigger mishap. This leads us the safety of our own nuclear power plants, one of which, Chashma I is located on a fault-line in Punjab. If an earthquake happens at this site at some point in future, one cannot even imagine the extent of damage it might cause, given the fact that Pakistan has very little capacity to deal with it as compared to Japan. This East Asian nation is one of the biggest aid-giving countries to Pakistan and lent generous support when earthquake hit the country in 2005 as well as in the aftermath of the devastating floods last year. The Pakistani nation stands by the Japanese people in this hour of human, economic and social loss and hopes that Japan would recover quickly from this disaster.

Radioactive leak in Japan

The radioactive leak in Japan could have fatal effects on human life and environment. Due to the radioactive leak in the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in 1986, more than 1,800 children were affected. New born babies are at the risk of developing brain tumours and thyroid cancer. Iodine boosts the immune system in the human body which helps in keeping it safe from radioactivity to some extent. There is evidence that radioactivity can cause fertilised soil to become infertile and all forms of life die in a radioactive area.