Japan’s worst earthquake disaster

Japan’s worst earthquake and tsunami since records began is believed to have caused the deaths of over 25,000 people. The double natural disaster turned whole towns into waterlogged and debris-shrouded wastelands. The recent studies have suggested the 9.0 magnitude earthquake caused a tsunami wave of about 70 feet high making 400,000 people homeless.      

Quake zone

The explosions at Japan’s nuclear power plants have caused them to shut down leaving 300,000 households in the north of the country without electricity. Meanwhile, nearly a million households lacked running water.

The radiation leak from tsunami-crippled six-reactor nuclear plant at Fukushima in northeastern Japan may cause a nightmare crisis if the engineers fail to restart water pumps needed to cool overheated nuclear fuel rods at four of its reactors. If the cooling fails, the reactors could overheat and cause a total meltdown of the radioactive fuel rods in the core. This would only lead to a major release of radiation if the reactor's containment vessel becomes breached.  

For the time being, thousands of tonnes of water are being dumped from the air to bring the temperature and pressure of the reactor cores down to safe limits, and 300 engineers are working round the clock to attach power cables required to restart water pumps needed to cool down the reactors.

An evacuation zone of 20 kilometres has been declared around Fukushima’s nuclear power plant and the incident has stirred unhappy memories of Japan's past nuclear nightmare – the US atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.  

The Japanese authorities have classified the situation at Fukushima plant as a level 5 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). The scale runs from zero for a deviation in normal operations to seven for a major accident like the Chernobyl disaster of USSR in 1986.

Governments and organisations across the world have sprung into action following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan.

The Maldives long established close relationship with Japan has made the people of this country very anxious in joining international efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Japanese people. The recent efforts across Maldives have raised an initial amount of Rf 5.5 million and 119,653 cans of fish to be donated to relief efforts in Japan.  

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Written by: Ibrahim Nazim
20 March 2011, Sunday
15 Raby` al-THaany 1432