Disaster in Japan

"People feel safer just by buying Cup Noodles," said Tomonao Matsuo, spokesman for instant noodle maker Nissin Foods. Canned goods, batteries, bread and bottled water have vanished from store shelves in Japan after last week's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis that caused panic-buying.

The earthquake and tsunami that slammed Japan last Friday will likely be the most expensive disaster in history, replacing Hurricane Katrina. Even though Japan’s wealth and preparations for earthquakes saved many lives, nearly 3,400 were dead as of Tuesday morning, with nearly 7,000 more still missing and nearly a half-million in shelters due to both damage to their homes and the risks of meltdowns at nuclear reactors damaged by the disaster. The economic losses in Japan will be huge, with likely only a fraction of the losses covered by insurance.

Japan’s eastern coast got one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, which caused a ferocious tsunami and dangerous levels of radiation leaking from a crippled nuclear plant. The magnitude of the offshore quake was 8.9 which then caused a 23 feet tsunami and was followed by more than 50 aftershocks for hours, many of them with a magnitude 6.0. Hours after Japan’s quake, a tsunami hit Hawaii and warnings spread across the Pacific, putting areas on alert as far away as South America, Alaska and the entire U.S. West Coast. The results across the Pacific were horrendous, in one northeastern coastal city, Sendai, for example, Police said 200 to 300 bodies were found, 88 were confirmed killed and at least 349 were missing. A large section of Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in Miyagi, burned furiously into the night with no apparent hope of the flames being extinguished. 
The nuclear plant is another big problem. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said radiation had spread from the four stricken reactors of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant along Japan's northeastern coast. A lot of people had to leave town and are under a big fear about getting ill.

The earthquake was much more powerful than what the majority of people expected. Scientists said that earthquake and tsunami in Japan has actually moved the island closer to the United States and shifted the planet's axis. The earthquake occurred when the Pacific tectonic plate dove under the North American plate, which shifted Eastern Japan towards North America by about 13 feet. It also shifted the earth's axis by 6.5 inches, shortened the day by 1.6 microseconds, and sank Japan downward by about two feet.

After long economic recession, Japan was finally starting to get better. If Japan’s economy gets worse because of this earthquake, it is not only bad for the country, with the third largest economy market, but will also affect the whole entire world. Moreover, a lot of people are dying there. It is the very time when this country needs help from the world.

By Yoha Lee