Japan : tsunami aftermath

The recent earthquake that struck Japan on 11th March 2011 with 9.0 magnitude on the Richter scale and the subsequent 33 feet high tsunami has not only threatened Japan, but also the world more than ever before. If tasteful shrewdly released Japanese government news updates are to be believed, the Fukushima Perfecture nuclear reactors that were in danger, are supposedly quite safe now. If reality has to be understood, the fact is that even one day of mismanagement, or another natural disaster, would be enough for a nuclear blast to occur.

There is no doubt that the Japanese disaster has had one huge positive effect – that of developed and developing nations now questioning both the practicability and reliability of depending on the previously unquestionable nuclear power option. But there is another huge lesson that the world is missing noting. And this one is to the credit of the Japanese government.

The shock may have claimed over 10,000 lives, but the nation's brilliant history of ensuring high levels of literacy within the population, disaster management infrastructure support, health facilities and legacy of value based cultural behaviour has ensured that even the worst earthquake in Japanese history did not result in food riots, or large scale deaths due to malaria, diarrhea, dysentery or even starvation – things that are as common as the pigs in the ever present gutter in the so-called tiger nations of the world, nee India. Think about it, if such a disaster had hit India, while a few hundred thousand would have died of the initial earthquake, a few more hundred thousand would have died of the resulting pandemic and food, water shortage.

On another front, Japan has been following strict ‘Building Codes’ as safety measures. In as early as 1919, it enforced the Urban Building Law with regulations like maximum height of 100 feet of residential houses, structural design specifications (that included timber, masonry, brick, and reinforced concrete and steel constructions) and quality of materials. It even managed to successfully reconstruct and rebuild itself after the World War II following revision of such 'Strict Building Code' during 1945. But most critically, every time that Japan has faced an earthquake, it has improved further the various 'Building Codes' after extensive research to learn from the damage that was caused by the earthquake.

Think about how civil population has been trained. The Japanese carry first-aid box with them almost always. Sea walls have already been built (up to 40 feet in some cases). While coastal villages are equipped with quake/tsunami sensors and warning systems, floodgates are closed automatically as earthquakes strike. The course on 'education to handle earthquakes' is compulsory for every citizen of Japan – this teaches them the necessary dos and don’ts during quakes.

Consider the comparison. The 2004 Tsunami in Asia claimed 2,30,000 lives and injured 1,25,000 further. The most recent Haiti earthquake took 3,16,000 lives and 3,00,000 were injured due to substandard construction. In the 2005 earthquake that struck Pakistan, the total death toll was 73,338 and 6,00,152 households were affected. The Japanese death toll is just 9000 plus, with 13000 and more still missing – way below any global quake cum tsunami toll. Let’s give them credit where it’s due.