![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
When news are interesting
Mar. 11th, 2011 10:08 pmThere are moments you feel how interconnected the world really is and at the same time feel it's completely useless. When I woke up the first thing I learned about the earthquake in Japan and the resulting tsunami. The world reaction is uniformly supportive but in face of such a catastrophe nothing can be good enough. Japan is highly advanced country that has a best earthquake and tsunami protection the technology can provide. It proved its value with just minor damage from earthquake in cities. When they showed how much and how long ground shook I was so relieved that there was almost no sign of falling buildings. With such a strong earthquake even 400 km from the epicentre in Tokyo it looked like something able to level cities and it didn't. But at the same time once again we saw how little we can do against our planet's need to relive tension when the tsunami came after the shake.
They keep showing the damage done by the tsunami waves and my mind goes back to the Indian Ocean one 6 years ago. This time the warnings were issued but with waves reaching 800 km/h how much time they really had to evacuate people. Part of me just can't imagine the scale of that tragedy. I see boats and cars swept away as toys and houses smashed to piecesand it looks like just models. Then I realise those are 10m waves and I can not stop thinking that in some of those houses/cars/boats there are still people and there is nothing anyone can do for them. I can see it in the real time and there already is a wikipedia page even though it (at least for me) still is the same day. The waves already crossed Pacific luckily much weaker then they were on the other side so there is no substantial damage. Still the help for many is too late and too far away.
The true extent of damages won't be known for a long time and it will take even longer to repair. The whole world will feel the repercussions but nothing will match the tragedy of people who lost their family and everything they had. It just hard to wrap ones mind around the scale of that. The only good thing is that it happened where people were prepared and trained to deal with damage so the loss of lives is much less then in othere large earthquakes lately.
I've been watching news a lot in the past few months. I usually just check the headlines on the main news sites to check the world still exists and then move on to more mundane and interesting stuff. However there have been a lot stuff happening in the world lately. Between the changing political landscapes and the natural disasters the news don't know what to do. They are so used to covering just one big thing when it happens to happen and filling everything else with fluff that when there are several big things happening then cannot deal. The newest just pushes everything else away and some things just never get big enough to ever even make it to the screen.
And they cover it so randomly switching from one thing to another never really explaining any of them. It took me several hours and few different channels just to understand what is really happening with the nuclear reactors. The nuclear reaction was shut down properly in all of them but cores need several hours to cool down even when the fission no longer takes place and there is problem with cooling systems shutting down. They may need to release steam again but it doesn't contain enough radioactivity to be harmful but if they don't find a way to cool the cores down they could melt and that is what is really dangerous. Still, it's a remote possibility.
They keep showing the damage done by the tsunami waves and my mind goes back to the Indian Ocean one 6 years ago. This time the warnings were issued but with waves reaching 800 km/h how much time they really had to evacuate people. Part of me just can't imagine the scale of that tragedy. I see boats and cars swept away as toys and houses smashed to piecesand it looks like just models. Then I realise those are 10m waves and I can not stop thinking that in some of those houses/cars/boats there are still people and there is nothing anyone can do for them. I can see it in the real time and there already is a wikipedia page even though it (at least for me) still is the same day. The waves already crossed Pacific luckily much weaker then they were on the other side so there is no substantial damage. Still the help for many is too late and too far away.
The true extent of damages won't be known for a long time and it will take even longer to repair. The whole world will feel the repercussions but nothing will match the tragedy of people who lost their family and everything they had. It just hard to wrap ones mind around the scale of that. The only good thing is that it happened where people were prepared and trained to deal with damage so the loss of lives is much less then in othere large earthquakes lately.
I've been watching news a lot in the past few months. I usually just check the headlines on the main news sites to check the world still exists and then move on to more mundane and interesting stuff. However there have been a lot stuff happening in the world lately. Between the changing political landscapes and the natural disasters the news don't know what to do. They are so used to covering just one big thing when it happens to happen and filling everything else with fluff that when there are several big things happening then cannot deal. The newest just pushes everything else away and some things just never get big enough to ever even make it to the screen.
And they cover it so randomly switching from one thing to another never really explaining any of them. It took me several hours and few different channels just to understand what is really happening with the nuclear reactors. The nuclear reaction was shut down properly in all of them but cores need several hours to cool down even when the fission no longer takes place and there is problem with cooling systems shutting down. They may need to release steam again but it doesn't contain enough radioactivity to be harmful but if they don't find a way to cool the cores down they could melt and that is what is really dangerous. Still, it's a remote possibility.
