Sadly, it now appears that early estimates of 80,000 dead as a result of Friday’s Earthquake and Tsunami may not be short of the mark.
This ‘Help Japan’ poster is available at the Signalnoise store, with all profits going to disaster relief.
Japanese death toll to far exceed 10,000
Tens of thousands believed to have died as result of tsunami and huge earthquake that triggered it.
From the Guardian photo essay: A woman cries while sitting on a road amid the destroyed city of Natori
A survivor pushes his bicycle through the devastated town of Otsuchi
A member of the Japanese Self-Defence Force rescues a four-month-old girl in Ishinomaki
To add to that dual tragedy of earthquake and tsunami, the country now has to face the possibility of nuclear contamination, with all the historical weight of Hiroshima and Nagasaki looming like a nightmare from the past.
With Japanese engineers now fighting, at considerable risk to themselves, a meltdown at Fukushima’s MOX reactor Number Two, while still struggling with the cooling issues at 1&3 after hydrogen explosions, consider this an open thread to explore the threats that still face the Japanese people when they are only just now beginning to bury their dead.
What will the repercussions be for the World Economy of the sudden drop in Japanese output? And what about the future of the Nuclear Industry? Angela Merkel has already put new Germany nuclear power construction on hold.
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