Even after the devastating earthquake and tsunami of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, the Japanese people have shown extreme calm and stoicism. There is no looting; people queue up to buy food and pay for their food, even though the foodstuff is placed in the open with insufficient staff to guard against looters. People queue for limited supply of fresh water, people queue for limited supply of fuel (for cars, heaters, generators). There is no panic in spite of the scale of the disaster.
While the situation at Fukushima Number 1 Nuclear Plant has not improved significantly at present, I think we should note how much worse the situation could have been, if not for the efforts put in by the Japanese people to contain the situation. Desperate measures to use sea water to cool the reactors, and even using helicopters to dump sea water onto the reactors, might just have bought us enough time to prevent a full-scale nuclear disaster.
Working closely with the electric companies, Japan has been able to sustain the operations of key infrastructure to maintain core functions throughout the country, at a time when electricity is in short supply following the shutdown of nuclear reactors after the earthquake. The Japanese people have shown willingness to cooperate with this decision and do their part to save electricity so that electricity can be diverted to areas that need it.
What remains to be done is to get supplies to the victims, and with the opening of the airport at Sendai, there seems to be hope that this will not be long. The JMSDF should seriously work with the JGSDF to explore how it can deploy heavy machinery from the sea onto shore for those coastal areas cut off by land routes. The use of helicopters is not a long-term solution. JMSDF should be looking at the use of landing ships to send machinery ashore to help clear the rubble and send supplies to victims trapped.
This disaster may have been the worst in Japan during recent years, but it has shown us that the Japanese people are resilient and their ability to work together towards a greater good instead of just caring for their own selfish needs. Let us do what we can to help them pull through this.
While the situation at Fukushima Number 1 Nuclear Plant has not improved significantly at present, I think we should note how much worse the situation could have been, if not for the efforts put in by the Japanese people to contain the situation. Desperate measures to use sea water to cool the reactors, and even using helicopters to dump sea water onto the reactors, might just have bought us enough time to prevent a full-scale nuclear disaster.
Working closely with the electric companies, Japan has been able to sustain the operations of key infrastructure to maintain core functions throughout the country, at a time when electricity is in short supply following the shutdown of nuclear reactors after the earthquake. The Japanese people have shown willingness to cooperate with this decision and do their part to save electricity so that electricity can be diverted to areas that need it.
What remains to be done is to get supplies to the victims, and with the opening of the airport at Sendai, there seems to be hope that this will not be long. The JMSDF should seriously work with the JGSDF to explore how it can deploy heavy machinery from the sea onto shore for those coastal areas cut off by land routes. The use of helicopters is not a long-term solution. JMSDF should be looking at the use of landing ships to send machinery ashore to help clear the rubble and send supplies to victims trapped.
This disaster may have been the worst in Japan during recent years, but it has shown us that the Japanese people are resilient and their ability to work together towards a greater good instead of just caring for their own selfish needs. Let us do what we can to help them pull through this.
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