The massive 8.9/9.0 magnitude earthquake that hit near northern Japan last Friday, causing unimaginable devastation in that region and triggering tsunami warnings for countries all around the Pacific Ocean – including the entire Pacific coasts of North and South America — was simply one of several million earthquakes that occur in the world each year.
Japan sits along the "Pacific Ring of Fire," a 25,000 mile long belt spanning the North American, South American, Asian and Austalian Pacific coasts where large numbers of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. (NASA image)
While most earthquakes go undetected or are so small that they go unnoticed, this event — called the 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami — created the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan and one of the five most powerful earthquakes ever recorded since record keeping began in 1900. The energy released by the Sendai earthquake was equivalent to about 474 megatons of TNT, roughly 24,000 times the energy released by each of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II. In his address to the Japanese nation on March 13, Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan said that the earthquake has created “the biggest crisis Japan has encountered in the 65 years since the end of World War II.”
The unfortunate fact is, we have to live with earthquakes. The earth’s surface is continuously moving ever so slowly, its continents forever shifting and making adjustments as the massive plates of rock that cover the entire surface of the earth slide along with, over and under each other. Where the edges of these plates – called faults — meet and strain against each other, earthquakes result.
Eventually, tension builds up between these plates along the faults to the point that the plates abruptly shift over and above or against each other resulting in the shaking that is felt during an earthquake. The amount of tension that builds up along the faults before an earthquake occurs is the primary factor that determines how severe the earthquake will be.
In the face of the catastrophic ecological event in Japan, the world immediately came to the aid of the Japanese people and its government to bring about needed help and support in restoring a land that may not be near the same for decades. It is a showing that regardless of where we live, how we live and go about our daily lives, we are indelibly connected to each other by the planet that gives us life.
So, naturally, we can put aside our petty differences and come to aid each other in the face of such ecological adversity which no man-made catastrophe can replicate. At least man hasn’t achieved that level of devastation yet. (See end of article for help links for Japan’s Sendai earthquake victims.)
Heavy earthquake activity (above in red) is indicated along the world's major fault lines. These are the most active volcano and earthquake areas in the world. (USGS image)
While earthquakes cannot be prevented any more than we can prevent hurricanes, typhoons, blizzards, extreme heat waves, wind storms, volcanic eruptions or other naturally occurring phenomena that can have devastating impacts on life, we can learn to accept them and plan as best we can for them should they occur.
“Never in a million years” – so the saying goes – would anyone living in Northern Japan have thought that such a powerful earthquake would hit them. Without doubt, the same was said about the Haiti earthquake of 2010 which killed 220,000 people, the Bangladesh flood of 1991 which claimed 139,000 lives, and the Chinese Henan province drought of 1942 – 1943 that claimed over one million lives. The lists goes on and on.
Sometimes we just can’t see it coming, and that has a tendency to make preparations somewhat moot.
But we can make decisions and move our collective intelligence, thinking, efforts and technologies towards a more sustainable way of living that can best withstand not only the worst mother nature can throw our way, but also the worst of what we may do to ourselves.
Frankly, it’s just not a very good idea to build a nuclear power plant so close to a fault line…such as the Fukishima nuclear power plant hit by the Sendai earthquake and tsunami. In fact, nuclear power is inherently dangerous wherever located, and building one on or even near the Pacific Ring of Fire is especially not a good idea.
As a result of the earthquake and tsunami, not only is the northern Japanese population having to deal with the direct physical and mental devastation and loss of life, but it also must deal with indirect radiation fears from the damage at the Fukishima plant. That in itself can be considered a manmade disaster spurred by a natural occurrence. Nature is not to blame.
There is not much we can take away from this disaster other than resolve to rebuild and restore our lives as best as possible, but it can and hopefully does make us wiser as we rebuild. Yet, the entire world can look at Sendai and some of the worst natural disasters known to mankind and carry away a greater sense that the physical world is still changing and evolving; yet, we find a way to live on… and hopefully make things better as we do.
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To help provide relief for the Sendai Earthquake victims in Japan, feel free to link to American Red Cross or the Salvation Army of Japan for more information. This listing is simply a quick reference of known disaster relief providers as there are many. The Ecology Global Network provides this information only as a point of reference and suggests that people who wish to make donations use their own discretion and precautions when sending donations to any disaster relief provider. There is no affiliation between The Ecology Global Network and these listed organizations.
