The high-intensity earthquake in north eastern Japan followed by a devastating tsunami has killed, maimed and injured thousands. The loss of lives and property freezes your senses while figures continue to pile up as rescue workers make their way into far flung areas cut off by the twin disasters. A few weeks ago New Zealand and parts of China (near the Burmese border) were hit by powerful quakes that had their share of human and material loss.
The Japanese disaster is complicated and seriously so, by the fact that some nuclear reactors on its Pacific seaboard have been affected, with a reactor in Fukushima-Daichi facing a possible meltdown situation. Thousands have been evacuated from the area because of this and doomsday scenarios are very much on the radar - remember Chernobyl?
While this may not be the time for debate, as hundreds and thousands hobble back to reclaim their lives or lie injured or dead under mountains of rubble, shouldn't we, sometime soon, stop behaving like children and stop believing that nuclear energy is a safe option to power our energy-hungry economies. That there is a problem with this `hunger' in the first place and that there are options like wind-power, small-hydro and others which merit far more interest than we are ready to offer.
As heart-rending images flash on television and the internet with its social networks and find-people pages try to reach out to the lost, Japan and the Japanese people are very much on our minds. As people around me bend their heads down to work, I take down
After The Quake, a slim Murakami collection that he had published after the Kobe earthquake of '95. It is the book I would be reading for the next few days.
Copyright related notice: Fukushima nuclear plant image licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
(2011-07-03) -- The fruit of painstaking on-the-ground research from one of the most volatile conflict zones of the world, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana will appeal to anyone who likes a well-told, inspirational story.
