Environmental activism trumping personal plight of Japanese?

In the media-driven scurry to save ourselves from the radiation leakage from Japan, let’s hope and pray that the 127 million population whose lives became a living nightmare at 2:46 p.m., Friday, March 11 local time are not going to be forgotten. A strikingly dignified people showing tremendous grace under pressure, it is not the Japanese who are panicking in the face of nuclear meltdown, but their faraway friends and supporters overseas.

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Since the explosions at their nuclear plants, Japan is already being blamed for building their nuclear power too close to the sea. Hard to avoid the sea when you live on a series of small islands. Within three short days of the earthquake and tsunami, radiation had become the main talking point for the outside world. The UN had spoken. About eight hours after the explosions, the UN weather agency warned that winds were dispersing radioactive material over the Pacific ocean, away from Japan and other Asian countries. The Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation added that weather conditions could change. The quake/tsunami disabled Fukushima Daiiichi nuclear plant at Minamisoma has already been identified as the world’s most serious nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. Soon forgotten was the inconvenient fact that Fukushima became a problem because of Friday’s horrific earthquake and tsunami. Earthquakes have been part of God’s little green acres called Earth since the beginning of time. In North America, we complain bitterly about the weather and head out to sunnier climes during March break. Those who stay at home turn up the register, throw another log on the home fire and toss an extra blanket on the bed. Daytime temperatures in Japan will hover at 5 degrees celsius over the next four days, a worrisome factor for the thousands going to bed in the dark and cold in shelters where there is no heat, and in the cases of some hospitals, not even enough blankets with which to cover the shivering ill. Food, water and medicine supplies are dwindling. In the horror of desperate escape from a catastrophe, the full scope of which is still unknown, not many had a chance to pack up the insulin or even the aspirin bottle when disaster hit. The physical suffering is one thing. The unimaginable agony of the soul of those not knowing the fate of their loved ones is another. In daylight hours, those who can, ride their bicycles into rubble-strewn areas looking for the bodies of mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and missing children. The mainstream media, conspiracy theorists, the smug and self-centered environmentalists are keeping the possibility of radiation leaks and clouds coming over the sea to the North American Pacific coasts front and center in the news. Perhaps it’s one of this tragedy’s small blessings that most Japanese are cut off from communications so that they won’t know that the nuclear fallout story has all but eclipsed their nightmare world. In the midst of the horror, NHK World Television runs an English LiveFeed the outside world can watch in real time. Almost every story shows among the heartbreak the altruism of a people whose store owners give their wares away for free; the genuine smile of a rescue worker who found a 4-month old baby safe in the rubble; a factory owner who goes to all the shelters within walking distance looking for his employees and his joyful tears upon finding one of them. We can only trust the nuclear fallout panic does not shut the good hearts of all those willing to help the victims of “the worst crisis in Japan since World War 11”. May God Almighty show mercy to the trapped in a nightmare people of Japan.