It was one week ago that a powerful 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northern Japan. The tsunami that followed, with waves reaching as high as ten meters, swept as far as ten miles inward. In this video shot for The Guardian, we see the haunting devastation in Shintona, a small town in the Miyagi prefecture (one of the areas worst affected by the tsunami). Amidst the wreckage on the streets, it is quite stirring to peer inside some of the washed-out houses, where we observe broken china and damaged photographs, reminding us how life can be so profoundly and personally interrupted by nature’s fury.
The Guardian article accompanying this video can be read here. For more videos and resources related to the earthquake in Japan, including ways you can help, see this post.
Eugene Buchko is a blogger and photographer living in Atlanta, GA. He maintains a photoblog, Erudite Expressions, and writes about what he reads on his reading blog.
It’s very sad that so many people died I can’t stay calm watching these terrible videos from http://www.torrentoff.com, but the nuclear problems are completely their own fault.. why the hell would they build a nuclear plant in a known earthquake area.. this could have been prevented!!
This is a tragedy, and every time I turn on the news, it seems as if the Japanese are facing another post-earthquake issue. I traveled to Japan 2 years ago, and I was amazed at their tenacity even then. The people I met on that trip were some of the kindest and most welcoming I have ever encountered. This still proves true today even as I watch the news and read articles. Despite the dangers of the nuclear plant, extreme weather, etc, the citizens seem to really be working together to stay strong for the country and each other. I hope the international community will continue to do the same, and not just “forget” about this in a few months (as many, unfortunately, did with the case of Haiti), because these damages– both physical and emotional– will take years to heal.