Putting Things In Perspective
Over eight million people in three coastal provinces of China; Zhejiang, Fujian and Jiangxi have been affected by the worst typhoons leading to massive flooding, in fifty years. A huge relocation of 1.4-million people took place, with authorities temporarily evacuating an area that was anticipated would be hardest hit by Typhoon Moraki.The devastation is mind-boggling. It's thought by Chinese authorities that up to 500 people have been killed from the typhoons hitting East Asia. Most of the deaths are thought to have occurred in Taiwan, where Typhoon Morakot lashed the area, with a record three metres of rain on the week-end. Three metres - nine feet of rain; unimaginable!
As unimaginable as the orderly evacuation of over a million people. Landslides resulting from the massive inundation were responsible for toppling four-storey apartment buildings, in the process burying an untold number of residents in the eastern province of Zhejiang. Taiwanese rescue crews are attempting to reach people cut off by floods and mudslides.
Thousands of people trapped in coastal townships. Bridges have collapsed cutting off road access to remote villages. And several hundred homes in a village were buried in a mudslide. Soldiers were helicoptered into the village to search for survivors. "I could hardly believe my eyes. The whole village disappeared and even house roofs could not be seen", reported one of the rescuers.
Typhoon Etau with winds of up to 108 km/h was to hit the Tokyo area and authorities are warning of heavy rain and landslides. Thousands in coastal areas of Japan already hit by the typhoon have been forced into emergency shelters. As though that weren't quite enough, an earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale struck central Japan.
The earthquake caused numerous fires, shut down a nuclear power plant, and bullet trains, while causing injuries to dozens of people. The quake shook buildings and woke people during the night, around Tokyo. Experiencing earthquakes in Tokyo is common enough; nothing quite prepares you for witnessing the awesome phenomena of feeling, hearing, seeing the earth move under and around you.
In some ways it's more awe-inspiring and fearsome experiencing an earthquake while out in the open, than when you're in a building, where the floors and walls shake, and you wait, breathlessly, for life to return to normal. A quake of that magnitude, while not rare, is a notable one, and together with the winds and the rain, must have caused no end of panic.
This is nature at its rawest, most unpredictable, and awe-inspiring. This bears no resemblance whatever to what we in North America are experiencing with record-breaking, persistent rain events, relative lack of summer sunshine, and cooler temperatures than normal.
Labels: Environment, Nature, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 11, 2009
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