Major Earthquakes in Japan

Guy-jin

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Things are still sadly in bad shape. Although the response from the general public has been fantastic in perfect Japanese form, the government has been very ineffectual helping the people in need.

I fear that those who were impacted directly by the tsunami may end up lost in the coming years as the government does nothing effective to help them. They have nothing left.

This whole thing where the government left everything up to TEPCO at the nuclear plant, supplies cannot get to the victims, and no solution to the power crisis have me very worried for the victims in the coming months and years.
 

SilverTrain

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Things are still sadly in bad shape. Although the response from the general public has been fantastic in perfect Japanese form, the government has been very ineffectual helping the people in need.

I fear that those who were impacted directly by the tsunami may end up lost in the coming years as the government does nothing effective to help them. They have nothing left.

This whole thing where the government left everything up to TEPCO at the nuclear plant, supplies cannot get to the victims, and no solution to the power crisis have me very worried for the victims in the coming months and years.

The (corporate/governmental) Japanese tendency to not admit fault nor discuss the dirty laundry has really come home to roost in this situation. Very unfortunate.
 

Guy-jin

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Well, the problem is really that the government is very ineffectual there, and significantly controlled by corporate interests rather than by the people.

The government is completely neutered and inept.

They are slaves to the companies, for one thing. We've seen that play out openly in how they're just standing by letting TEPCO deal with the Fukushima plant rather than handling it themselves or threatening some kind of penalty. The workers in the plant now are likely to die of radiation poisoning and are resigned to that and the government seems to just accept it, which I find asinine. A major reason is that TEPCO controls far too much of Japan's energy, including most of Tokyo's.

Then there's the hopelessness of their democracy. Their system is fundamentally incapable of necessary swift action in crises like these. That's why the SDF and police end up doing everything autonomously in response to crises like these. Heck, after the Kobe earthquake, the yakuza were the first group to open kitchens for people to eat! That is so pathetic.

Anyway, I could go on, but the bottom line is that things are still quite bad there and I'm afraid they will be for a while to come. You won't hear the Japanese complain about it, but it's going to be bad. :frown1:
 

Drifterwood

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Thanks, GJ. I was very much getting the feeling that it is presumed that the companies will rebuild Japan, whereas we would have expected greater government leadership.
 

Guy-jin

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Yeah sure! We all think of the Japanese government as this weird ineffectual group of faceless politicians that resign all the time rather than fixing problems, and you can just imagine how that impacts the people of that country.

I think Japan will be better prepared for future disasters of this magnitude as a result of this. Not that events of this extreme are even likely to occur in the foreseeable future, but given the reaction after the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, we see how prepared Japan is for big earthquakes now. My fiancee was almost 1000km away from the epicenter and felt the earthquake strongly. Yet there was very little damage from the earthquake itself, which is amazing considering it was strong enough to tilt the earth's axis itself. What they weren't prepared for, as we all saw horrifically play out before our eyes, was such an extreme tsunami. I think they will be in the future.

Unfortunately, I think the victims of the tsunami will be in trouble for a long time. It's hard to fathom, but many of them have literally nothing left. Their homes, families, friends, places of business, and even their land is gone. It may be Japan's "Katrina" in that sense. I do see a glimmer of hope in the way that the Japanese people tend to help each other out in times of need. But I don't know that it will be the government that really plays a strong role in helping them... I certainly hope it is. Now is an important time for these DPJ leaders to show that they really are about meaningful change and helping the people. I certainly hope that happens rather than the typical resignations and recycling of faceless politicians from historically political families.