Essay III: Cause & Effect Essay

Japan 2011: Nightmare of the Rising Sun

                On 11 March 2011, humanity witnessed another tragedy. An earthquake with a magnitude of 8.9 on the Richter scale hit the coastal area of north-eastern Japan on Friday afternoon. The powerful quake shifted the Earth’s axis by nearly 4 inches and moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet. In Tokyo, the tremor disrupted the city’s rail-transportation, causing massive deadlock on subways including the Shinkansen (Japan’s express train network) which was also out of service. Furthermore, the shockwave also perturbed the city’s phone networks, making communication difficult. Situation went hectic in Tokyo, as workers unable to commute back to their homes after work due to the unavailability of train services. Yet no matter how terrible it might be, the real horror was yet to be faced by the Japanese.  Because of the strong quake, chain reactions of catastrophic events started to unfold one after another: starting from the tsunami, nuclear crisis, and economic downgrades. 

                Approximately fifteen minutes after the earthquake, Japan was hit by tsunami waves that come from the epicenter. Waves after waves of 7-meter tsunami were unleashed along the entire eastern coast of Japan’s main island. The deadly tidal waves, which can travel through the water at speeds up to 600 mph, caused total devastation towards coastal prefectures such as: Sendai, Miyagi, Chiba, Southern Hokkaido, Iwate and many cities along the coast. The world grievously witnessed from live television broadcast on how the tsunami engulfed farms, tossed cars, ships and houses like they were toys. Additionally, thousands of people were killed and missing during the disaster. Because of the massive infrastructure damage by the tsunamis, electricity, shelters, food and water were nearly nonexistent – making the affected areas uninhabitable. 

                After the tsunami, Japan must fight against the risk of having nuclear crisis from some of the damaged nuclear power plants. One of the most severely damaged nuclear power plants in Japan was the Fukushima Daiichi which is located around 250 kilometers north of Tokyo. Due to the massive earthquake, the plant’s main cooling systems, which are used to control the temperature of nuclear core reactor, were knocked out. Because of the cooling failure, the reactor’s pressure was rising beyond control, and thus causing hydrogen explosion in one of the reactor. The result of the accident was the spread of radioactive radiation up to 400 times beyond normal level to the surrounding area.  For this reason, the Japanese government must evacuate all people at the radius of 30 km from the plant. At least 180.000 people had forced to leave the area due to irradiated contamination on air and water. The increase of radioactive level also caused another anxiety for people in Tokyo, as they started to leave the capital city – causing thousands of unprecedented exoduses in Narita and Haneda airports because of growing nuclear emergency at Fukushima power plant. 

                The disaster of earthquake and tsunami also resulted in Japan’s economic downgrade. First, because of the disaster, the country lost 25% of its electricity, and this situation crippled industrial and manufacturing sectors. The tsunami also destroyed farms and sea-ports which damaged Japan’s agricultural and trade sectors.  Consequently, the appalling situation affected Japan’s economy negatively. When the first trading day was opened on Monday, the benchmark Nikkei 225 dropped by 6.2%, making it as the largest single day drop ever since the financial crisis in 2008. The stock’s downgrade trend was also immediately followed by Japan’s major companies. For example, Hitachi’s index was dropped by 16.2%; the same thing was also suffered by Japan’s major automotive company Toyota which fell more than 8% partly because two of its factories in Sendai were affected by tsunami. It was predicted that financial damage from the disaster could reach at least US$100 billion, including US$20 billion in damage to residences and US$40 billion to infrastructure. Analysts believed that Japan’s earthquake and tsunami as the costliest catastrophe in the world.

                In conclusion, the combination of various calamities – 8.9 Richter scale of earthquake, tsunamis, radioactive contamination and degradation of the nation’s economy – has brought misery to the Japanese people and sorrow to the entire world. Until the moment of this essay is written, the official death toll of the disaster have reached 5.178, with more than 18.600 people still remain unaccounted; the number itself is expected to climb as thousands remain missing. Yet amidst the pain and tragedy, the world is amazed on seeing how the Japanese people remain calm, steadfast and united together in facing the disaster. May the fortitude of Japan guides them through this tragedy.