Japan

Oh dear. Poor, poor Japan.  An earthquake.  A tsunami. A potential nuclear disaster.  All inside 24 hours.  Anyone would think it was the plot for a not very believable End of the World disaster film. But no.  It's real.  And it's awful.  And there's no sign of it stopping any time soon.

It was told to us on the news before I left home for work on Friday.  I knew that Gifu was about 250 miles south west of Tokyo so wasn't especially worried about Austin and Kaori. But people were starting to ask me if all was well, and I hadn't actually spoken to Austin. And it seemed a bit foolhardy to declare that he was absolutely fine and dandy without confirmation.  It would look remarkably foolish of me to be declaring that he was fine, only to discover later that he had been dead for three days! So I sent him a message asking if there was an Austin in the house.  And discovered that he was, as usual, off to his Friday evening Japanese class.  No worries there!

As it happens, they are both fine.  Kaori's work building shook and swayed in Nagoya.  Austin's school might well have implemented earthquake evacuation procedures - except that school had just finished for the day and the children were all outside.  I believe that things are fairly stable and normal in Nagoya.  There is some concern about the nuclear reactors way, way up the coast.  But no immediate concern for Austin, Kaori or her family.

The video of that tsunami, though, is mind-boggling in its intensity and its ferocity and its implacability.  I think there were very few buildings that were toppled in the actual earthquake.  But that series of waves was absolutely relentless in its destructive power. It's no wonder that the death toll is likely to be so staggeringly high.