The size of the quake and tsunami and death and suffering is enormous. It was an event that comes once in a millenium.
The danger and risk is not over.
Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is still in a critical situation.
But the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 and the destruction in Kobe where “earthquake proofing” was limited because there had not been a sizable quake in the region for some 400 years, and some 6,000 people died after a 7.4 magnitude quake, puts this 9.0 magnitude quake into perspective. The Sendai quake was 8,000 times stronger than the Kobe quake and the massive tsunami was a feature not present in Kobe. In some areas the tsunami came rushing in just minutes after the quake. It is thought that the failure of the 13 emergency diesel generators at Fukushima Dai-ichi were caused by the arrival of the tsunami wave rather than by the quake and that the failure of coolant pumping has led to all the subsequent problems.
It has been good engineering, well developed and strict building standards and a tsunami warning system which has prevented the death toll from being counted in hundreds of thousands or even millions. The events in Fukushima Dai-ichi following this massive quake and tsunami must also be put into perspective against the Three Mile Island and Tjernobyl incidents where there were no natural disasters to be coped with. The majority of the casualties and the damage seems to have been due to the tsunami rather than directly due to the earthquake itself.
Engineering and technology will keep advancing and will never be perfect but I am quite sure that good engineering has saved a very great many.
The k2p blog 