What a crazy fracking week this has been. I don't know where to start, but one must start somewhere. Like in this photograph of "debris" left behind by the tsunami that hit Japan in the aftermath of the quake Thursday.
How do you even begin to clean up such a disaster? And yet, it will be done, one piece at a time. I'd go wading in with a shovel, at the very least, but to remove the cars will take a lot of people to carry them out one by one, to be hauled away to be crushed in some junkyard contraption, or a jaws contraption that will grab each vehicle, shake it like a dinosaur of old would have shaken it's prey, and then deposit it (er, the car, not the prey) on a flat bed where the cars can be hauled to said junkyard. The scope of the recovery effort is mind-bloggling and overwhelming, but the Japanese are a resilient and enterprising people, and with help they will recover from this horrible disaster.
I did not get much work done yesterday. I first went to BBC News on the computer and saw this absolutely horrifying video of something that looked like it had been created by Hollywood imagining a disaster -- those images of the unrelenting crush of black, muck and debris-filled waters surging surging surging without stop across the flat landscape. In the distance cars could be seen moving on a highway. Could the drivers see the water coming? Where could they (you) possibly flee to? A human would not be able to outrun this wave of destruction on foot. I was just awe-struck and spent the entire time watching the events unfolding on the video with my hands up against my mouth. As if - what? What is this gesture of hand or hands to mouth that people (mostly women, I think) do when they are horrified by something? Are we trying to hold something in (a cry, a scream?) Are we trying to keep something out (evil spirits, bad miasma?)
The worst is the absolutely helpless feeling that one experiences. I cannot reach out and pluck those people out of harm's way. No amount of agonizing can save them, or change what happened. I can only watch, in horror, as the events unfolded, captured forever in time on that video. Yesterday was not a good day...
 |
| Vehicles are piled up in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture, Saturday, March 12, 2011, a day after a strong earthquake-triggered devastating tsunami hit Japan's east coast. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) |
I did not get much work done yesterday. I first went to BBC News on the computer and saw this absolutely horrifying video of something that looked like it had been created by Hollywood imagining a disaster -- those images of the unrelenting crush of black, muck and debris-filled waters surging surging surging without stop across the flat landscape. In the distance cars could be seen moving on a highway. Could the drivers see the water coming? Where could they (you) possibly flee to? A human would not be able to outrun this wave of destruction on foot. I was just awe-struck and spent the entire time watching the events unfolding on the video with my hands up against my mouth. As if - what? What is this gesture of hand or hands to mouth that people (mostly women, I think) do when they are horrified by something? Are we trying to hold something in (a cry, a scream?) Are we trying to keep something out (evil spirits, bad miasma?)
The worst is the absolutely helpless feeling that one experiences. I cannot reach out and pluck those people out of harm's way. No amount of agonizing can save them, or change what happened. I can only watch, in horror, as the events unfolded, captured forever in time on that video. Yesterday was not a good day...
No comments:
Post a Comment