Nobody saw it coming!

While discussing the content of our What’s Next magazine themed ‘Surprise”, the idea was born to ask Japanese illustrators to share with us their  artistic impressions to the phrase “Nobody saw it coming”.  Naturally, both their thoughts and our thoughts gravitated to the terrible earthquake and nuclear disaster that took place in Japan this year.  When I saw the final result of their efforts, appearing in the latest issue of the magazine, I was struck by the images and by the meaning of those words. Nobody saw it coming.  My mind drifted, became frustrated and then revolted. Did we not see it coming? And if not, did we learn from the event or did we simply get a year older without getting any smarter? Of course we did not! We believe we are invincible, that our technology protects us against everything and anything. But on March 11 2011 at 2:46 in the afternoon, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck Japan offshore, triggering a tsunami wave of up to 10 meters that engulfed large parts of northeastern Japan and also damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing, as was said at that time, “ the worst nuclear crisis in decades”.  On March 11, for a moment, a fraction in our existence, the human race felt vulnerable again.

More than 25,000 people were reported dead and missing. The World Bank estimates the clean up cost at $235bn, making it the world’s most expensive disaster. Talk about cleanup…have you ever given a thought that this is probably a phenomenal engineering and waste management challenge. The disaster area included at least 16 towns, 95,000 buildings, 23 railway stations and hundreds of kilometers of roads, railway tracks and sea walls. A total of 25m tons of debris according to the  Japanese government estimates. Debris that needs to be removed first and foremost, and than sorted. Have you ever stopped to think about the waste that had to be or will have to be scrapped, burnt or recycled?

Are  there many people out there who know the condition of at Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant today… has it been shut down? What is the impact of the release of radioactive fumes on the environment and people in the immediate and surrounding areas of the plant?

For some of the questions, we can find the answers. I found “before and after” pictures on the internet from towns like Sendai for example. Huge piles of debris left after the disaster are gone. Like in many other villages along the coast. But where houses and streets used to be, today there are mostly empty spaces. What happened to the people that used to live here?  What happened to the human suffering, survivors  who lost everything and much more. Who lost their newly bought oven, their suitcase, a buddha statue, a family shrine, a set of golf clubs, a school yearbook, their album of wedding photographs, their posed and framed memories, their pets, their mother, father, child, family member, their everything… all this, gone,…in one stroke of a gigantic wave.

That’s the damage to Japan that cannot be photographed easily. The social, cultural, and psychological sufferings that are still now being experienced and cannot be “cleared up” so quickly. These victims, in the hundreds of thousands, remain mostly silent.

And the world does not seem to care anymore and has moved on to more spectacular news. Back to our favorite game of playing invincible. Back to our indifference. Back to our magazines and newspapers of more bad news of the same old story. What a missed opportunity to fill up the news pages with, for once, some good news of a country and a community that fights back. I hoped we would learn. So far we did not. I did not see this coming!