The Land of the Rising Sun in shock

This tremor, whose epicentre was 72km east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tohoku, has been named the "Great Eastern Japan Earthquake" by Japanese government. Several fore-shocks were reported before the catastrophe. However, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) did not expect the main earthquake to be so strong.  It caused devastating tsunami waves that reached the Pacific coastline of Japan's northern islands and destroyed entire towns such as Kamaishi, Miyako, Ōtsuchi, and Yamada (in Iwate Prefecture), Namie, Sōma and Minamisōma (in Fukushima Prefecture) and  Higashimatsushima,  Onagawa,  Natori,  Ishinomaki,  and Kesennuma  (in  Miyagi  Prefecture).  What  is  more,  Fukushima  Dai-ichi  nuclear  power  plant,  which  is  located  on Fukushima  Prefecture,  was  damaged  by  Tohōku  tsunami.  Due  to  this  fact,  radiation  levels  in  Japan  are  rising  and  the  Japanese  government  is  telling  people  who  live  near  the  Dai-ichi  plant  to  stay  indoors  and  keep  their  windows  close.  

  More  than  17.400  citizens  are  missing  and,  unfortunately, around  12.100 deaths have been confirmed by the National Police Agency. In addition, thousands of citizens are affected by the lack of electricity, water and transportation. Most of them have lost everything, all their belongings and their homes, so Red Cross is helping survivors rebuild their lives. A few hours after the earthquake, Google launched a person finder tool, which is available in both Japanese and English. This database, which was used in the Haiti earthquake too, allows Internet users to search for missing people on-line and submit information about  their whereabouts. Sadly, some heartless people are writing false information, specially about celebrities.

However, the tremor has not only affected people and structures. Welfare groups are trying to rescue homeless animals. Most of them are in terrible conditions and they have no food. They just wander around destroyed towns during the entire day. Hundreds of animals are dying in agony.
Surprisingly, dogs are sometimes more loyal than people even in time of disaster . For example, a dog refused to leave an injured canine friend in the rubble.

 Fortunately, there are also good news. Another dog was found on the roof of a house floating off Kesennuma three weeks after the catastrophe. Finally it was reunited with its owner.

It is obvious that Japan's recovery will be slow and difficult since it has been the strongest  earthquake ever recorded  in Japanese  history.  Nevertheless,  everybody  knows  the  Japanese  are    resilient  people. They  will not  give up so easily. They will  work extremely  hard  to  overcome  the  situation. Destroyed structures will turn into new buildings and  the Land of the Rising Sun will shine again.