Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Why Japan?


In my previous post Unleashing the Demons, I wrote that modern technology is allowing us to see unroll, like those giant, glutinous waves, what's going on in Japan. I wrote:
We are seeing a lot of things we are not meant to see in our brave new modern world. We have unleashed many demons. Perhaps it is God's script; that He wants us to see these things. I have been ominous before about the state of our world's affairs. I remain so.
So, I have to ask, why Japan? Biblical disasters, which many people are comparing this to, are preceded by tremendous sin. Even Katrina has been attributed to man's weaknesses by many writers (theologians and non-theologians, priests and laymen alike).

So, this begs the important question which no-one, no pundit or writer, has asked so far: Why Japan?

Screenshot of the latest headlines at Drudge Report

On a related note, a more practical question: Why did Japan build so many nuclear plants on a geography that is so susceptible to earthquakes and tidal waves, which make such plants potentially catastrophic?

Tonight's The Agenda, a current affairs program on Television Ontario (TVO), had on an expert on nuclear energy, Duncan Hawthorne of Bruce Power. Hawthorne said that the plants withstood the earthquake (as they were built to do), but capitulated under the tidal waves. So, in the probability of both a quake and a tidal wave occurring simultaneously, the Japanese plants were unprepared. It is a little worse, though. The chances that a tidal wave would occur after an earthquake of high magnitude are high. An earthquake of high magnitude makes a tidal wave more likely to occur.

This is exactly what happened.