Cups for Coffee
Picture by Sharon
I spent a week watching Egypt 'round the clock. My sleeping pattern completely changed: up at night, down during daylight. It took me 2 - 3 weeks to finally get back to a semblance of normality.
And then it happened. A huge earthquake in Japan. What a horrible event to watch, let alone live through or die in. Then a tsunami greater than any recorded. Swallowing cities and people.
It seems, as I think back, that these events more often occur in third world type areas. Japan is different. Highly populated with an educated, highly technical citizenship. A people who experience "quakes" often and without too much destruction because of the anti-quake engineering of buildings and structures. Everything was built to withstand a 7.0 earthquake, not an unheard of, unexpected 9.0.
And, then came the tsunami. Bigger and stronger than ever recorded. Traveling inland six miles. Destroying all and everything the earthquake did not. Sweeping up and out to sea thousands of people who have yet to be returned and washed ashore. Babies pulled from their mother's grasp. Husband and wives separated never to see each other again. Four floors of patients in a hospital swept away.
Two terrible disasters happening sequentially within the same day. No time to breathe, let alone rescue, between them.
Then before the people could get their bearings, before they could grasp the horror that had befallen them, the damaged Nuclear reactors were getting ready to meltdown.
The earthquake broke the electric grid, stopping the cooling system. Then the tsunami flooded the backup generator, thoroughly demolishing any possibility of cooling the core. The reactors were dieing. Every day new events arose, from fires to explosions, despite all efforts being made.
As I write this, I don't know the ending. If it was a disaster movie, I would guess. But it's not a movie. And I don't want to guess the ending because it is too scary.
Two good movies to see: The China Syndrome and 2012. It is much easier to watch the movies than the videos the Japanese people have taken. When you watch special effects, no one really gets hurt. But, this is real and too many people to count are hurt.
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One bit of good news has worked it's way through the rubble. A medical study done has shown that drinking multiple cups of coffee a day, helps decrease the risk of strokes in women. Good thing. I've been drinking a lot of coffee this past week.
