Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Are there really a large number of severe earthquakes these days or has it always been like this and I'm just growing up and starting to notice?
I ask myself that normally every time there is a major disaster, as the media always seems to hype it as "omg, this is the most terrible thing ever, nothing like normal weather patterns", but it seems totally normal to get 1-3 of them a year.
Like, think about the Red River floods in the 90s, hit a bunch of US states and Canada (Manitoba), and was sort of national news. I can't help but think it would have been a major crisis in the modern media cycle, just because we are all so much more connected with cameras and the internet, and the media consuming public have a taste for these type of interest stories (though, it is entirely cynical, for instance, Haiti, a little bit of Western superiority thrown in too [WE need to help THEM, because they can't survive without us]).
Long answer, I don't know, but I tend to think it is normal, just more that the internet et al. have brought issues that used to be local to a global audience, who eats it up like candy
From the link I posted:
Radioactive material may have leaked from an atomic power plant in northeast Japan, a major electric company said Saturday, according to a news agency report.
Citing the Tokyo Electric Power Co., Japan's Kyodo News Agency said that radioactive substances may have seeped out of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, about 160 miles (260 kilometers) north of Tokyo.
And cooling problems appeared to have spread to another of the Tokyo Electric Power Company's nuclear plants.
Tsunami waters engulf town
Witness: Japan quake unlike any before
Refinery ablaze after quake
undefinedMoment of the Japan quake
Kyodo reported the power company alerted authorities that the cooling system at three units of the Fukushima Daini plant -- which is distinct from the Fukushima Daiichi reactors -- also failed. That prompted Japanese authorities to add that plant to its emergency list, along with the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Kyodo said.
The agency also reported Saturday that the same agency ordered the power company to release a valve in the Fukushima Daiichi plant's "No. 1" building, to relieve growing pressure.
Citing Japan's nuclear safety agency, Kyodo said radiation levels were 1,000 times above normal in the the control room of the facility's "No. 1."
Prime Minister Kan told reporters he would board a helicopter to inspect the plant and the rest of the affected region from a helicopter.
The government had ordered the evacuation of residents nearest the plant as efforts to keep it cool after it was shut were initially hampered.
One of my nephews is currently stationed in HI; he's a US Army E.O.D. Officer at the base on Oahu. He was among the govt. officials who was clearing out the streets and beaches at midnight with a bullhorn, warning of the impending tsunami. He was telling me that there were some beach partiers who actually had the nerve to give attutide to him and the other cops/soldiers for being buzzkills. Would their dumbasses rather be ripped to shreds by the waves? Anyways, its some pretty scary stuff.
i was referring to the radiation leakage.
not to sound like a d#$k but my definition of bad is different from the average person, not to say that it isnt a tragedy. it's just something comparatively to casualties and deaths from other parts of the world during other disasters and war have been more catastrophic than what i am seeing here.
Originally posted by King CastleYou don't sound like a "d#$k". You just sound irrelevant, and as if you have any idea what the total average definition of 'bad' is.
i was referring to the radiation leakage.not to sound like a d#$k but my definition of bad is different from the average person, not to say that it isnt a tragedy. it's just something comparatively to casualties and deaths from other parts of the world during other disasters and war have been more catastrophic than what i am seeing here.
I guess you're just more badass and hardcore than the average, oversensitive citizen.