What's the future for Japan?

[Jared Niec]

As everyone knows, Japan was recently hit by an earthquake that was first said to have a magnitude of 8.9, but was later said to be a magnitude of 9.0. This earthquake was said to be the fifth largest one recorded in Japan's history. The earthquake itself only lasted 3 minutes, but the devastation left after those 3 minutes was monumental. Fissures opened up all over Japan, many buildings fell, Japan was moved roughly 6 to 8 inches and on top of it all, a Tsunami struck destroying over 50% of Japan. The earthquake was not really the worst part; the worst part was the Tsumani which destroyed 95% of one city and has severely damaged the nuclear power plants that are threatening all of Japan.  From the tsunami and earthquake, that struck last Friday a total of 6,406 have been confirmed dead and 10,259 have been missing. This number has been rising steadily over the past week and is expected to rise still.

Because the nuclear power plant has been destroyed, a lot of power that would normally be going to Tokyo and other major and minor cities are either going without power, or having power on for 2-3 hours then off for 4-5 hours. Workers have already been injured from working at the power plant to try and stop the reactors from having a complete meltdown. They've even resorted to using salt water from the Pacific Ocean in order to cool it down but also destroyed the reactor in the process. It was better to destroy the reactor than have a meltdown that could and would most likely set off a chain reaction with the other reactors that are nearby.

 Japan is in a state of emergency and the recovery from a desvastation of this magnitude will take some time.

 What do you think will be the future for Japan?