I have been very impressed with the strength and the calmness of the Japanese people under duress. I am also very impressed with the Japanese Government and how quickly it reacted, and is reacting to the disaster.
First of all, the most effective and advanced Tsunami warning system in the world sent warnings out 8 seconds after the waves were sensed. Unfortunately the quake was so close that people had less than 15 minutes to get to high ground. Still not too much panic or irrational behavior. The government made certain that people knew what to do and what was happening.
Second Despite the strongest earthquake in the history of the nation, the cities are still standing. A few of the coastal towns were literally washed away with the 30 ft. waves, but most of the buildings and homes survived and did not fall down crushing the occupants. The government knowing that they were in an active seismic zone required buildings bridges and infrastructure be built to stringent earthquake standards.
The Japanese Quake was an 8.9 on the Richter Scale. Since this scale is exponential that means this quake was nearly 900 times as strong as the Earthquake that devastated Haiti which was a 7.0 quake.
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/intensity....The Haiti Quake killed 200,000 people mostly because the concrete buildings were built without standards or reinforcing, and they crushed the inhabitants when they collapsed.
Watch the emergency response. In Haiti the hospitals were destroyed and there was no way to help the injured, or even to move around the city because the streets were blocked by the collapsed buildings. There was no strong central government trained in what to do if there was a disaster, no disaster plans, and no equipment to handle the situation.
Japan on the other hand is probably the government with the best disaster preparedness in the world. They were on the scene during the disaster, and are now quickly responding and will quickly recover.
This is the result of a strong central government that requires planning for the future and investment in the training and equipment necessary to respond to a disaster.
Compare that to Haiti which still looks much as it did a year ago with it's citizens still without services or homes. This is the result of minimal government run by corruption and cronyism.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/01...The Right Wing thinks that we all should have a minimal government, that is mostly influenced by corporate bribes, that is not supported by any taxes (with the exception of support for the military, law enforcement, and billions of dollars in subsidies to mega corporations that make record profits). They deny factual scientific evidence of pending disaster at our peril.
This is a very simple matter. Should we cater to corporations and allow them to cut corners as they did in Haiti without regulations, or should we think of the people, plan ahead, think of the future and make investments that will save us money in the future? Should we eliminate all investments and cut funding to critical programs so we can save a bit of money now? Should we eat our seed corn?