this from the red cross japan, as of this afternoon (my time):
- 2,000 people confirmed dead
- 10,000 more people expected to be confirmed dead
- 2,000 people injured
- 530,000 people displaced, staying in 2,500 evacuation centres, such as schools and public halls
- 24,000 people still completely isolated and cannot be reached
- 1.2 million homes without power
- 1.4 million homes without water
- 4,700 destroyed houses
- 50,000 damaged houses
- 582 roads cut off
- 32 bridges destroyed
the intermediary site--a blog space at the red cross uk---is down. i found this information here:
Japan tsunami and nuclear alert - live coverage | World news | guardian.co.uk
6:39 pm.
i dont have any sense at all of understanding what this means.
i look at the numbers, know they're likely to change, and think: this is so far outside what i know. it's almost just arbitrary numbers. and they'll get bigger.
tv doesn't help. like danny schechter said a while ago, american tv opts for a sense of "being there" rather than a sense of "being-informed" and so is reduced---and reduces you---to a form of disaster voyeurism.
i don't approve of fuckwits like the people who go all westboro baptist and try to link this disaster to pearl harbor---but you're not being served a whole lot better by the fatuous coverage on the major tv networks. but you're cool with that, seemingly. i guess it's easier to go after the crazies than think about problems with the infotainment delivery system that is, somehow, normal.
anyway, this is useful on the nuclear plant crises:
What the Media Doesn't Get About Meltdowns - Cristine Russell - International - The Atlantic
so's this infographic about the sequence of events:
How the nuclear emergency unfolded | The Washington Post