I was watching the raw video footages posted on the internet taken while the 8.9 magnitude earthquake was in progress in the Sendai Prefecture in Japan. I could not believe what I saw!! It was terrifying. Inside the grocery, workers were uselessly trying to keep the tall aisles still to prevent the displayed items- wines, canned good, boxes and what-have you, from falling. Inside an office, computers, monitors, wall decors, even desks were falling. There was a footage in a lobby which reminded me of my first trip to Manila, decades ago, on board the M/V Dona Marilyn (before it sunk) while navigating through the unusually rough waters off Romblon island, where bottles rolled from side to side of the huge ship. In that footage, I thought the tall building must be swaying!!! Indeed, it was swaying!
What was even more gut wrenching was the aftemath of the strong earthquake, the tsunami which flowed in multi-story high waves of rushing waters raging the coastal areas up to 3 kilometers to the mainland. I watched the dark mound of water picking up yachts and small boats from the shoreline and cars and trucks parked in the streets bringing them to who-knows-where, knocking down weaker structures (homes and bridges) along the way The eerie sight sent a chill to my spine! In the airport, I saw few airplanes swarmed around by drifted cars and trucks.
I thought I was watching the thriller of the futuristic movie, The Day After Tomorrow. Some scenes were so surreal that most people think would happen only in the silver screen. It did happen for real, caught in people's not the director's camera! The magnitude of the damage seems incomprehensible, as thousands of lives are lost or missing, massive infrastructures damaged including the nuclear power plant facilities and power is out for who-knows how long!
This powerful earthquake occurred in Japan earlier today while rescue and recovery operations are still underway in the rubbles of Christchurch, New Zealand after it was rocked by 6.3 magnitude quake less than a month ago. Elsewhere, tremors shook and caused significant damage to buildings and loss of lives and limbs in Southwest China, and was felt in Bali, Indonesia. Unfortunately, the tremor which shook Japan was estimated to be 800 times more powerful (and hence more destructive) than the one which shook New Zealand.
With this string of calamitous events, the self-proclaimed soothsawyers out there are apt to quickly remind the people the end of time is near. That humans have caused so much displeasure to god. And that god is punishing the earth!
Truth to reckon is that the earth has been a harsh environment to live in. This planet was born out of unimaginable disaster if we try to contend with the Big Bang Theory. After it's formation, the earth's environment has been so hostile, even before the first life was formed. Volcanic eruptions, powerful earthquakes, meteorites invasion and some other forces described the cataclysmic nature of the earth. Ironically, it is believed that through the energy generated from these activities, chemical reactions occurred which in the course of time, the first life was formed.
Life in this planet just come and go. According to scientific estimates, more and more living forms were present in the past (and are now archived in the layers of rocks in the earth) than those that live at the present. This is just how things go. We heard about fish kills, bird drops, and massive loss of lives. These are tell-tale signs of natural selection. It's part of the dynamics of the Gaia, the earth being likened to an organism. Where there are continuous interactions between the various components of the earth's ecosystem (the atmosphere, the oceans, the land and the bedrock beneath) in order to keep the earth healthy.
And so catastrophes are part of our existence. Sometimes we are lucky.. others are not!
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