Japan: One year after Fukushima nuclear disaster, 4 repercussions

At 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck underwater some 80 miles from the coast of Sendai, Japan. One of the largest recorded earthquakes, it's been called the Great East Japan Earthquake or the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. The ensuing tsunami triggered powerful waves that reached up to 133 feet high and traveled about six miles inland, destroying homes, roads, and other buildings. One year later, progress has been made, but much more remains to be done. Here are where 4 key areas stand one year later. 

1. The human toll

Michael Buholzer/Reuters
Japanese living in Switzerland hold a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, in the Japanese embassy in Bern March 9, 2012.

Confirmed dead: 15,845 

Missing: 3,375

Injured: 5,710

On the six-month anniversary of the earthquake, more than 2,200 people traveled to attend a memorial service in Minami-Sanriku's Bayside Arena. "We pray for the lost lives and for the missing to be found as early as possible. We hope that people can return to this town and we can hear cheerful voices again," said Jin Sato, the mayor of Minami-Sanriku, at the service, the Monitor reported. His voice faltered as he spoke about the many friends and colleagues who were lost.

1 of 4

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.