Misinformation and Coverups in Japan's Earthquake and Tsunami - How to Help

79

By Patty Inglish, MS

Great Wave off Kanagawa

I love this block print from the Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji, but water can be both destructive and life giving.
I love this block print from the Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji, but water can be both destructive and life giving.
Source: by Katsushika Hokusai; public domain

Information Highway Also Affected by Earthquake

For a planet well-connected by the Internet, i-Tablets, and Smartphone technologies, Earth was/is experiencing a disturbing rash of inaccurate news reports from and about the Japanese Ground Zero in March 2011. The SNAFU that irked me the most was a news report relayed by associates in Michigan to me on 3/13 that was 180° opposed to the report I already had in Ohio on 3/12.

On Saturday, the local TV bradcasts, online news, and daily papers in my state presented a photo of the Japanese nuclear power plant during an H explosion. On Sunday, I was relayed news reports from Michigan stating that scientists were being polled about the potential of an explosion, but that none had occurred. So, what really happened? Conspiracy Theorists here are having a macabre party over this phenomenon of differing stories and he-said, she-said, it-said. I'm very sorry about the Japanese Disaster of Earthquake and Tsunami a I am dismayed with poor journalism and hearing people quote inaccuracies too many times. It's as if people had been reading a sheaf of regularly occurring gossip-spam political and health warning untruths and spreading all of them around at once.

Earthquakes

Scattering of Seismic Waves : Applications to the Mexico City Valley (Advances in Earthquake Engineering)
Amazon Price: $140.00
List Price: $178.00
Little Earthquakes
Amazon Price: $1.92
List Price: $26.00

Tsunamis

Tsunami!
Amazon Price: $8.61
List Price: $16.99
Tsunamis (True Books: Earth Science)
Amazon Price: $3.60
List Price: $6.95

Connections Disconnect

The information connection around Earth is like the maturing brain's white matter that increases with age, making numerously increased logical connections and growing all the time. In the case of Earth, someone seems to have cut connections or filled them with misfired info packets. The resulting turmoil could certainly serve as a distraction if a hidden agenda were planned for application.

This all recalls the conspiracy theories of the Cold War that held that the worldwide UFO phenomenon was a political ploy applied to distract nations and cover governmental actions. Related current theories hold that Climate Change is the same type of ploy; except that the ice caps are melting and the water is not all evaporating or raising sea levels- it's dumping itself on the USA, at least, as continuing snow, flooding rains, and their aftermath. Additional conspiracies may sprout in the public mind amidst the mis-reporting of information by the media about Japan. Renewed alarm is already flowing across Facebook in regards to solar flares, sunspot activity, the numerological meaning of the date 11-11-11, the notion of world's end in 2012, radioactive material flinging itself from Japan to the US, and several others.

However, this could be a matter of media opponents attempting to get their news stories on the air first; so, they go with partial or incorrect information. This time, it seems more than usual numbers of media outlets did this.

How "Bad" Was the Earthquake?

Within about 12 hours, I heard several differing Richter Scale values placed on the Japanese earthquake of 2011: 4.9, 7.2, 7.9, and 8.8, and 8.9. I think the highest number may be correct. The AP reported an aftershock of 6.2 on Monday March 14. The nuclear plant at Fukushima Dai-ichi is in danger of meltdown as of Monday as well.

Readers and viewers are/were confused by differing reports and subsequent corrections in the news, even by the respected Associated Press (AP).

DEATHS

The death toll is not completed yet, but at least 2,000 human bodies (dead) washed up onto the coastline of Miyagi Prefecture on Monday morning, March 14, after the Friday seismic event. This is the northeast coastline of Japan and it is cold. I watched footage of tsunami flooding with its water and black sludge icing fields of crops like it was frosting a German chocolate cake. The sea took the people's food away. Fortunately, as soon as news of the quake and tsunami reached the Midwest, the Endtime Joseph Feed the Hungry Program out of Indiana and Ohio packed a large ship full of food and sent it over. Other groups and organizations also responded.

Clean up and reconstruction will take years to complete. We have seen that already in New Orleans after Katrina (autumn 2005) and more recently in Haiti. 

Major Swath of Disaster

show route and directions
Rikuzentakata -
Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, Japan
[get directions]

Sendai Japan -
Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan
[get directions]

Near epicenter of earthquake on March 11, 2011 local date.

Tokyo -
Tokyo, Japan
[get directions]

Cosmo Oil Refinery File in Ichihara

Comments

Fay Paxton 14 months ago

Thank you Patty for this excellent coverage of the tsunami. You're a pro.

voted up and very useful

Patty Inglish, MS profile image

Patty Inglish, MS Hub Author 14 months ago

I like the YouTube footage so we can see what is actually up! Thanks for visiting.

moncrieff profile image

moncrieff Level 2 Commenter 14 months ago

People say that Japanese government is lying about the real damage from the explosion at the nuclear plant. I don't know. I liked that Youtube video, too. Yes, the news are devastating.

Darlene Sabella profile image

Darlene Sabella 14 months ago

Dear Patty, your right this is shameful, I wrote my hub hours after it happened and yes I just researched from the facts as they unfolded right away. I published my hub with a 8.9 earthquake and a 14 foot Tsunami, and got a video clip and some news story to to break the information. After that the story started to unfold in a larger scale, to include nuclear power plant, explosions and the rest. However then yesterday I read there were over 10,000 that had died and that was only the beganning of the search. I love the great reporting you do, I always come back to you to get the truth and the real scope. We are still praying for all and thank you my friend. Love & peace darski

Patty Inglish, MS profile image

Patty Inglish, MS Hub Author 14 months ago

moncrieff - One never knows is a government is telling everything. The videos are so powerful, though. Thanks for reading.

Darlene - I am blown away by all the different figures reported on this one and cannot imagine what happened, really. I watched the Google News and feeds for quite a while and compared them with the news in Ohio and Michigan. Then I started seeing corrections and retractions. I remember when Gabby Giffords was shot, they said she was dead immediately and had to take it back.

Someone told me once if you want to know what happens in US for real, check the BBC and Canada. Thanks for posting, Darski!

Radioguy profile image

Radioguy 14 months ago

Very well done and nice to see a common sense approach look at this tragedy.

kashmir56 profile image

kashmir56 Level 6 Commenter 14 months ago

Hi Patty, I think you are right, news stations want to be first to broadcast this news even if it just part of the story or some wrong facts .Thanks for all those great links to help the people and pets of the earthquake and tsunami .

Awesome and vote up !!!

Hello, hello, profile image

Hello, hello, 14 months ago

I think this is the worst whatever any country experienced of natural disaster. I always admire and acknowledge, whenever there is a disaster, American is always the first with not help but full and huge help. I know America done does not always everything right but in cases like that should be recognised. Yet those states who always point the finger at America and paint it the worst nation, I am sure, they hardly or never make an effort. Yet most of the disasters occur in those countries.

Sun Pen 50 profile image

Sun Pen 50 Level 1 Commenter 14 months ago

First of all Thanks for good research and bringing truth out.

But do you know that there are many different facets to truth. They need not agree. And... Truth can hurt too... especially to a nation that already has beaten very badly.

Telling and propagating one facet of truth for the sake of the truth (only of that facet) or for gaining a first may not be the need of the hour. let us help the victims... dead homeless, jobless and the whole Japanese nation. The best facet I see is Japan has been very badly hit and priorities are cleaning up, feeding providing shelters and other basic essentials. rebuilding, reconstruction of not only the infrastructure but the economy as a whole. The leaders of the nation have a responsibility of keeping the spirits of the people, keep their friends, and not to scare away the help.

Thanks for a great hub, voted up and awesome.

Sweetsusieg profile image

Sweetsusieg Level 5 Commenter 14 months ago

The differences are horrible. Yahoo posted an article that said the volcano was erupting. That picture was 2 years old and so was the story, yet the were running it like it was happening now.

One radio station said that there was never any damage on 3 mile Island nor was there anyone hurt in Chernobyl.

Why are they down playing it on one hand, yet misleading on the other? It is causing mass confusion, fright and in some cases panic. I try to see all the sides before making any decisions, but not everyone is like me.

sminut13 profile image

sminut13 Level 1 Commenter 14 months ago

i know, now the magnitude has been revised to 9.0 on the richter scale. thanks for sharing.

Patty Inglish, MS profile image

Patty Inglish, MS Hub Author 14 months ago

Did anyone see K-19 with Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford? Those Russian nuclear submarines were parked underwater arond St. Petersburg and the radioactive materials never detroyed. They have been leaking into the sea and ocean for 50 years.

Where is the radiation from Japan going to go?

Nuclear power is a orblem in itself. And now thjat scietists have nearly harnassed a bit of anti-matter for short periods of time - we'll soon be cancelling ourselves out (like Jeff Bridges and his computer counterpart dark side in TRON Legacy) unless we stop.

sincerely25 profile image

sincerely25 14 months ago

My prayers and thoughts go out to the ppl in Japan.

Jeremey profile image

Jeremey 14 months ago

As always your articles are a worthy source of good information. One of the better hubs regarding this unfortunate event I have read so far. My prayers go out to all those affected.

cangetthere profile image

cangetthere 14 months ago

Great hub well written and I have been finding the news reports on this shocking disaster confusing too.It is very hard to gage just how bad the Nuclear side of it is.Some experts seem freaked out while others play it down like it is all ok.Nobody seems to know what to expect.One thing for sure those people over there are going through hell and my heart goes out to them.

Purple Perl profile image

Purple Perl Level 2 Commenter 14 months ago

I love that block print too. Patty, thanks for giving an update that is so informative on the worst natural disaster in recent times. And thanks for the link-How To Help Pets In Japan. I was looking for info on Japanese pets in the wake of this disaster.

Eiddwen profile image

Eiddwen 14 months ago

Hi,

A brilliant hub on such a sad time for so many people.

I cannot begin to comprehend what they are going through.

Take care

Eiddwen.

Olojo Oluwasgun 14 months ago

Good job patty.

crystolite profile image

crystolite 14 months ago

Good article you have in here about the destruction that took place in Japan,i really felt for them and i always remember them in prayers.

theherbivorehippi profile image

theherbivorehippi Level 1 Commenter 14 months ago

Thank you for the information. ALSO...thank you for including a link on how to help pets in Japan. Unfortunately many people forget all the animals that are affected by disasters as well. From an animal lover....I appreciate that you included it.

ahostagesituation profile image

ahostagesituation Level 3 Commenter 14 months ago

Thanks for this one. I think the media's doing a pretty amateurish job of covering the news, but I'm not one to vest too much in what I hear in the media anyway. I'd be happier if I could get a hold of my friend there, but one of my friends here is a student from Japan, and says his family is okay. I talked to him last night, and he says that his family is roughly 7 hours by car from the epicenter and they are without running water, but are fine. We are told the joke of "earthquake-proof" buildings here in California. Japan as the most earthquake ready country should wake us all up in California. If I live through it I'm supposed to respond in two areas--my hospital and my congregation. Hmmm...wonder which one I'll pick. Thanks for the article!

Patty Inglish, MS profile image

Patty Inglish, MS Hub Author 14 months ago

Thanks for the new comments!

I read an interview with a woman in Japan that was 5 yrs old when Hiroshima bomb dropped and she was a fe wmiles away, but still irradiated. She had some problems physically from it. She said she does not want to sound cold, but feels the radition in northeast Japan is no comparison to the that of Hiroshima in WWII.

I hate what was/is happening then and now.

lobonorth profile image

lobonorth 14 months ago

I enjoyed the Hub and think you make some excellent points. I think that disasters, by their very nature, will always overwhelm us and find us scrambling to deal with them. The power of the tsunami was just as much a shock to the Japanese as it was to the rest of the world - perhaps all the more so since they've lived through it. Confusion, even over the facts, is one of the regrettable but inevitable outcomes of natural disasters. The greater the disaster, the greater the confusion - that's what helps make it a disaster.

Patty Inglish, MS profile image

Patty Inglish, MS Hub Author 14 months ago

I agree, lobonorth. I liked the organization at the shelters in Japan, though. I noticed that each person received a brand new, large duffel bag full of supplies and linens; along with a sturdy clot and fresh bedding. I think there were not enough of these shelters, though; also a confusion in a disaster.

Lita C. Malicdem profile image

Lita C. Malicdem Level 4 Commenter 14 months ago

The media people in my country, the Philippines, aren't exempt from your careful observation about most media misinformation in their news reporting. Although I have no known close relatives in that part of Japan, I was so sacred about the news over the tsunami alleged to reach as far as my country and now, the radiation. I live in a town almost surrounded by water. Thank you, Patty, for all the effort you make in posting this hub. Somehow, I'm being educated by this.

sligobay profile image

sligobay Level 6 Commenter 14 months ago

There is a terrible irony that the Japanese people were the only target of the use of nuclear power as a weapon and that they accepted nuclear power to fuel their successful economy which has now failed in the face of natural disasters. These people from this small nation now stand patiently waiting for a nuclear disaster to unfold. The Internet compensates for the misinformation of the news media.

Francisco Sloan 14 months ago

new video

HealthyHanna profile image

HealthyHanna Level 1 Commenter 13 months ago

You have done a good job of compiling the information. Thank You.

Ross Harrison profile image

Ross Harrison 13 months ago

Patty, great article!

The truth is often one of the first casualties of any disaster, and it has proved to be so again in this one. I too have been very disappointed with the (sometimes) blatant and outright sensationalist headlines and reports from the western media. This disaster is so big that it does not need any sensationalizing!

Just over a month on and the bodies are still being recovered, up to around 13 or 14,000 now, with the same number still missing. I guess we will never recover all of the bodies...

I hope you don't mind, but I have taken the liberty of linking to this article from a few of mine in which I discuss my own experiences of this earthquake.

Best wishes,

Looking forward to more of your writing.

Ross

philipandrews188 profile image

philipandrews188 10 months ago

Hi Patty!

LOve your article. As usual, it is well written and very very informative. It inspires me a lot. Thanks.

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