The Big One

The Big One
Hit Japan
One year ago
Today.


It is
The historic 9.0 magnitude
2011 Great Tohoku earthquake
Killing at least 15 854 people
Injuring 9 677 survivors
With another 3 274 victims
Reported missing
And sending more than 320 000 residents
Fleeing from the northeast coast
On Honshu island.


It shifted
Honshu 2.4m east
Tilting the earth between 10 cm and 25 cm
Wobbling it
On its axis
And shortening the earth's rotation
By 1.8 microseconds.


The World Bank has estimated
Extensive damage at US$235 billion -
The most costly natural disaster in world history.


It caused unprecedented black out
Cutting electricity to 4.4 million households
Disrupting rail and road transport
And industrial supply chain and economic activities
As far as Tokyo - 373km away


The towering tsunamis
As high as 37.9m
At Taro in Iwate
and 38.9m
At Aneyoshi fishery port
At Miyako in Iwate
Unleashed by the mega quake force
of 9 320 gigatons of TNT
Or about 600 million times
The energy of Hiroshima atom bomb
Surged as far as 10km inland
Knocking out 
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.


The huge waves
Swept off
Most lighter matter
Around the path
From the quake seabed epicenter
About 130km from Sendai.


Fukushima Daiichi's nuclear reactors 1 2 3 spent fuel pools
Overheated when the cooling system
Shut down 
In flooded diesel generators.


The nuclear fuel rods
Melted in hydrogen explosions
Resulting in Japan's modern day
Nuclear crisis
On maximum Level 7
Emergency alert
As serious as Chernobyl.


Japan's then Prime Minister
Naoto Kan
Rapped Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO)
The plant owner
For hiding the truth
As radiation released
Mounted higher and higher
To at least 770 000 Terabecquerels (TBq)
In Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA)
Estimates with 15 000 TBq radioactive caesium leaked
Equal to 168 Hiroshima atom bombs.


France's nuclear safety institute
Estimates 27 000 TBq caesium 137 discharge
Into the Sea of Japan -
The biggest radioactive contamination
Of the ocean in history.


Today
All but two
Of Japan's 54 nuclear reactors
Are shut down
As Japan fears
The Next Big One
May hit Tokyo
Any time.


The March 11 (3/11) 9.0 Mega Quake and Tsunamis
Have roared
Off the boast -
The Lie -
That nuclear power
Is safe for you and I.


Before more people cry and die
Better to prevent more Fukushima and Cernobyl
Like Germany's Wise
Decision to phase out
Nuclear power program.


Fukushima and Chernobyl
Serve as vital warning signs
Of devastation
That can visit human civilization


So wiser
For all 
To act now
To prevent
Mass griefs
Global woes
That can flow
Greater than tsunamis!