The Earthquake in Japan Puts Our Problems in Perspective

I remember many years ago, on January 17, 1994, when the Northridge earthquake occurred in Los Angeles. At the time I was living in Irvine and worked in Beverly Hills, fifty miles closer to the quake epicenter. At first the most spectacular damage showed up in the news. Part of the Santa Monica Freeway, and several other regional freeways, collapsed, very near to my commute route.

However, aside from this and some collapsed buildings, the 6.7 magnitude quake appeared to have done relatively little damage. At my home in Irvine we felt it but had no damage. On my commute I saw no collapsed buildings so there was an eerie sense that yes there was an earthquake but unless you went close to the epicenter in the San Fernando Valley, it wasn't too evident and except for a day off work, didn't affect me much.

During the weeks after the quake, damage estimates rose. Thousands of buildings were declared unsafe, roads were cracked and water mains broke. It was a major disaster that caused 20 billion dollars damage, making it one of the most costly natural disasters in United States history. We heard about deaths, eventually estimated at 33 to 60 or so, and thousands of injuries that were not evident at first.

After several weeks, we realized that we had lived through one of the worst catastrophes to hit in the United States yet it didn't affect most of us in the Los Angeles basin that much, unless again you lived near the epicenter.

The disastrous earthquake in Japan puts all of this in perspective. Watching the videos of raging water, entire cities destroyed, over 1,000 people dead, tsunamis all along the coast, and incredible destruction of infrastructure, I can only imagine what the ultimate toll will be. This is only the beginning and already it is makes what we experienced here in Los Angeles 17 years ago rather minor.

Over the years we have hosted a number of Japanese students at UC Irvine and my wife checked in with some of them and to our relief they were okay. However, many people in Japan today are not okay and I suspect it will take many years of reconstruction before the country is back to normal.