Today is one week and two days after the deadly earthquake and tsunami devastated northern Japan. The search for survivors has already turned into a search for bodies. What is happening are enormous personal tragedies. Everyone who survived has their own story to tell.

According to the reports from the local media, the Japanese from all parts of the country are looking for ways to help. Some are calling authorities, asking how they can provide help to those in need. Volunteers are prepared to travel to the affected areas to help the rescuers.

Recovery in affected ares

In Miyagi, Fukushima and Iwate, the most devastated prefectures, new roads are being built to provide better access to shelters and evacuation centers for easier transport of food and other necessities.

Despite the chaos caused by natural forces, the shelters look as if they were prepared for this catastrophe. Floors are clean, people take off their shoes before stepping on the futons and blankets. People seem calm even if they lost relatives or friends. Unlike during the hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans years ago, there is no fighting, killing,  shooting or looting.  The Japanese believe that together in cooperation, and most of all — without panic — they will be able to overcome this crisis. Much of the world could learn a lot from the way the Japanese are organizing themselves and dealing with a chain of terrible events that hit the nation in just one week’s time.

Nuclear apocalypse

Let’s put the recovery aside. Let’s not talk much about those who no longer have a home, people who are missing and those who lost their lives. They aren’t all that important. At least that’s the picture you get from most of the Western media that is now reporting from Japan. To some, the real drama is playing out in the nuclear power plant in Fukushima where right this moment, they’re trying in all possible ways to prevent the reactors from melting down. Because if that happens, there will be an apocalypse. A prologue to 2012. That’s what it seems like when you listen to the news from other countries, even when the actual scientific and rational explanations from Japanese and foreign experts point to a different scenario. Make no mistake — it’s clear that Fukushima presents an enormous danger to all life, people, animals and the environment in that area, and certainly grave danger to those who are willing to risk their lives to bring the reactors under control. But by far, it does not mean a catastrophe of such proportions that the media is projecting.

Just as an example of where this is going: a few days ago, the US Surgeon General during a visit to California suggested that it would be a good idea for people to buy iodine tablets to protect against radiation. A few hours later, some Canadian news site reported about water leak in one nuclear plant near Toronto. Nukepills.com quickly sold 250,000 iodine tablets. Anbex got three orders per minute instead of per week. That was in America, not Japan.

Global hysteria

The more we’re globally connected, the faster the news spread around. When overstressed Britney Spears cuts all her hair with scissors at 3 o’clock at night, half an hour later the Bushmen in Africa know all about it. Sensationalist news always spread panic. And panic is contagious. When something unexpected like this happens, humans tend to react in panic before they take the time to think. The media is making it worse. Scaremongering. Those who have the most influence in the world, know this very well.

Exodus from Tokyo. Japanese apocalypse. Nuclear snow. Radioactive cloud over Japan. These are scary titles that kept popping up in world news in the past few days. Sensationalism.

But even this sensation will be over and things will end like they always do in crises like this one. The media will quickly turn to the next big thing. Like a light switch.

And so yesterday morning, I turn on my laptop to check what’s in the news and I read the main headline that says the UN has approved military strikes on Libya. DrudgeReport, a specialist in catching the news among the first in the world, has already replaced Fukushima as the main sensation with Gaddafi and his gang who were forced to keep off the main stage for one week. CNN did the same on their website. The stories are coming and going like food in a rotating sushi bar.

So where is this exodus from Tokyo, a city of more than 30 million? A few thousand have already fled the country, mostly foreigners who were ready to pay hefty prices for immediate departure. On a BBC live blog, one customer reported that British Airways pumped up the cost of a ticket to more than $8000 (!) for a flight while Japanese ANA still charged the same low price.

What are we going to do when authorities in Germany announce that some traces of radioactive elements have been found on grapes in Bavarian vineyards but could have also landed elsewhere in the country? Mass exodus from Germany?

In Beijing and Shanghai, some supermarkets are already running out of salt. People are convinced it will protect them against radiation.

A game of hysteria where one loses, while another one wins.

Radioactivity

Has anybody talked about the fact that every time you’re on an airplane, you’re exposed to higher radiation? Everytime, you sit in front of a computer screen or TV? If the media is creating mass panic because of possible radiation, why isn’t it doing the same about all the genetically modified and pesticide-coated food on the shelves of your local supermarket? That’s just as dangerous. Few are talking about how many cancers and other damage this will bring.

In a strong contrast to Japanese media, the rational and positive news — not just during this crisis but other news as well — the majority of Western media quickly filters out and intensifies only the most negative. This flooding with negativity hurts your mental health.

One Japanese doctor in an interview said that people shouldn’t worry so much about possible radiation because in the end, they will get sick from the stress itself. During a meeting at the British embassy in Tokyo, UK Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington was one of the few from Western countries that presented a more rational prognosis of possible scenarios in Fukushima, even what would happen in the worst case.

The time is urgent for alternative sources of energy

Regardless of the outcome in the next few days, Fukushima will remain yet another radioactive area on this planet. All throughout this century and beyond. The more there are people in the world, the more energy we will consume. If I add Fukushima to Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and other nuclear disasters, it makes me think that nuclear power might not be so safe after all, not for people, not for the environment. I wonder, how many of us would place a nuclear stove in our kitchen even if the manufacturer claimed it was perfectly safe? And because some isolated forest somewhere on the coast is not our kitchen, we don’t care much about it.

In Japan, one of the most earthquake-prone and volcanic regions in the world — also called “The Ring of Fire” — there are more than 50 nuclear power plants. Japan’s Tepco, the owner of Fukushima Daiichi, has a long history of falsified safety reports. Lies that make them guilty of destroying one part of the planet that will never look the same again.

A critical mistake of the Japanese government is that it doesn’t educate people about potential dangers in the case of radiation. While the country is prepared for earthquakes probably more than anybody, nobody is prepared for a nuclear disaster because until now, the government claimed the existing plants can withstand effects of major earthquakes.

But the Japanese will overcome these enormous problems and learn something from them. The question is, will the rest of the world? Seeing as the governments around the world are planning to build a whole lot of new nuclear power plants in all corners of the planet under the pretense of lowering CO2, the situation is quite worrisome. All of us and our children deserve a much better world than the one we are living in.