With barely 10 years having passed since two aeroplanes full of passengers brought down New York’s tallest skyscrapers, reality is once again overtaking fiction. It is true that what is happening in Japan has, at first glance, a lesser global impact than the threat of international terrorism posed by the 9/11 attacks, but the sequence of events that have unfolded since the earth shook last Friday goes beyond anything our imagination could have foreseen.
A confluence of circumstances is causing the world’s third-largest power to collapse and be brought to its knees by the catastrophe. Not only did the earth shake with a magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale (and is still experiencing aftershocks that would devastate any other country), but the epicentre was underwater, just a few kilometres off the Japanese coast. Right in front of several nuclear power stations, which have lost their ability to cool the radioactive beast within them. 
Misfortunes are piling up in a sinister way, as the earthquake has caused the violent eruption from a nearby volcano. The tsunami has been far worse than the one caused by the Sumatra earthquake, and has swept away entire towns, reaching up to 20 kilometres inland. The dead and missing (most of whom are also presumed dead) now number in the tens of thousands, and the sea is constantly washing up bodies on the beaches – if one can even call the current coastline that. But the most harrowing thing of all is that the worst is yet to come.
Misfortunes are piling up in a sinister way, as the earthquake has caused the violent eruption from a nearby volcano. The tsunami has been far worse than the one caused by the Sumatra earthquake, and has swept away entire towns, reaching up to 20 kilometres inland. The dead and missing (most of whom are also presumed dead) now number in the tens of thousands, and the sea is constantly washing up bodies on the beaches – if one can even call the current coastline that. But the most harrowing thing of all is that the worst is yet to come.Unless a miracle contains the radiation from the affected reactors, the contamination will kill millions and millions of people in the coming years. This is because the death toll from the Chernobyl disaster was relatively low, given the sparse population in that area. But we are now talking about an imminent risk of uncontrolled radiation in one of the countries with the highest population density per square kilometre on the planet.
The Japanese stock market has plummeted, and Asian and European markets have been dragged down with it. However, this unfortunate disaster is local rather than global. And in economic terms, the impact on other markets should be limited, despite the initial panic and contagion.
Without the admirable discipline, spirituality, modernity and efficiency of Japanese society, chaos would already have taken hold of the country, greatly exacerbating the consequences of the disaster. We would like to express our solidarity with a country that we love particularly dearly for many reasons.
I’d like to recommend a few Twitter accounts to follow for up-to-the-minute news and updates on the disaster: @Kirai (run by our friend Héctor García); @Takeshi_Tngch; @V7VOA; @YonhapNews. We’re also providing a permanent link on our blog the NHK World channel’s live stream (in English) so you can follow what’s happening in Japan as it happens.