While world attention is focused on the urgent, unmitigated threat of uncontrolled radiation poisoning the land and sky and leeching into the sea, one has to wonder at this catastrophe three-times-over and not forget restoring basic needs to all the displaced people, rebuilding, finding the solace to begin again and honour what’s been lost through gainful, meaningful labour, is just as vital as controlling the atomic monster that’s impeding progress on those efforts. Just because international support and expertise are rallying on one front and the Japanese have been forthcoming about accepting that help, one should not assume that assistance is unneeded or unwanted elsewhere.
Those scares that bleed across borders should not overshadow the coping for destruction that was sufficient by itself. Nonetheless, the international community has come forward: a scattered fleet of enormous pumping engines, to deliver water to the reactor or, if the situation degrades, concrete to bury it, from Germany are being brought to the scene by Russian cargo planes to Japan to quell an American-designed nuclear power plant. One hopes that there could be the same concerted level of cooperation for any humanitarian crisis, recognition that we are all in this together, regardless of the potential for seepage.
