Japan :(

The futility of life and economic progress again came to the fore when Northern Japan was devastated by an earthquake of the ginormous magnitude of 8.9 on the Richter scale, and the subsequent tsunami that battered the coast, destroyed many thousand homes and buildings and took thousands of lives. The toll could have been much higher had this been any other country except Japan, but since Japan is no stranger to nature's fury, sitting bang on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the nation has honed its disaster management systems to near perfection. Of course, human preparedness can be no match to nature's fury as again seen in Japan.

In what could be an even bigger disaster, the nation's nuclear power plants are on high alert, and despite having the best containment systems, any fallout from any one of them (there are more than a dozen) would be devastating. There are still thousands missing, and the toll will probably continue to be revised upwards for the next few days.

Vehicles are left on a flooded street in Watari, Miyagi, northern Japan on Monday, March 14, 2011 following Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami.

AP.

A ship is washed aground in Kamaishi City, Iwate, by the tsunami which followed the Japanese earthquake [Picture: Reuters]