Signs of PTSD in Post-Earthquake Japan

A Japanese mayor was torn. What choice to make moments before the tsunami hit last month?When the wall of water was bearing down on his town, Toba faced an agonizing choice:

Leave his post at city hall and race home to save his wife and children or stay to do what he could for the city.

He stayed.

Luckily, his two boys were in school and were able to get away to safety. But Toba's wife disappeared in the waves of water that devastated the town.

CNN reported that PTSD affects many Japanese. Its story includes a video.

Japanese Fishermen's Arduous Recovery

The CSM headline for its story is apt.

Nuclear power poses complex problems. Many assert that nuclear power is free of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, how does nuclear reach that green state?

Critics, however, say that painting nuclear power as free of greenhouse gas emissions is misleading, because it considers only plant operation. If the entire fuel cycle, from mining through processing, is considered, nuclear energy's carbon footprint increases significantly.

That is one question among many. A 22 March 2011 article in the Catholic Sun raised more.

Family Lens

With one Japanese family as a lens on the Fukushima area much in the news, today's Christian Science Monitor article offers a story of human interest in addition to news about the area.

Earlier news indicated one reactor may have a breach in its core. Kyodo news reported that Japan's Prime Minister had said that the nuclear situation "still does not warrant optimism."

The patience the Japanese vow continues to be tested.

On Japanese Jesuit Houses and Schools

Jesuit "houses and schools experienced violent shaking but no irreparable damage."

Read brief statement from the Jesuit Provincial of Japan to the Chicago-Detroit Province.

Japanese Destruction in Pics

This photo gallery was released today.
This hour it led with this pic.