We are sitting safe in Tokyo but feeling extremely strange as we see hour after hour of devastating footage on TV. The disaster area is only about 300 km (less than 200 miles) away yet it feels to us as if we are disassociated voyeurs. Images remind me of Cormack McCarthy’s book “The Road” http://amzn.to/gfS7yf

Daily multiple aftershocks of varying magnitudes are now a way of life. A quake of magnitude 3 that a week ago would have been news we now shrug off a just another small quiver. What is bothersome to me is the multiple shakes that are not technically aftershocks. The epicenters are reported from varying locations all over Japan. Just this morning we were shaken out of bed by a relatively mild M3 that was reported centered under Tokyo Bay – a highly unusual location. Although it may not be totally scientific, some of us can’t help but wonder if the whole Pacific basin “ring of fire” – or even a greater range of tectonic plates – has been unbalanced. After all, the main island of Japan itself is supposedly 2.4 meters East of where they were last Friday morning. http://bit.ly/fnEJCw

Not to mention the potential nuclear contamination issue and related power outages. The wildly varying analyses – not of what is happening in the reactors, but what the consequences are/could be/will be – is not at all comforting. Just because the Fukushima Daiichi plants are of the BWR type and therefore impossible (there’s that word again) to turn into a Chernobyl type of incident does not bring a feeling of comfort. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, the Japanese nuclear power regulator IAEA, and Tepco seem to be doing as good a job as anyone could expect under the almost impossible circumstances, yet their communication or lack of openness leaves much to be desired and does not increase confidence. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12733393

Other than that everything is fine here in Tokyo.