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Japan is on its knees: an earthquake and a tsunami spread death and destruction

Friday, March 11, 2011. A date that the Japanese will not forget so easily. After sixteen years, the whole world is forced to see the Japan large and small nation a world power with the U.S. and now to China again in the knee was in 1995 when the infamous Kobe earthquake , shook the rising sun, leaving behind a trail of more than 5,000 dead. In these days seem to see the same images of sixteen years ago, aggravated by the tsunami that struck first Sendai, whose killer tidal wave wiped entire towns in its path. Friday at 14.46 (local time Japanese, 6.46 in Italy) a devastating earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale , second only to the energy released by the earthquake in the 'island of Sumatra, Indonesia in 2004 and 30,000 of times more violent earthquake that hit L 'Aquila April 6, 2009, has frightened and shocked the Japanese people, despite being always accustomed to the continuous tremors of their land. This terrible earthquake hit the northeastern part of the 'island Honshu, the largest in Japan, 380 km from Tokyo . few minutes later, a tsunami with waves up to ten meters made landfall on the coast overlooking the Pacific spreading death and destruction in Sendai, carrying away houses, cars and people. Even some convoys of trains have been washed away, then found and 400 were found dead on the beach, where the 'wave withdrew. In short, a huge disaster, caused mainly by the waters of 'Pacific Ocean that have swallowed entire towns. Now the aftershocks are continuing, and beyond that, there 's also the danger of radiation: during the earthquake, the cooling system of the plant nuclear power plant in Fukushima was blocked for security, and this morning there was a' explosion that would cause the collapse of part of the cage to contain the reactor, thus increasing the level of radioactivity, which for the moment seems to come back under control, although as a precaution residents in the area within a radius of 10 km have been evacuated . So far the death toll from the earthquake and resulting tsunami has risen to 1,000 dead and is intended to be updated continuously. In the coming days, I will update this blog with new data on the situation as accurately as possible.