Strong in the Rain
Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A riveting account of Japan's triple disaster and an insightful look into what the responses of its people reveal about the national character
Blending history, science, and gripping storytelling, Strong in the Rain brings the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan in 2011 and its immediate aftermath to life through the eyes of the men and women who experienced it. Following the narratives of six individuals, the book traces the shape of a disaster and the heroics it prompted, including that of David Chumreonlert, a Texan with Thai roots, trapped in his school's gymnasium with hundreds of students and teachers as it begins to flood, and Taro Watanabe, who thought nothing of returning to the Fukushima plant to fight the nuclear disaster, despite the effects that he knew would stay with him for the rest of his life.
This is a beautifully written and moving account from Lucy Birmingham and David McNeill of how the Japanese experienced one of the worst earthquakes in history and endured its horrific consequences.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Birmingham, and McNeil, Japan correspondents for Time magazine and the Independent respectively, have chronicle the events of March 11, 2011, when the world turned in horror to the events unfolding in Japan. Much of their story is intrinsically gripping, and a rueful sense of retrospective inevitability hangs over the story of a country with "over 100 active and extinct volcanoes, and close to 1,500 earthquakes recorded every year." Stories of individuals stand out from the general chaos, such as that of Yoshio Ichida, a fisherman who, as Japanese fishermen do before tsunamis hit shore, bravely runs his boat into the open sea to save it, only to return home to find his harbor town of Soma destroyed. But major themes, such as the stoicism of the Japanese, who "function normally as the scenery collapses around them" are too rarely explored in depth. More perplexing, the authors choose to tell each survivor's story in part, then drop it for other topics (including a long-winded explanation of a Buddhist funeral rite) only to snatch them up again. Rather than build suspense about an individual's journey, this technique detracts from it. While an important contribution to remembering the tsunami and its aftermath, this book isn't the definitive tale.