Originally Posted By: Pete

The Japanese Government doesn't seem to understand that they have fallen "behind the credibility gap" with their news releases.

You need to keep in mind that the scale of the overall disaster is huge and unprecedented in recent years. Misinformation due to lack of details, comms, etc are to be expected. Also the news media itself is one of the biggest culprits of misinformation due to their rush to be first. Look at any other recent event for proof: Christchurch, Australia floods/fires, Haiti, recent shootings in Arizona et al. Even today while browsing the major websites, there is a lot of contradiction in reports.

Originally Posted By: Pete

Maybe part of what we are seeing here is that the Japanese people have a tradition of putting a lot of faith in their government to do the right thing. However, to me personally this incident has demonstrated that the government there is well behind the power curve - in terms of staying on top of the situation. OK, this was the biggest quake that Japan has ever experienced - so we should cut them some slack. But maybe the Japanese people also need to wake up and learn to be a bit more proactive about their own personal safety.

Very easy to Saturday morning quarterback isn't it? I would rather put my faith in the Japan .gov in this type of situation then my own .gov (no I don't live in the USA). The overwhelming worldwide consensus is the Japanese .gov and citizens are the best prepared for an EQ. This new EQ is the 5th biggest on record, so yeah, cut them some slack.

Originally Posted By: Pete


There's a really good argument that we need some sort of "Wikileaks Emergency" site on the Web that allows private citizens (who are located inside disaster zones) to rapidly publish information on what's actually happening in real-time.

There is no Wikileaks type of conspiracy...period.

This earthquake is unprecedented in private citizen reporting. and plenty of info on the net. Remember that the Japanese people are one of the most technologically connected people in the world and there is plenty of info out there at websites such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter to name a few.
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Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

John Lubbock