Tsunami alters maps of the heart as well

Randi Kreiss

The magnitude of the tsunami disaster in Japan trivializes anything on our news radar. The loss of so many fellow human beings in such a horrific, unpredictable tragedy simply blots out the sun.

As I consider topics for this week, nothing seems important enough or compelling enough to upstage Japan’s disasters, which are of unprecedented proportions. As I read through my newspapers this morning, headlines about the no-fly zone in Libya, the crackdown in Bahrain, and even stories about American drones killing more Pakistani civilians cannot hold my attention for long.

The stunning numbers of people swept into the sea overwhelm us. Who can grasp the idea of a wave that rises from nowhere and swallows whole villages? What we can understand is the story of one child wandering through the devastation looking for her mother or a man in the throes of grief, beating his head against a tree.

The television coverage, as always, is inadequate to the daunting task. News organizations have flown their prominent anchors to the scene to report “live.” The immensity of what they are observing invites cliché and repetition and endless visuals of the same waves swallowing the landscape. The only real value these reports have is the focus on the small stories of regular people struggling to survive.

We can identify with these dramas, and the stories make us reach into our pockets and give. Donations, really, are the only way to help the homeless.

As if a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami weren’t enough, the world shivers in fear along with the Japanese as their damaged nuclear reactors seem on the brink of melting down.

Several years ago I visited Nagasaki and the peace museum there, on the site of another nuclear disaster. Sixty years later, the images of the stricken children wandering the wasteland that was their home still haunt us. That nuclear legacy brings added terror to the people living through this nightmare.