Ramapo College of New Jersey Student Newspaper

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RAMAPO NEWS

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Japan Devastated by 9.0 Quake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster

3.24.2011

A Publication by the Students for the Ramapo College Community

XLI No. 19

Prank Causes Students Distress

photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Over 125,000 buildings were decimated by the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week. Nearly 10,000 deaths have been reported as of March 23.

By MIKE JAGENDORF Staff Writer

On March 11, a triple catastrophe struck northern Japan as a magnitude 9.0 offshore earthquake rattled the island nation, and generated a tsunami that caused massive damage and destabilized nuclear power plants. The extremely destructive tsunami, which was up to 30 feet high, was responsible for most of the devastation in the coastal Tohoku region, in which over 125,000 buildings were damaged or completely destroyed. As of yesterday, the Japanese National Police Agency confirmed 9,523 deaths, and more than 16,000 people are still missing. Millions of survivors lack food, water, electricity, gas, and heat. It is the worst disaster in Japan since World War II. Four nuclear power plants along the coast of the hard-hit Fukushima prefecture were critically affected by the tsunami. Although they were built to withstand earthquakes, they were unprepared for the ocean surge that crashed over seawalls and destroyed the diesel-powered backup generators used to cool the reactors’ cores. Heat and pressure in the reactors grew out of control as the cool-

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ing water boiled away, and a series of fires, explosions, and partial nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant caused a dangerous yet still unknown level of radiation to be released into the water and atmosphere. The Japanese authorities established a 12mile evacuation zone around the power plants, but it is unclear if the evacuation zones were large enough, or how many people were able to get away in time. The region’s transportation infrastructure was destroyed – the airport in the city of Sendai was flooded for days, and highways and railroads cracked in the earthquake and were swamped by debris. “A small amount of radiation has leaked,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan said as he visited the affected areas. “We will brace ourselves to protect people’s health. It is our mission to protect people’s lives and fortunes, and I want to make all-out efforts.” “I hope from the bottom of my heart that the people will, hand in hand, treat each other with compassion and overcome these difficult times,” Emperor Akihito said in an

see JAPAN on page 6

EATHER FRI

Alert-Me-Now Reports Police Emergency

RAMAPO NEWS STAFF

At 12:09 a.m this morning students received an Alert-Me-Now message from Ramapo College stating that there was a police emergency and a reported shooting on campus. Rumors were being spread among students as early as 11:30 p.m. By 12:26 a.m., Public Safety notified students and informed them that there was, in fact, no emergency on campus and that a shooting had not taken place. Chief Vincent Markowski of Public Safety described the confused state of affairs early this morning. “The alert went out because there was a call from Mahwah police that there was a shooting on campus…we had no information, where, anywhere, anything else, nothing, not even that anybody was shot.” Markowski went on to explain that the information came from an outside source and could not be immediately confirmed. “The call wasn’t received directly by

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Mahwah, it was received by another police agency, and then it was forwarded to Mahwah.” After the other police department contacted the Mahwah Police, they then alerted Ramapo College. Ramapo waited for more information before sending out an alert. Markoswski stated that it was important to confirm information. “You can’t just throw information out there without information to support it, then you become a false reporting agency for somebody…you wouldn’t want to do something without some kind of information to back it up.” Markowski added: “We put our plan into place. The alert went out telling everybody just to stay in place, there was no info available.” The person responsible for making the call is currently in police custody.

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