Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
I think Anrish M. Kapoor is being a little unfair to The Japan Times and Japan in his January 29th letter “Don’t short-shrift the ‘Big One.’” His comments are out of sync with the January 27, 2012 story “Delhi ignores own quake peril warning.” Mr. Kapoor wrote “If Indian scientists predicted that a major earthquake would strike the nation’s capital the story would be very detailed indeed. If not, the general public might panic and chaos would rule.” That is precisely what Indian scientists have done, only to be ignored by government, builders and the public which, admittedly, may have many more pressing problems to deal with in the world’s largest democracy. As for panic and chaos, panic seems to be the normal Indian reaction to major tremblors, like what was reported in Delhi in early- and mid-September 2011, and chaos is the stuff of daily life. At least, that’s how it looked to me when I was there.
Maybe Mr. Kapoor is right, that earthquake reports are very detailed there. It’s just that they are ignored. They may be ignored here as well, but not to the same degree. So, which of the two countries has the greater earthquake problem? I feel safer and more comfortable in Tokyo than I felt visiting Delhi.