JAPAN SEVERED BY TYPHOON TALAS

THOUSANDS STRANDED AFTER
47 DIE IN JAPAN TYPHOON

http://news.yahoo.com - Thousands of people remained stranded in western Japan on Tuesday as the death toll from a fierce typhoon rose to 47, heaping more misery on a nation recovering from the March earthquake and tsunami. Torrential rain brought by powerful Typhoon Talas, which made landfall Saturday and was the deadliest in seven years, caused rivers to swell and triggered floods and landslides that swept away buildings, homes and roads. More than 50 people were still missing, local authorities told AFP, while Japanese media reported another 100 or so could not be contacted in hard-hit Wakayama prefecture. New Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who was sworn in last week, plans to visit the affected areas on Friday to inspect the damage from the deadly typhoon, top government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said.  Noda will also visit Fukushima on Thursday, home to a nuclear plant crippled by the March 11 disaster at the centre of the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

As police, firefighters and Self-Defense Force troops continued their painstaking search for the missing, local authorities were planning to air-drop more food and water to those isolated by the disaster.  In severely affected Wakayama, about 4,500 people remained stranded in communities that could not be reached due to collapsed roads, according to a local official. In Totsukawa village in Nara prefecture, more than 400 people were stranded in evacuation shelters as access routes have mostly been cut off and phone lines were down in most parts of the village. Talas, which moved away from Japan on Sunday, has since been downgraded to a tropical storm but the remnants of its weather system, together with the impact of new Typhoon Noru, continued to dump heavy rains on northern Japan. “After carrying 1,000 litres of drinking water by helicopter yesterday, we are planning also to transport rice, instant noodles and drinks later today,” a local police official said.

Members of Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force, firefighters, soldiers and police officers search destroyed houses for missing people after a landslide triggered by Typhoon “Talas” that brought heavy rains at Tanabe, central Japan on Monday.  The storm dumped record amounts of rain Sunday in western and central Japan as it turned towns into lakes, washed away cars and triggered mudslides that obliterated houses.  The terrible force of nature is one of the clearest signs of this age of Kali, therefore we should reflect on the reasons behind such natural disasters.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Natural calamities are a display of an awesome power immensely and fearfully greater than the human. They jolt us out of our complacent routines and force us to think about the supernatural: Why do such natural disasters occur?  Does God exist? If He does, why does He not stop such calamities? ... All the great spiritual and religious traditions of the world warn us that we are answerable to God for all our actions. Known as the law of karma, this universal, infallible law of action-reaction gives all of us our due pleasures and pains as per our actions, right or wrong. ... We can protect ourselves from our past misdeeds by re-harmonizing ourselves with God. This can be very easily and effectively done by adopting the non-sectarian universal meditation on the Holy Names of God, especially the maha-mantra Hare Krishna.

Śrīpad Caitanya Caran das (BE E&TC) :
“When Nature Boomerangs”
The Spiritual Scientist - Vol. 3 - Issue 13
Bhaktivedanta Academy for Culture and Education (BACE), Pune
http://thespiritualscientist.com/
http://deepak.esmartguy.com/ss/when_nature_boomerangs.htm