And absolutely everything you need to know about it

The serene stretch on Japan's northeast coast, popularly known as back roads, was cool and cloudy on the afternoon of March 11. Until, of course, the ground began to shake ferociously even by Japan's standards and the world's first complex megadisaster kicked off.

Yes, we've all been reading about and watching Japan disaster scenario for over a month now. Newspapers and television channels have flooded our tubes, minds and psyches probably to the extent that some of us have started developing a blind spot. So what are we telling you that the world hasn't? Well, to put it simply, we present to you a comprehensive look at what happened and more importantly, what lies ahead.

THE WORLD'S FIRST COMPLEX MEGADISASTER
This is how it all started. An earthquake recorded as 9.0 on the Richter scale, struck off the coast of Japan, leading to a devastating tsunami. Almost simultaneously, the country faced a dreaded nuclear disaster. Three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station suffered partial meltdowns. Explosions and radioactive gas leakage followed. At the same time, spent fuel rods at another reactor overheated and caught fire, releasing radioactive material directly into the atmosphere.

You have no doubt been hearing about the Chernobyl nuclear explosion and its comparisons with Fukushima - how Japan raised its nuclear crisis to Level 7, the worst on the global scale. Well, the Chernobyl explosion took place in 1986 in Ukraine and is known to be the worst nuclear accident in history. We all know the 1984 Bhopal tragedy is the largest industrial catastrophe to date. Yes, the world has seen innumerable disasters, both natural and man-made. What we haven't had is all this happening simultaneously, says Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

At this point, it is important that we talk about the Ring of Fire. A vast arc describing the entire Pacific Ocean, the Ring covers the western coasts of the Americas and the eastern coast of Asia. Subduction, the process of one plate sliding under another is very cruel along the Ring of Fire. The major tectonic plate east of Japan, known as the Pacific Plate, moves three inches (or so) every year. As it dips under Honshu, Japan's main island, the upper plate is pulled down until, ultimately, there is a rupture. Yes, an earthquake.

The 9.0 quake was the strongest in Japanese history. And because of its positioning on the Ring of Fire, Japan has abundant familiarity with calamity. Did you know, in a given year, there can be hundreds of micro-events in this zone?
(More on the Ring of Fire in our centre spread)

THE AFTERMATHS
Purely geographically speaking, the earthquake has redistributed the planet's mass, making it spin faster and shortening a day on earth by 1.8 microseconds. According to estimates by seismologists, if we could harness the energy from this earthquake, it would power a city the size of Los Angeles for an entire year.

THE GREAT KANTO QUAKE
Until March 11, the country's most devastating earthquake was this 1923 event. It hit 7.9 on the Richter scale, lasted for five minutes, and flattened Tokyo and Yokohama, killing a hundred and forty thousand people. Because it hit the country's Kanto Plain, the quake is known as the Great Kanto quake. Since 1960, the date has been commemorated in Japan as Disaster Prevention Day.

THE HIBAKUSHA
Yes, we all know that the Fukushima crisis has been raised to Level 7. But initially, the Japanese government downplayed the possibility that the ailing plants could leak any significant radiation. It was Hibakusha survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who pleaded for more sense of crisis.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan then declared the crisis the worst since the end of the Second World War.

Emperor Akihito delivered his first televised address, an event so unusual that it was compared to the radio broadcast given by his father, Hirohito, announcing the country's surrender, on August 15, 1945.

The recent earthquake is believed to be the fifth-deadliest calamity in human knowledge.

THE ECONOMICS OF IT ALLEven if Japan's nuclear crisis is contained, its earthquake and tsunami now seem certain to be, economically speaking, among the worst natural disasters in history, with total losses potentially as high as two hundred billion dollars. The economic loss was estimated to amount to three percent of a full year's production by the world's third-largest economy.

It's interesting to know how Japan has been in a period of economic stagnation for 20 years. In fact, according to some economists, perhaps this catastrophe will get them out of it. How? Well, the political system in Japan, let's just say, has been very static. There's a common feeling in the world's economic circles that maybe this terrible disaster will finally force some political (and therefore, economic) changes.

Will you be CALM if YOUR HOME was hit by:

A 9.0 magnitude earthquake?

A tsunami?

Radiation from a nuclear power plant?

Your answer, most definitely, has to be a NO.

And that's because you are not Japanese. Can you believe they still form lines outside supermarkets?

David Leheny, a political scientist at Princeton who is working on a project in Tokyo, said, Earthquake consciousness is drilled into the young, what you need to do, what you need to have ready. There is an earthquake-oriented gallows humour of daily life. People talk about the areas that would be hit hardest. They live with it in the back of their minds. More than San Francisco, there is a sense of certainty about earthquakes here, the certainty that there will be a massive earthquake in Tokyo. And they live with that.

THE GLOBALISED NUCLEAR FEAR

The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station has rekindled the historical memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and issues surrounding nuclear plants and civilian nuclear energy are staring at governments and their leaders. Well, the world, its leaders, scientists and every other person who can spell nuclear has an opinion about it, but some potently explosive nuclear issues need to be addressed urgently. This, with the understanding that any short-term decisions, made in the wake of the Japan nuclear tragedy, are bound to have long-term consequences, for Japan and the world.

Germany has closed down seven nuclear plants for three months to examine their safety arrangements. France, the world's most nuclear-dependent nation, has ordered security checks in all its nuclear reactors and announced that the results will be made public. Russia, Spain and the European Union have announced that risk assessment of possible damage by earthquakes and high water levels would be made at all nuclear plants.

Will nations still bet on nuclear power in their quest for alternative energy sources amid rising crude oil and coal prices?

Or will the world shy away from civilian nuclear energy?

Will next generation nuclear reactors be more developed?

What is it that we need to know about spent fuel Vs reactors?

The Indian story
With an energy deficit of about 12 per cent, India is struggling to power its economic growth and nuclear energy has been touted as a way for the world's fourth biggest emitter to curb fossil fuel emissions.

In India we have ambitious plans for using nuclear energy to meet our growing energy needs,� the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had announced at last year�s Nuclear Security Summit, held at Washington DC.

The PM had also spoken about the developmental applications of nuclear science in areas such as medicine, agriculture, and food preservation, on the sidelines of addressing the core issue of ensuring nuclear security.

So where do we stand today?

THE JAITAPUR NUCLEAR POWER PROJECT
If built, it would be the world's largest nuclear power plant. However, opposition to the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project has been running deep in the Konkan region of western India.

People here have earned a living from fishing and farming for generations. And in the wake of the Japan nuclear crisis, even the Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has been forced to call for a 'pause', till a more transparent nuclear policy is formulated.

WHAT IS NUCLEAR POWER?
You are bound to know that electricity is generated when a turbine is turned using a source of energy. This source of energy is falling water in a hydro-electric plant and wind energy in a wind electric plant. Yes, you guessed it right. In a nuclear power plant, this energy is derived from a nuclear fission reaction. Hey, have you ever wondered how most of us keep hearing the word nuclear and form opinions without really understanding its basic fundamentals? Here is nuclear mumbo jumbo  demystified.

Funda 1: All the matter is made of building blocks called atoms. Atoms are made up of three basic particles: protons, neutrons and electrons. Each element is made up of specific number of these subatomic particles and that makes each element unique. The structure of an atom consists of a central nucleus which contains protons and neutrons with electrons moving around the nucleus in orbits much like planets around sun in our solar system.

Funda 2: Some elements occur with radioactive properties by the virtue of which these elements disintegrate over time. They do so by emitting protons and neutrons and in the process get converted to a different element. Many of these radioactive elements are fissile, which means that the nucleus of these elements can be split.

Funda 3: So here's what happens inside a nuclear reactor. A fissile material like Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239 is bombarded with neutrons to split their nucleus. On breaking, the nucleus of each atom releases some more neutrons which in turn split more nuclei and this leads to a chain reaction releasing a lot of energy. And this is the basic principle of a nuclear bomb.

Funda 4: To harness this nuclear energy for more useful purposes (like generating electricity), the neutrons need to be removed through controlling rods. A controlled reaction leads to the release of a manageable amount of energy then used to produce steam and eventually, generate electricity.

The big question: How is nuclear waste disposed?
One of the most important (yet most neglected) aspects of nuclear energy is the issue of nuclear waste disposal. Japanese authorities are being haunted by the issue of long-term disposal of highly radioactive fuel rods from nuclear reactors as they try to bring the situation under control.

Yes, we have been repeatedly told how used nuclear material generated after fission is highly radioactive and remains a potential threat for tens of thousands of years to come. But more importantly, figures provided by Tokyo Electric Power showed that most of the dangerous uranium at the power plant was actually in the spent fuel rods not the reactor cores themselves.

Here's how countries dispose nuclear waste
Some countries have tried to limit the number of spent fuel rods that accumulate at nuclear power plants.

Germany: Stores them in costly casks
China: Sends them to a desert storage compound in the western province of Gansu
Japan, US, India: Keep ever-larger numbers of spent fuel rods in temporary storage pools at the power plants, where they can be guarded with the same security provided for the plants.
(For more gyaan on this topic, go back to the letters page)

E=mc²
This equation is the secret behind the huge amount of energy released from even a tiny amount of a fissile material.
E = Energy released
M = Mass getting converted to energy
C = Speed of light which is 300,000,000 m/s