Japan Sinks Pt. 2
Today Part 2 of Sakyo Komatsu's '70's classic disaster novel Japan Sinks was released .
At the end of Pt. 1 , the Japanese race has been scattered across the world following the earthquakes and volcano actions that totally destroy the island.
Rding this bk in the early '80's made quite an impression ,
what starts out as a crack observed in a wall while leaning over a drinking fountain ends up with almost everyone airlifted , boated off of Japan in time before it all goes under.
In one sequence , the scientists and Gov. are assembled to watch the real time , full length visualization of the island as it is racked by quakes , various fault lines and mountains exploding showing red , red , red until the 'Dragon' is decimated , broken into pieces .
In the end , the last piece of Japan goes under and all the birds have no place to go ,
so there is a cloud of homeless birds above the last point that went under ...
Now in Pt.2 the Japanese are living in many different countries - though i can guess not too many got relocated to the closest countries - China or the Korea's .
Author Komatsu was so shocked by the Kobe quake that he was sic for years and enlisted the help of a younger author to help him get this new one down in print.
The Kobe quake was big , and my wife and I happened to go there within in some months of it.
The big highway was still turned over and cut off , and after lunch we sat in a small park as near to the district that burned down as we wanted to go.
All was peaceful and quiet , but as we sat we noticed movement around the perimeter of the green .
Unclaimed , unkempt and hungry cats all around, scratching a lonely living for the next while at least .
Imagine a whole major country going under in our lifetimes ,
not likely - but possible.
S Pacific islands being the most likely