Another headline with 'tsunami' in it

   Well, I watch the news of a fearful Japan from afar thinking it's more than ironic that a nation deeply scarred by the only atomic bombardment in history is now facing another nuclear disaster.
  While the actions of WWII came in flashes, this one slowly creeps unseen into the soul of the island nation.
   This brings me to the crux of my thoughts on the unfolding catastrophe: How could a people so attuned to the horror of nuclear fallout allow even a chance of a homegrown disaster occurring?
   And it's not earthquakes I'm talking about: as a lad I lived for three years just outside Tokyo and quakes were a part of (nearly) everyday life — probably a half dozen times a year you could feel some trembling. It appears the Japanese scientists had thought of everything when it came to earthquake protection as their nuclear plants survived the nearly 9.0 Richter rocker on March 11. Good for them.
   What I cannot understand is how it is that you build a nuclear facility so close to the ocean as to make it susceptible to a tsunami — a tidal wave often associated with, you guessed it, earthquakes.
   Tsunami — it's a freaking Japanese word to begin with; how can you not factor in the threat of a TSUNAMI with a facility sitting not 4,000 feet from the coastline?
   It wasn't the earthquake that did the damage — operations automatically shut down immediately afterward. The tsunami, however, flooded the plant and knocked out the emergency generators needed to run pumps which cool and control the reactors.
   But it appears to be moot now.
   Now the Japanese are finding that it's not Godzilla or Mothra, but the Tokyo Electric Power Company and General Electric (wow, there's a shocker) that are the biggest threat to their safety.
   There should be an international law prohibiting nuclear reactors on the Pacific Rim because it appears even the best and brightest can't recognize the obvious.