Economic implications from natural disasters

In continuation with my earlier write-up, Fareed Zakaria over at CNN has written an interesting article about the recent earthquake in Japan and its impact on their economy.

Although he commends the Japanese along the following lines:

-- (their) precautions and preparedness.
-- (their) safety codes and drills.
-- (their) advanced safety measures at nuclear plants.

But it appears from his writing that the Japanese had not prepared themselves from an economic disaster despite knowing the fact that their country being on a fault line was prone to natural disasters. This disaster came in the form of a tidal wave of economic downturn last Friday with the numbers continuing to rise on the final invoice.

In endorsing Mr. Zakaria's essay, I am of the opinion that countries should work on having a back-up (in place of ridiculous structures & other absurdities) plan to deal with disasters of such magnitude whether they are man-made or natural to avoid being a burden on others.

I seriously believe there's a lesson to be learnt from the Japanese disaster, which if seriously considered and put to use would help us all in the long run.

Nuclear meltdown risk in UAE

I've been constantly following the nuclear plant explosion in Japan post yesterday's earthquake and it brings to mind stories my parents used to tell us about the Three Mile Island episode from back home. It appears no radiation leaked from that site but there were many cases of thyroid cancer amongst other serious ailments.

Considering the UAE is finalizing a deal to build nuclear reactors for peaceful purposes and especially since it is situated on a fault line, I get the jitters about all after affects post explosion, meltdown etc. in case the earth moves at the magnitude (8.9 on the Richter) similar to the current Japanese earthquake.

Will the authorities reevaluate their decision considering the Japanese predicament?