A Red Cross rescue worker, in red, is scanned for signs of radiation upon returning from Fukushima to his hospital in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture, Thursday, March 17, 2011.
As rescue efforts from the intial destruction in Japan continue, an even clearer picture of what unfolded just over six days ago is now emerging. We take a look at Japan by the numbers.
54: The number of nuclear reactors in Japan. The country ranks third behind the United States and France in terms of electricity generation from nuclear power.
180,000: people evacuated from around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in Japan after the earthquake.
1,500: people scanned for radiation exposure (up to 160 may have been exposed).
1,887: confirmed deaths in Japan as a result of the earthquake and tsunami.
10,000: estimated number of deaths as a result of the earthquake and tsunami.
2,000: bodies that have washed up on two shorelines in Miyagi, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo.
430,000: people living in emergency shelter or with relatives, according to public broadcaster NHK.
1.9 million: Households without electricity in the wake of the disaster.
1.4 million: Households without water.
24,000: people stranded, according to public broadcaster NHK.
15 trillion: Yen injected into money markets by Japan’s central bank to lessen the damage of losses by the benchmark Nikkei stock average.
200: per cent of gross domestic product that accounts for Japan’s public debt, the biggest among industrialized nations.
60 billion: possible cost, in U.S. dollars, to the global insurance industry, according to Barrie Cornes, an insurance analyst at Panmure Gordon & Co. in London.
Comparison to other disasters:
Indonesia disaster 2004
230,000: people killed when a quake struck off the coast of Sumatra on Dec. 26, 2004, causing a massive tsunami.
184,000: bodies found.
Haiti 2010
230,000: Number of deaths in the earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010.
Katrina 2005
71 billion: cost in US dollars (adjusted for inflation) to the global insurance industry as a result of Katrina.
1,300: Number of bodies found six months after Hurricane Katrina.
Kobe earthquake 1995
3 billion: cost to insurers in U.S. dollars as a result of the 1995 Kobe earthquake (the actual economic impact is estimated to be closer to $100 billion U.S., according to experts).
6,400: Deaths in the disaster.
Chernobyl 1986
116,000: People evacuated from the area surrounding the Chernobyl reactor in the months following the meltdown.
50: Deaths directly attributed to the accident (estimates of the real number of deaths vary widely, from 4,000 to one million).
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