Have you ever stopped to consider how many different ways an earthquake and its after-effects can cause problems? The recent, devastating earthquake in Japan was, first and foremost, a killer, with over 1000 people lost directly and indirectly due to the trembler. Add to that thousands of injuries, billions in lost property, and many lives disrupted, and you can see that this was literally an earth-shaking event. Even today, the full extent of damage to Japan’s nuclear reactor complex is not completely known.
While other types of damage are much less catastrophic, it is important to note the many ways an earthquake like the one in Japan can cause economic hardship and dislocation. Japan’s car industry was severely hurt by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, and a lot of work has been needed to try to restore normalcy. Semiconductor plants in Japan were also hard hit. One could go on and on naming industries that were negatively affected by the Japanese earthquake, but one worth mentioning is the import flower industry. In this case, operational difficulties related to Japanese imported flowers have affected flower producers throughout the world. One of the worst victims of this impact is Taiwan.
It is estimated that fully six percent of Taiwan’s yearly exports are related to locally-grown flowers that are shipped to Japan. This was reported by Focus Japan. The Taiwan Council of Agriculture (COA) officially announced that flower exports would decrease significantly following the March 11 earthquake. The list of affected flowers, as announced by the Director-General of the COA Agriculture and Food Agency, includes:
- chrysanthemums
- grandiflorum
- butterfly orchids
- flamingo flowers
The main culprit is the different types of difficulties related to flower storage in Japan, which needs electricity for refrigeration. In the tragic aftermath of the earthquake, many people decided to order flowers such as funeral wreaths and sympathy plants, but Taiwan will not see these kinds of orders in sufficient number to compensate for the overall decline in demand.
It is worth recalling that Japan underwent the worst earthquake disaster in the recent past. The size of the earthquake was a 9.0 magnitude event, centered off the Northeastern coast of Japan. Seismologists had predicted for some time a large earthquake in Japan, which lies on a set of fault lines. But few anticipated a disaster of the size experienced, including the secondary effect of the tsunami that struck Japan following the earthquake.