Back-to-back special on Japan

MANILA, Philippines - It was on March 11 when a magnitude nine earthquake hit Japan and left 10,000 people dead and several thousands still missing. With an estimated monetary damage amounting to billions of dollars, it is now considered as the most costly natural disaster in recorded history.

Alarmed by the catastrophe, the people of Japan and its neighboring countries now face many questions about its aftereffects.This weekend, GMA News TV Channel 11 will try to give answers to these questions in a back-to-back special via its documentary programs Front Row and Reel Time.

Tonight at 10:10 in Front Row’s Inside Japan, GMA News reporter Chino Gaston will take the viewers to the quake and tsunami-stricken areas of Japan. GMA News Team was the first news team from the Philippines to visit the country, a day after the calamity occurred. For two weeks, Gaston and his cameraman Melchor Quintos went around the affected cities to uncover the tales behind the tragedy. They went to the city of Sendai, the evacuation centers in Fukushima and Tokyo, plus the other areas where some Filipinos reside to know more about their stories and current situation.

 Tomorrow night at 9:20 in Reel Time, viewers will have the chance to know more about nuclear radiation from the BBC Worldwide-produced documentary Horizon: Nuclear Nightmares. First seen on television in 2006, Horizon probes into the possible effects of radiation as observed from the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl Reactor Number 4 tragedy in Ukraine, tagged as “the ultimate nuclear nightmare.”

Experts first predicted thousands of deaths from cancer due to radiation exposure. However, when the UN Chernobyl Forum came out with a report, the death count only totaled to fifty-nine — fifty of which occurred due to acute radiation sickness and only nine directly caused by the accident.