“Europe has to wake up from its Sleeping Beauty slumber” about nuclear safety, Austria’s Environment Minister Nikolaus Berlakovich told reporters in Brussels. He suggested an EU-wide stress test for nuclear plants, much like European banks have been tested for their ability to cope with financial shocks.

Yet some experts and officials say those fears are overblown, given the exceptional nature of Japan’s earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The Japanese blasts may slow the push for more nuclear plants, but appear unlikely to stop it, given the world’s fast-growing energy needs.

The governments of Russia, China, Poland and even earthquake-prone Chile say they are sticking to their plans to build more reactors. Spain warned against hasty decisions.

Japan’s nuclear plant explosions come as the U.S. government looks to expand its nuclear energy industry by offering companies tens of billions in financial backing. Administration officials said the U.S. would seek lessons from the Japanese crisis but said the events in Japan would not diminish the United States commitment to nuclear power.

“It remains a part of the president’s overall energy plan,” white House spokesman Jay Carney said. “When we talk about reaching a clean energy standard, it is a vital part of that.”

Elsewhere, governments began questioning their vision of a nuclear-energized future amid rising threats of a meltdown at one Japanese reactor.

Switzerland ordered a freeze on new plants or replacements “until safety standards have been carefully reviewed and if necessary adapted,” Energy Minister Doris Leuthard said. The decision put on hold the construction of nuclear power stations at three sites approved by Swiss regulatory authorities.

Switzerland now has five nuclear power reactors that produce about 40 percent of the country’s energy needs. It also has nuclear research reactors.

In Germany, the government said it is suspending for three months a decision to extend the life of its nuclear power plants. That also means that two older nuclear power plants will be taken off the grid shortly — at least for now — pending a full safety investigation, Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters.

A previous government decided to shut all 17 German nuclear plants, but Merkel’s administration last year moved to extend their lives by an average 12 years.

“The pictures from Japan show us that nothing, even the worst, is unthinkable,” EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio.

The European Union called a meeting Tuesday of nuclear safety authorities to assess Europe’s preparedness in case of a nuclear emergency.

Individual EU members including Britain, Bulgaria and Finland also urged a nuclear safety review.

Meanwhile, opposition voices rose up in Turkey to renounce or scale back governments’ nuclear expansion plans. And anti-nuclear groups staged rallies around France, the world’s most nuclear-dependent country, as the government sought to reassure the public that the risks remain minimal.

Environmental group Earthlife Africa said it wants South Africa, the only African country with an existing nuclear plant, to follow Germany’s example. But South African government officials want to expand nuclear power.

German popular opinion continues to favor non-nuclear sources of energy. But elsewhere in Europe, people have become increasingly open to using nuclear power as memories fade of the accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine — the world’s worst nuclear accident, 25 years ago next month. Eastern Europe sees nuclear energy as a way of gaining a measure of independence from Russia’s burgeoning gas and oil empire.

Statistics from the International Atomic Energy Agency show there are 442 nuclear reactors in operation worldwide, with 65 new facilities under construction. Construction last year was started on 14 new reactors — in China, Russia, India, Japan and Brazil. In 2005, in comparison, ground was broken for only three reactors.

Boosters have argued that new-design reactors pose fewer safety risks, and that nuclear-produced electricity doesn’t emit the pollution that causes global warming.

Even as Japan’s damaged reactors were beginning to deteriorate Friday, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera told state television that “the new so-called smart technologies, are technologies that are absolutely earthquake-proof in terms of security. And that’s why we are studying this option, because Chile can’t categorically reject any alternative in energy generation.”

Pinera is planning to sign a nuclear energy accord with the U.S. during President Barack Obama’s visit to Santiago next week.

Experts said it was too early to evaluate all the consequences of the Japanese explosions.

“This is a massive earthquake, followed by a massive tsunami,” said Physics Prof. Paddy Regan of the University of Surrey at Guildford. “Imagine if this would have been next to a chemical plant or a gas plant that would have exploded. … There is a risk here but we have to keep the fears rational.”

——

Heilprin reported from Bern, Switzerland. Geir Moulson and Juergen Baetz in Berlin, George Jahn in Vienna, Raf Casert and Gabriele Steinhauser in Brussels and Federico Quilodran in Santiago, Chile, contributed to this report.

But what if the runway were to fracture or split apart?

I can’t imagine there are airports built directly over fault lines, but I suppose this is possible nonetheless. What would happen? Well, in a worst scenario: a 747 is accelerating through 150 knots when the runway heaves and cracks and suddenly there’s a 5-foot ledge of broken concrete dead ahead. The jet slams violently into the fissure, shearing off the gear and engines. It pancakes and spins, clipping the wingtips of several planes on a nearby taxiway and setting all of them on fire …

Statistically, though, about the only place you’re liable to see that happen is in a Hollywood movie.

Or not even: The 1974 disaster film “Earthquake” had its chance, but gave us a near-miss instead. In the scene — if I’m remembering it right — a Boeing 707 is about to touch down at LAX just as The Big One hits Los Angeles. The runway starts shaking and cracking and a huge fissure opens up. The crew spots it, though, and executes a safe go-around just in the nick of time.

They don’t make disaster movies like they used to.

What if a tsunami comes washing across the airport, smashing through the terminal and washing away planes. If you were in one of those planes, would you ride it out or try to escape?

Let’s not have this discussion anymore. [Note: Somebody really sent me that question]

Look, airports have been struck by quakes, if maybe not tsunamis, many times in the past, and I am unaware of any onboard casualties. When it comes to natural disasters, the more potent threats to flying are hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones and typhoons — phenomena that spawn violent winds, shears, extreme turbulence and the like.

And as we know, it’s not the moving of the ground that kills and injures people during a quake, but rather structures collapsing on top of them. Few places could be safer than an empty expanse of airport tarmac, and excepting those far-fetched scenarios above, you’d be better off inside a plane, certainly, than inside the terminal.

I was at the airport in Mexico City a month or so ago, at the new Terminal 2 — an airy, if cheerless structure of fragile-looking honeycombed concrete. This was Mexico City, after all, and presumably this building was designed with quakes very much in mind. Still, it just didn’t look safe.

I felt better once I was in the plane.

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Do you have questions for Salon’s aviation expert? Contact Patrick Smith through his website and look for answers in a future column.

“This disaster serves to highlight both the fragility of nuclear power plants and the potential consequences associated with a radiological release caused by earthquake related damage,” Markey wrote NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko in a March 11 letter.

Specifically, Markey raised questions about a reactor design the NRC is reviewing for new plants that has been criticized for seismic vulnerability. The NRC has yet to make a call on the AP1000 reactor, which is manufactured by Westinghouse. But according to Markey, a senior NRC engineer has said the reactor’s concrete shield building could shatter “like a glass cup” under heavy stress.

The New York Times reported last week that the NRC has reviewed the concerns raised by the engineer, John Ma, and concluded that the design is sufficient without the upgrades Ma recommended. Westinghouse maintains that the reactor is safe.

Boiling water reactors, like the ones hit by the Japanese earthquake, are built like nested matroyshka dolls.

The inner doll, which looks like a gigantic cocktail shaker and holds the radioactive uranium, is the heavy steel reactor vessel. It sits inside a concrete and steel dome called the containment. The reactor vessel is the primary defense against disaster — as long as the radiation stays inside everything is fine.

The worry is that a disaster could either damage the vessel itself or, more likely, damage equipment that used to control the uranium. If operators cannot circulate water through the vessel to cool the uranium it could overheat and burn into radioactive slag — a meltdown.

Reports say a partial meltdown is suspected in two of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan, which was hit by the 8.9 magnitude quake and ensuing tsunami.

Reactors have multiple layers of equipment to make sure this never happens. But last year, Markey asked Congress’s investigative agency, the Government Accountability Office, to look into a long list of nuclear safety issues, including earthquake and flood protection.

Markey cited the 2007 Chuetsu earthquake (6.6 magnitude) that hit the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant. The quake started a fire, spilled some low-level radioactive waste and damaged equipment that was not critical to the reactor. It led Japanese regulators to reassess earthquake danger near the plant, and Markey wanted GAO to see whether NRC had been on top of earthquake risk in the U.S.

He also listed a few cases in which other natural disasters had damaged nuclear plants, like a 1998 tornado that knocked out power to the Davis-Besse plant outside Toledo, Ohio, or Hurricane Andrew, which knocked out power to the Turkey Point plant south of Miami site for five days in 1992. In 2008, Hurricane Gustav damaged the River Bend Nuclear Generation Station in St. Francisville, La.

At both Davis-Besse and Turkey Point, the plants’ emergency diesel generators kept the equipment running until crews fixed the power lines.

News reports have said the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station went to backup diesel power after the quake but lost it, along with the ability to keep cooling water flowing.

Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Reuters that U.S. reactors don’t have adequate backup power. “We do not believe the safety standards for U.S. nuclear reactors are enough to protect the public today,” he told the news agency.

NRC spokesman David McIntyre said the agency was not granting interviews about the Japan quake. He pointed to the agency’s website, which does have a lot of information on the seismic issues.

For instance, NRC regulations require that every plant is built to survive an earthquake larger than the strongest ever recorded in the area. The agency says it periodically updates earthquake estimations as more detailed information becomes available.

Most recently, the NRC spent five years reassessing earthquake risk for nuclear plants in the Midwest and eastern United States. The results of the study, which were released last September, confirmed that the plants were built to withstand the heaviest quake likely for their area.

However, the NRC found that the risk of earthquake was greater than expected in some areas, so the agency plans further research.

In an NRC meeting on earthquake safety last September, Torrey Yee, an engineer for the San Onofre nuclear plant near San Diego, said designers evaluate two levels of earthquakes: the maximum possible quake for a site; and an “operating basis” quake, usually about half of the maximum strength.

The critical structures and equipment at the plant are built to withstand the maximum quake, and the plant has to shut down for inspection if it sustains a quake higher than the operating basis.

The 104 commercial reactors in the United States produce 20 percent of the nation’s power.

In Saito and nearby areas, there is no electricity, no running water. There are no generators humming. The night is pitch black. The buildings still standing are closed. No stores are open. Everything has stopped.

“There is nothing left,” villager Toshio Abe told The Associated Press on Monday as firefighters in bright orange and yellow emergency suits hacked through the vast wasteland with pickaxes, searching not for survivors but for the dead. Abe said at least 40 of Saito’s people were dead or unaccounted for.

Abe said he was gardening Friday afternoon when he felt the earth shake under his feet. Tsunami sirens blared and a loudspeaker announcement warned people to get to higher ground.

The 70-year-old frantically climbed a hill behind his home about two kilometers, or roughly a mile, from the beach. From his safe vantage point, he watched as, 20 or 30 minutes later, the giant wave arrived with a thunderous roar.

It crashed through what appeared to be a two-story-high sea gate, then careened through the valley, following a two-lane road. He saw it rise up, over and through a bridge and smash into scores of houses, ripping most apart instantly. Other houses, he said, were pulled from their foundations and slammed together.

Hills on both sides channeled the wave another kilometer or so inland, depositing the broken wooden innards of Saito’s homes along the road.

“I never thought a tsunami would come this far inland,” Abe said. “I thought we were safe.”

Abe pointed to a battered concrete foundation amid the flattened landscape. It was his own house. “I will rebuild it,” he said, “but not here.”

Today, everything in Saito is spoken about in the past tense.

“That was city hall,” said 48-year-old construction worker Takao Oyama, gesturing toward a two-story white building that stood alone near the beach, leaning at an angle into a sheet of mud and sand.

“That was our elementary school,” he said, pointing to a three-story building a few hundred yards away whose entire facade had been ripped off and was covered in black and yellow ocean buoys. Most everything else has disappeared.

“We struggled, but it is all gone,” Oyama said. “Everything is lost.”

Behind him, a tranquil tree-covered island could be seen just off the coast. That such violence could come from such a picturesque view seemed contradictory, hard to believe.

One crumpled sign indicated there had once been a train station here, a fact Abe confirmed. It was hard to tell where, though. There were no tracks, no trains, no station.

Crushed bulldozers had been turned upside down. The blue-tiled roof of one house lay across a bridge. The wheels of a vehicle stuck out from under the roof.

A few yards away, a bloated black-spotted white cow lay on the foundation of another vanished home, streams of dried blood running from its pink nose, its eyes looking out over the destruction. Embedded in the hardened silt nearby lay a blue baby stroller, covered in what looked like hay.

“We can never live here again,” Oyama said as he rested with his wife on a concrete ledge of the broken tarmac road. During an interview, the ledge trembled as another aftershock hit the region.

Asked how many people died, Oyama shrugged. “We’ve only seen a few bodies here,” he said. “I think everybody was swept out to sea.”

In the wider region of Minamisanrikucho, of which Saito is just one coastal village, Abe cited authorities as saying at least 4,500 of the 17,000 inhabitants were believed dead. Police estimated 10,000 dead among the 2.3 million people in the Miyagi prefecture, the Japanese equivalent of a state.

The firefighters who arrived Monday came from an inland town to pick through the rubble. Wearing goggles and dust masks, they carried long pickaxes, chainsaws and backpacks. They looked like spacemen walking across a gigantic lunar garbage dump.

As a Japanese self-defense force helicopter circled overhead, they lifted one hunched and frozen corpse from the mud of a dried canal filled with smashed cars and twisted mountains of corrugated iron sheeting. The tsunami had pulled the dead man’s dark blue plaid shirt over his head. His white knuckles were visible, his hand still clenched.

The firefighters covered him in a blue plastic tarp and carried him away on a stretcher. Later, they found another corpse in the rubble and carted that one away, too.

The road that winds through Saito is broken apart in several spots. At one point — where the tsunami wave stopped — it leads into a quiet neighborhood of another village where two-story houses stand perfectly intact, their windows not even shattered — as if nothing ever happened.

There, on the pavement, in front of a small government house-turned-shelter where survivors rested on tatami mats, somebody had scrawled huge white letters in the road for air crews to see: SOS.

Kudlow later apologized, saying he had “flubbed” his line. Oops. Maybe he would have been better served by a moment of a silence. As the death toll mounts in Japan and nuclear power plants teeter on the edge of meltdown, worrying about what’s going to happen to GDP growth rates — in Japan, the U.S. or globally — shouldn’t be a high priority.

But even with that mind, there are still some useful lessons to be taken from how Japan goes about recovering from this disaster. There’s a kind of consensus opinion on the part of the economists that natural disasters do not pose a significant long term threat to rich economies because governments ramp up spending quickly to repair the damage, creating an automatic stimulus. Japan will be rebuilding a lot of infrastructure. Stock prices of companies that make construction equipment are already rising.

It won’t be easy — the most recent estimation of the cost of “recovery and reconstruction” starts at around $180 billion dollars. That puts Japan in a tough position, because the government is carrying a ton of debt — in percentage terms, Japan is far worse off than the United States — which means finding the cash to pay for the rebuilding effort will require a scramble. Bond market watchers are already wondering if Japan — one of the biggest foreign purchasers of U.S. Treasuries, will curtail spending on bonds while diverting funds to reconstruction. If demand from Japan falls for Treasuries, could that be a catalyst for a broad-based flight from U.S. debt, with all the consequent economic and political fallout that rising borrowing costs will entail? That’s the kind of out-of-the-blue danger scenario that no one can predict when cataloguing downside threats to an economy.

But here’s the interesting thing. The government is reportedly considering a temporary tax increase to pay for recovery efforts. It’s a natural response — – when you have a great disaster, you need to fix the problem. The faster you do so, the better off everyone is — so-called V-shaped economic recoveries are common after destructive events like earthquakes. Absent the emergence of a Japanese Tea Party rebellion, the general public will probably go along with a tax increase. The horrific visuals on every TV screen require such a response.

When we can’t see the damage so easily, we handcuff ourselves. We know now that financial crises impose far deeper longterm economic consequences than natural disasters or oil shocks or even wars. Is the fact that there doesn’t appear to be a consensus that repairing the damage caused by a financial crisis should be accomplished as quickly and comprehensively as possible the reason why?. The great Wall Street crash of 2008 didn’t annihilate towns from the face of map or result in thousands of deaths, but it did put millions of people out of work — and they’re still out of work. We should be engaging with that disaster every bit as forthrightly as Japan will face its own crisis. Nobody sits around and waits for things to fix themselves after an earthquake.

Matthew Yglesias is on point:

The United States is producing a lot less than it could be producing primarily because a large number of people, the unemployed people, aren’t producing anything at all. And yet we have functioning office buildings they could sit in. We have factories running at below capacity they could work in. We have trucks and cranes and other machines they could operate. We haven’t been hit by an earthquake, our power plants aren’t exploding, our roads aren’t blocked by displaced automobiles, we’re just not putting everyone to work. That’s the very definition of a country with inadequate aggregate demand, and we should be fighting the situation with every tool at our disposal. Instead the debate in congress is about how much short-term spending to cut, and voices slamming the Fed for being too loose continue to be heard louder than those slamming it for being too tight.