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Another quake hits Japan; Update: More aftershocks

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By Michelle Malkin  •  March 15, 2011 09:44 AM

Awful: Fresh reports on Twitter this morning about a strong, 6.2-magnitude quake rocking Tokyo and surrounding cities.

Toll from the first quake stands at 3,373 dead, 6,746 missing.

Radiation levels are soaring after leakage from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

Here’s a round-up of links on how to help.

Thomas Lifson, founder of the American Thinker and an East Asian scholar, weighs in on the lack of looting and disorder in Japan:

Foreign observers are noting with curiosity and wonder that the Japanese people in disaster-plagued areas are not looting for desperately-needed supplies like bottled water. This behavior contrasts sharply with what has so often happened in the wake of catastrophes elsewhere, such as Haiti, New Orleans, Chile, and the UK, to name only a few. Most people chalk up the extraordinary good behavior to Japanese culture, noting the legendary politeness of Japanese people in everyday life.

Culture does play a role, but it is not an adequate explanation. After all, in the right circumstances, Japanese mass behavior can rank with the worst humanity has to offer, as in the Rape of Nanking. There are clearly other factors at work determining mass outbreaks of good and bad behavior among the Japanese, and for that matter, anyone else.

There are, in fact, lessons to be learned from the Japanese good behavior by their friends overseas, lessons which do not require wholesale adoption of Japanese culture, from eating sushi to sleeping on tatami mats. It is more a matter of social structure than culture keeping the Japanese victims of catastrophe acting in the civilized and enlightened manner they have displayed over the past few days.

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12:30pm Eastern: Yet more aftershocks being reported.

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