AUSTRALIA PERSPECTIVE

Canberra watches Japan's earthquake with the anxiety of a Pacific neighbor. The Sydney Morning Herald opens with a detail absent from European coverage: the local Australian time (5:53pm AEST), a sign that Australian readers immediately calculate whether the tsunami concerns them. Australia, sharing the same Pacific Ocean, experiences Japanese earthquakes as early warning signals for its own east coast.

The SMH provides the most precise megaquake probability figure in the entire pool: 'Normally, the probability of an earthquake of magnitude 8 or stronger striking along the Japan Trench and Kuril Trench is about 0.1 per cent, but during the week that follows Monday's quake, it will be higher at around 1 per cent.' This word-for-word Japanese official quote reveals the Australian style: pragmatic, data-driven, no superfluous commentary.

The paper also picks up a quote no one else runs: 'Please take anti-disaster steps, while embracing the idea that one must protect one's own life.' It's the Japanese philosophy of individual resilience condensed into a single sentence -- and the SMH judged it important enough to publish.