One year after an earthquake and tsunami devastated much of Japan, graduate students and professors from both Cornell and the University of Tokyo gathered to discuss the aftermath of the disaster in a conference on Sunday and Monday.

Faced with an unprecedented number of requests for assistance, Cornell administrators and Employee Assembly members are working to bolster the depleted Emergency Cornellians Aiding and Responding to Employees Fund.

Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine accidentally released animal carcass waste into Ithaca’s sewage system on Friday. Workers attempting to transport the wastewater were forced to use their “emergency” disposal method of using the sewage system when a remotely controlled valve “didn’t function correctly,” said Simeon Moss, deputy University spokesperson.

They were bad years, horrible years, without-hope years, years that left us on our knees, scared shitless and longing for home.

A decade of smooth decline, dotted with spontaneous little destructions.

And now, as this decade mercifully draws to a close, we look upon ourselves and assess the damage.

Or at least Time Magazine does.

CHENGDU, China (AP) — A government warning of a major aftershock sent thousands of panicked survivors running into the darkened streets Monday night following an unprecedented display of mourning for more than 34,000 people killed in a powerful earthquake one week ago.

In shattered Sichuan province, quake-weary residents carried pillows, blankets and chairs from homes into the open or slept in cars after a statement from the National Seismology Bureau was read on television warning that there was a "rather great" chance of an aftershock measuring magnitude 6 to 7. Such jolts could cause major damage.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — The Red Cross estimated Wednesday that the cyclone death toll in Myanmar could be as high as 128,000 — a much higher figure than the government tally. The U.N. warned a second wave of deaths will follow unless the military regime lets in more aid quickly.

The grim forecast came as heavy rains drenched the devastated Irrawaddy River delta, disrupting aid operations already struggling to reach up to 2.5 million people in urgent need of food, water and shelter.

"Another couple of days exposed to those conditions can only lead to worsening health conditions and compound the stress people are living in," said Shantha Bloemen, a spokeswoman for UNICEF.

MIANYANG, China (AP) — Soldiers hiking over landslide-blocked roads reached the epicenter of China's devastating earthquake Tuesday, pulling bodies and a few survivors from collapsed buildings. The death toll of more than 12,000 was certain to rise as the buried were found.

Rescuers worked through a steady rain searching wrecked towns across hilly stretches of Sichuan province that were stricken by Monday's magnitude-7.9 quake, China's deadliest in three decades. Tens of thousands spent a second night outdoors, some sleeping under plastic sheeting, others bused to a stadium in the city of Mianyang, on the edge of the disaster area.