Life is a Beach.

Gottfried with the Aflac duck,
photo courtesy of Washington Post

And Gilbert Gottfried is not playing in the sand.

Over the past weekend Gottfried, the voice of the Aflac duck, made a crucial error in judgment. He posted to his Twitter account that "Japan is real advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them."

A seemingly innocent tweet joke. But unless someone has been living under a rock since Friday, this is not a laughing matter.

An 8.9 (or 9.0) magnitude earthquake struck Japan on Friday, the 5th largest recorded in the world, and a tsunami devastated the coastline, leaving thousands missing and thousands more homeless.

A "one-two punch," delivered by mother nature herself according to Today show reporter Kari Huus.

The area is now coping with no water, no electricity and no heat (as much of the area is barely above freezing). And for those who retained their electricity, 3 hour rolling blackouts have been instituted in the area to conserve power.

According to the Today show, almost one-fifth of the country's nuclear power plants have been wiped out by the one-two punch. Workers of at least three nuclear plants have been battling to take back control of the disastrous situation according to the New York Times. Problems with cooling spent uranium fuel rods could lead to core damage and a meltdown.

Radiation level checks after radiation leaks.
Photo courtesy of Shanepowers.com

Over 100,000 people are thought to be living inside the exposure area and are advised to stay sealed up inside their homes or to evacuate the area completely. This nuclear crisis can only be compared with Chernobyl now, an accident which occurred in 1986 in the Ukraine and is the worst nuclear disaster in history.

"It's way past Three Mile Island already," said Frank von Hippel to the New York Times, a physicist and professor at Princeton. Three Mile Island was a partial core meltdown that occurred near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1979.

Whether Gottfried's intentions were innocent or malicious, Aflac responded by firing him from their campaigns. Why the swift action by the insurance agency?

The Washington Post reports that 75% of Aflac's business comes from Japan. Or more simply, one in four Japanese homes buy health insurance from Aflac.

That's a large chunk of customers that Gottfried just ticked off.