Merged 8.8 quake in Sendai, Japan

[alfaniner]

One of those odd questions that pops into my head after seeing videos like that--
How did they ever find their own car in a large parking lot?

Seriously though, I'm really concerned about another strong aftershock having a bad effect on the power plants.

 

[a_unique_person]

Massive disruption to car production.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/j...ut-down-production-plants-20110313-1bsxm.html

JAPAN'S car industry has announced a major shutdown as fears grow over the economic impact of Friday's earthquake and tsunami.
The three largest motor manufacturers - Toyota, Honda and Nissan - said they would stop production at almost all of their domestic assembly plants. Electronics powerhouse Sony also said that it would be shutting down production.
Between them, the three car companies closed 22 assembly plants, while Sony halted production at six of its domestic plants.
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Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered, warned of possible temporary price stagflation and a downward move for the country's economy.
''The timing of the disaster could not have been much worse,'' admitted analysts at Capital Economics, pointing to Japan's economic contraction in the last three months of 2010.
The disaster forced the Bank of Japan to issue a statement, as it plans an emergency ''quake budget''.

The BoJ is going to be forced to inject massive amounts of cash into an economy which is stalled, in a country that already has a massive current account deficit.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I wonder how the insurance industry handles tsunamis?

 

[a_unique_person]

I wonder how the insurance industry handles tsunamis?

You don't insure against them, or you get someone else to do it for you, that is, re-insurance. Usually such massive 'acts of god' are avoided like the plague.

​

Reinsurance companies, which provide significant catastrophe cover to primary insurers in Japan, saw their share prices dip on Friday as investors in Europe reacted nervously to the uncertainty.
Swiss Re and Munich Re, two of the world’s largest reinsurers, both fell about 4 per cent, while Scor, the French reinsurer, lost about 5 per cent. In London, Catlin and Amlin, two of the biggest companies in the Lloyd’s of London market, also lost about 5 per cent, although Hiscox, another big name, moved down just 2 per cent.
Reinsurers are still assessing their losses from the quake in Christchurch, New Zealand, just over a fortnight ago but some market experts were predicting that estimated losses there of up to $12bn would be enough to stem a decline in catastrophe risk premium rates, at least outside the US.
The Japan quake will almost certainly solidify this trend and it comes at a critical time for the industry. The majority of Japanese reinsurance contracts are renewed on April 1.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/85fb803c-4bda-11e0-9705-00144feab49a.html#axzz1GW8c8Vvr

12 billion seems way too low, I'm guessing they aren't exposed much, either.
also

​

One reason insured losses can be relatively low is that most consumers do not take up quake insurance on their home policies, while there are also large public reinsurance programmes in place in Japan.

I'm guessing the reason they don't take up quake insurance is that if you tick that box, the price possibly triples, and the government has socialised the quake the insurance problem, effectively self insuring.

 

[Puppycow]

Rolling Blackouts

Rolling Blackouts start today because there is not enough electrical generation capacity.

For some incomprehensible reason, Eastern Japan and Western Japan have incompatible electrical systems (50 MHz in the East, 60 in the West) which from what I can gather prevents them from buying electricity from utilities in Western Japan.

Some trains are stopped. I can't get to my office today. What's going to happen to the Economy?

 

[Belz...]

Does anyone have an idea how much time it will take for things to return to "normal" ? I mean, aside from the loss of life and material, the cleaning up, the rebuilding, there's the matter of repairing infrastructure, power outages, economic repercussions, etc.

Are we talking about years, here ?

 

[MG1962]

Does anyone have an idea how much time it will take for things to return to "normal" ? I mean, aside from the loss of life and material, the cleaning up, the rebuilding, there's the matter of repairing infrastructure, power outages, economic repercussions, etc.

Are we talking about years, here ?

Given some of those towns it might be faster to just walk away and build a whole new town

 

[Rat]

For some incomprehensible reason, Eastern Japan and Western Japan have incompatible electrical systems (50 MHz in the East, 60 in the West)...

50 MHz? Is this correct?

 

[Puppycow]

Does anyone have an idea how much time it will take for things to return to "normal" ? I mean, aside from the loss of life and material, the cleaning up, the rebuilding, there's the matter of repairing infrastructure, power outages, economic repercussions, etc.

Are we talking about years, here ?

The rolling blackouts might continue through April. That's one guess I heard. Hard to predict.

 

[Dan O.]

It's 50/60 Hz http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/national_energy_grid/japan/index.shtml

 

[Puppycow]

50 MHz? Is this correct?

That's my understanding. I know that's a frequency but I'm just a layperson on these matters.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I wonder how the insurance industry handles tsunamis?

I imagine the insurance industry in Japan might be completely different than in the US, I'll let someone else answer that. But in the US, you have to have flood coverage and a policy that doesn't exclude certain natural disasters.

 

[Puppycow]

It's 50/60 Hz http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/national_energy_grid/japan/index.shtml

Thanks. They have a map:
http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/li...d/japan/japanesenationalelectricitygrid.shtml

 

[Myriad]

50 MHz? Is this correct?

I'm pretty certain Puppycow meant Hz, and that the electric power lines in Japan use wire rather than radio waveguides.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Puppycow]

Oops. It's Hz, not MHz. Sorry.

 

[Rat]

Yes, I wasn't being facetious in asking. While I was 99% sure it was a typo, I'm embarrassingly ignorant of electricity, so thought I'd better check.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Fox News has coverage of the gentleman found floating 9 miles out at sea on the remains of his roof. I do hope the rescue operations include searching the sea.

 

[Puppycow]

Apparently there are 2 Frequency Conversion Facilities, but it's a bottleneck.

 

[Kestrel]

The rolling blackouts might continue through April. That's one guess I heard. Hard to predict.

The earthquake, tsunami and fires probably knocked out a lot of transmission lines. But it shouldn't take long to rebuild the links to major generating stations. The nuclear plants that were scrammed and didn't have cooling problems will have to be checked out before restarting. Someone else may have a better estimate, but I would guess that they start coming back online in two or three weeks.

 

[Puppycow]

Fox News has coverage of the gentleman found floating 9 miles out at sea on the remains of his roof. I do hope the rescue operations include searching the sea.

Amazing.