Merged 8.8 quake in Sendai, Japan

[BenBurch]

Last night, NHK was reporting an official count of over 5,000 dead and about 9,500 missing.

Some missing are no doubt alive somewhere, and some people really missing likely have not been reported because all the people who would report them are also missing.

 

[angrysoba]

I heard an interesting comment about the Japanese nuclear workers today.

The older workers (59+) are volunteering for the hazardous duties as they have lived a full life and wish to spare the younger folk the result of extreme radiation exposure.

Is this a form of Bushido?

It could also be to do with the seniority system. The eldest are generally considered to be the best at their job and the younger ones learn from their elders. This is still quite widely regarded in Japan.

Then again maybe it has nothing to do with that and they came to the decision themselves.

 

[Rolfe]

The BBC were running a ticker earlier this afternoon saying 15,000 confirmed dead, which is sounding more realistic. The tsunami preparations and drills that were in place just don't seem to have been geared for something of this magnitude.

Rolfe.

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

The BBC were running a ticker earlier this afternoon saying 15,000 confirmed dead, which is sounding more realistic. The tsunami preparations and drills that were in place just don't seem to have been geared for something of this magnitude.

Rolfe.

One of the NHK TV channels was broadcasting lists of names that were also read out loud.

General comment:
NHK also listed a website address for Iwate Prefecture where people can find and/or ask for information about missing friends and relatives or those who have died in the Earthquake / Tsunami

To avoid overwhelming the servers, please don't click unless personally searching for such information:
English version:
http://iwate-ia.or.jp/?l=en

 

[quadraginta]

The BBC were running a ticker earlier this afternoon saying 15,000 confirmed dead, which is sounding more realistic. The tsunami preparations and drills that were in place just don't seem to have been geared for something of this magnitude.

Rolfe.

I'm not sure that they could have been. There's only so much which can be prepared for. If we could get rid of all the nuke hysteria on the news it would be interesting to find out the emerging details of the real damage which, as you keep trying to point out, is from the earthquake and tsunami.

I get the impression that the prep and drills likely saved a huge number of lives even in the face of the historically massive size of this disaster.

I wonder what would have happened if an earthquake and tsunami of the same size had hit eighty miles off the coast of California and a couple of hundred miles from Los Angeles? Somehow I expect that the outcome would not have been much better.

 

[Rolfe]

I get the impression that the prep and drills likely saved a huge number of lives even in the face of the historically massive size of this disaster.

I'm sure you're right. There are many stories of substantial numbers of people escaping, even though they're accompanied by reports of people who didn't make it.

The sad thing is, some designated tsunami shelters were much too low for the wave that happened. In Rikuzentakata, people were congregating in shelters that were themselves inundated. One local, who realised the danger and managed to get some people out to higher ground before the wave hit, said that people were being to obedient to the drills and not thinking it through.

I wonder what would have happened if an earthquake and tsunami of the same size had hit eighty miles off the coast of California and a couple of hundred miles from Los Angeles? Somehow I expect that the outcome would not have been much better.

Do Californians have designated tsunami shelters? Do they have alarms? Do they have emergency drills? If not, and the same thing happens, you can double the death toll, proportionately speaking, I would think.

Of course the geography of Japan didn't help, with these coves funnelling the water towards the towns. Nevertheless, if the US coasts are at risk, they should probably take this as an Awful Warning and think about disaster preparedness.

Rolfe.

 

[Corsair 115]

THE Japanese owner of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant falsified safety data and "dishonestly" tried to cover up problems there.

Tokyo Electric Power Co injected air into the containment vessel of Fukushima reactor No 1 to artificially “lower the leak rate”. When caught, the company expressed its “sincere apologies for conducting dishonest practices”.

The misconduct came to light in 2002 after whistleblowers working for General Electric, which designed the reactor, complained to the Japanese government. Another GE employee later confessed that he had falsified records of inspections of reactor No1 in 1989 - at the request of TEPCO officials. He also admitted to falsifying other inspection reports, also on request of the client. After that incident TEPCO was forced to shut down 17 reactors, albeit temporarily.

Well, that's obviously bad. But on the other hand, a company trying to cover up something that would reflect negatively on it seems to be standard operating procedure. Was BP, for example, forthcoming and honest about the scale of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Were tobacco companies honest about the dangers posed by their product?

CCommercial power is available a short distance away. It shouldn't take more than a day or two to connect the reactors to power. But construction only started yesterday.

Given that important infrastructure such as roads have been damaged by a major earthquake, simply assembling the necessary crews and equipment might have been a serious challenge, let alone getting all that to where it was needed.

 

[alfaniner]

Watching NHK live last night, it was chilling to have them show the outside cam and have an earthquake at that exact moment. "We are feeling it in the studio." Said very matter-of-factly.

US media people would have been playing it up for all it was worth.

 

[jayh]

Well, that's obviously bad. But on the other hand, a company trying to cover up something that would reflect negatively on it seems to be standard operating procedure. ....

It needs to be looked at in context as well. Trying to show a lower leak rate to look good on a report (if that's indeed what it was) has nothing to do with the current state of affairs. It could be like saying, after a bad traffic accident, "the vehicle wasn't maintained, there were several light bulbs out"

 

[MarkCorrigan]

It needs to be looked at in context as well. Trying to show a lower leak rate to look good on a report (if that's indeed what it was) has nothing to do with the current state of affairs. It could be like saying, after a bad traffic accident, "the vehicle wasn't maintained, there were several light bulbs out"

No! Stop being sensible, you're supposed to cry about Chernobyl and radiation and other things the general public is terrified about because they don't understand them.

Seriously, if the nuke story wasn't in the press so much I imagine we would get a lot more useful data on what's actually happening in the country.

 

[The_Fire]

My guess is that we wont have a complete deathtoll until Japans authorities have the time to do some kind of census where people are asked to report in. As is, that could take a while.

 

[Rolfe]

Seriously, could we ralk about the reactor issues in one of the two other threads? Or even both of them, if you like!

Rolef.

 

[quadraginta]

I'm sure you're right. There are many stories of substantial numbers of people escaping, even though they're accompanied by reports of people who didn't make it.

The sad thing is, some designated tsunami shelters were much too low for the wave that happened. In Rikuzentakata, people were congregating in shelters that were themselves inundated. One local, who realised the danger and managed to get some people out to higher ground before the wave hit, said that people were being to obedient to the drills and not thinking it through.




Do Californians have designated tsunami shelters? Do they have alarms? Do they have emergency drills? If not, and the same thing happens, you can double the death toll, proportionately speaking, I would think.

Of course the geography of Japan didn't help, with these coves funnelling the water towards the towns. Nevertheless, if the US coasts are at risk, they should probably take this as an Awful Warning and think about disaster preparedness.

Rolfe.

I don't think that the geography of California would be all that accommodating either.

It would be nice if this were to be a Lesson Learned, but I fear that the nuke paranoia will overshadow that.

And after all, as Frank Zappa (a famous Californian) reminded us ...

"It can't happen here."

​

(He meant it with one of these ... )
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One of the problematic issues of flooding anywhere is that historically the very geographical features which made an area attractive for human settlement are often the same ones which make it most vulnerable to flooding. This isn't just a coastal thing.

I grew up in the mountains, and have always watched the scenes of flatlanders living beside a river sandbagging against slowly rising floodwaters with a certain amount of bemusement. Where I grew up the water would come pouring out of the river gorges and smash through towns. Not tsunamis, but it isn't needful to live next to the coast to get clobbered by Mama Nature. While clean-up was starting in those spots the flatlanders downstream were starting to stack up the sandbags.

One often overlooked piece of disaster trivia is that most of the deaths resulting from hurricanes don't happen on the coast, and they don't result from the intensity of the storm. The majority usually happen inland, sometimes hundreds of miles inland, and largely from subsequent flooding.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

CCommercial power is available a short distance away. It shouldn't take more than a day or two to connect the reactors to power. But construction only started yesterday.

Given that important infrastructure such as roads have been damaged by a major earthquake, simply assembling the necessary crews and equipment might have been a serious challenge, let alone getting all that to where it was needed.

Not only that. As they get closer to the power plant they have to clear away all the debris left by the tsunami before the roads are uncovered enough to repair.

 

[dudalb]

Once the krauts shut down their reactors and buy their first gigawatt hour from france, Arevas billing office should have their accountants do a march through the Brandenburg Gate.

I wonder if the germans would get the hint?

I have metal images of people in France rubbing their hands in glee and talking about payback for 1870 and 1940.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I have metal images of people in France rubbing their hands in glee and talking about payback for 1870 and 1940.

Did you draw them yourself? How big are they? Framed?

 

[Polaris]

I saw a lot of farmers' fields rolled over by the tsunami, and big pools of standing salt-water in the before/after rollover shots. How badly is this going to affect agriculture there, if the decision to rebuild some of these cities and towns is made?

 

[quadraginta]

I saw a lot of farmers' fields rolled over by the tsunami, and big pools of standing salt-water in the before/after rollover shots. How badly is this going to affect agriculture there, if the decision to rebuild some of these cities and towns is made?

I had wondered the same thing myself. Not as much as I would have expected, apparently.

I did a bit of Googling around. This site offers one of the better summaries.

From a larger perspective the area of land actually inundated by the tsunami is a relatively small percentage of Japan's agricultural total, and most of that is planted in rice. It seems that rice is fairly tolerant of occasional salt water intrusion, and the planting season had not really gotten into full swing, so some of the affected area might still be able to produce even this season if the infrastructure damage permits, and long-term effects of salinity should be negligible. Other crop species in the earthquake area more vulnerable to the effects of salt intrusion were mostly at higher elevations and not as affected by the flooding.

There appears to be more concern for the effect on the aquaculture of shrimp and fish, which was also concentrated in low-lying and tsunami vulnerable areas, but cannot be restored as easily.

 

[jimbob]

I saw a lot of farmers' fields rolled over by the tsunami, and big pools of standing salt-water in the before/after rollover shots. How badly is this going to affect agriculture there, if the decision to rebuild some of these cities and towns is made?

I had wondered the same thing myself. Not as much as I would have expected, apparently.

I did a bit of Googling around. This site offers one of the better summaries.

From a larger perspective the area of land actually inundated by the tsunami is a relatively small percentage of Japan's agricultural total, and most of that is planted in rice. It seems that rice is fairly tolerant of occasional salt water intrusion, and the planting season had not really gotten into full swing, so some of the affected area might still be able to produce even this season if the infrastructure damage permits, and long-term effects of salinity should be negligible. Other crop species in the earthquake area more vulnerable to the effects of salt intrusion were mostly at higher elevations and not as affected by the flooding.

There appears to be more concern for the effect on the aquaculture of shrimp and fish, which was also concentrated in low-lying and tsunami vulnerable areas, but cannot be restored as easily.

Well a fair bit of agricultural land in the world is reclaimed from the sea, and is productive

 

[dudalb]

Watching NHK live last night, it was chilling to have them show the outside cam and have an earthquake at that exact moment. "We are feeling it in the studio." Said very matter-of-factly.

US media people would have been playing it up for all it was worth.

That happened two or three times in the aftermath of the 1989 SF Bay area Quake.

You have a major quake, you are going to have aftershocks. You get used to them.