Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
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Merged 8.8 quake in Sendai, Japan
- Thread starter Cactus Wren
- Start date
Skeptic Ginger
Nasty Woman
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So your claim is the Narita Airport had a plan for where to divert incoming jets but the airports in the plan were also damaged? I don't think that is accurate but I'm willing to consider your evidence.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Death toll
The current death toll figures are actually looking relatively optimistic.
Bear in mind the number of towns and citied inundated - the Wikipedia list currently runs to 31. Many of these are quite large, of the order of 70,000 population. We were getting reports from some of the worst hit that there might be 10,000 fatalities per town (not every town, obviously, but several).
However, actual casualty figures, that is known dead plus officially missing, are consistently coming in under the 20,000 mark. Even in Rikuzentakata, where tsunamu shelters were inundated because they were too low, estimates of 20% to 40% of the population being lost are turning into 20% of the population having lost a family member, which is a lot different.
So if the figures being issued to the press are soundly based, and not just adding up what is known about and ignoring huge swathes of death and destruction that are just not counted yet, it's actually a lot better than it might have been.
Rolfe.
The current death toll figures are actually looking relatively optimistic.
Bear in mind the number of towns and citied inundated - the Wikipedia list currently runs to 31. Many of these are quite large, of the order of 70,000 population. We were getting reports from some of the worst hit that there might be 10,000 fatalities per town (not every town, obviously, but several).
However, actual casualty figures, that is known dead plus officially missing, are consistently coming in under the 20,000 mark. Even in Rikuzentakata, where tsunamu shelters were inundated because they were too low, estimates of 20% to 40% of the population being lost are turning into 20% of the population having lost a family member, which is a lot different.
So if the figures being issued to the press are soundly based, and not just adding up what is known about and ignoring huge swathes of death and destruction that are just not counted yet, it's actually a lot better than it might have been.
Rolfe.
catsmate
No longer the 1
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Not many, as with (for example) coal smog, it is difficult to directly attribute effects. I would say the numbers are comparable to, and probably less than, accidental fatality rates in comparable industries such as oil, chemicals and steel.
The US SL-1 reactor meltdown in 1961 killed its three operators; the Tokaimura accident in 1999 killed at least two of the facility operators; one person died in a fuel rod accident in Buenos Aires in 1983; these would be rare examples of directly attributable fatalities, though the general consequences of these incidents were limited in scope.
The scope of the effects of the release of radioactive material at Kyshtym in 1957 is unknown.
At least four people died from radiation exposure in Brazil after a caesium source was taken from an abandoned hospital in Goiania.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Sorry to keep saying this, but could we keep the discussion specific to the nuclear incident in the two threads currently dedicated to that? Spilling over into this thread not only dilutes discussion of the tsunami effects, it makes it more difficult for people to follow the power plant discussion.
Rolfe.
Rolfe.
Belz...
Fiend God
Dammit, Rolfe, why do you keep reminding us that we're off topic ? We were having so much fun, there. 
BenBurch
Gatekeeper of The Left
Every airport has a diversion plan because airports can close for a lot of reasons besides earthquakes. A crash, a fire, terrorism, weather, all reasons you would have to divert. Weather can also take out nearby airports, so that is accounted for. If you get a lot farther out than what weather would encompass, good luck, you improvise.
rwguinn
Penultimate Amazing
Misawa is only like a couple hundred kilometers from the epicenter. Although inland, it is relatively level ground all the way to the ocean. (I know, I bicycled from Misawa to the ocean once.)
That may have been a consideration
CompusMentus
Waiting for the Worms
The article rwguinn linked to does mention something along those lines...........
We all know what happened at Sendai Airport.
Compus
alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
It's all related, and there won't be much more to say about the actual quake until there is another one.
There are plenty of the effects of the quake and the tsunami that can be discussed that are nothing to do with the problems at the nuclear power plant.
Rolfe
Adult human female
You don't think discussion of the recovery effort in the inudated towns is of any interest? The death toll and how high it may or may not go? You stopped talking about the Sumatra tsunami at ten days in because there wasn't a radiation scare to keep the conversation going, right?
You want to take about the radiation issues, there are plenty other threads. Discussing it here only fragments that discussion even more, and disrupts discussion of the non-nuclear aspects of the disaster.
Rolfe.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
I saw yet another report from Rikuzentakata on the lunchtime news. Only a few structures are left standing (fire station included), but these seem to be gutted by the water rushing on one side and out the other. They're still looking for the bodies of the firemen who rushed to try to shut the harbour gates as the tsunami approached, and they weren't closing automatically. That report said that 500 bodies have been found, but that 10,000 of the town's 26,000 population are still unaccounted-for.
The lunch-time report said this could be the most devastated town of the lot. However, it has stiff competition in that race. And it's not even one of the larger ones - several of the places seen crumbling under that wall of water had populations topping 70,000.
I really can't make out whether the real death toll is indeed "only" going to come out around 15,000, or whether the sheer scale of the catastrophe means the half has not yet been told us.
Rolfe.
The lunch-time report said this could be the most devastated town of the lot. However, it has stiff competition in that race. And it's not even one of the larger ones - several of the places seen crumbling under that wall of water had populations topping 70,000.
I really can't make out whether the real death toll is indeed "only" going to come out around 15,000, or whether the sheer scale of the catastrophe means the half has not yet been told us.
Rolfe.
The Central Scrutinizer
Penultimate Amazing
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Update on the nucular reactors: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/21/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T2#
At this point, I've lost track of which reactor is having which problem. The story had faded a bit in the last few days, does that imply that there is no new news or they are succeeding somewhat in cooling them down?
At this point, I've lost track of which reactor is having which problem. The story had faded a bit in the last few days, does that imply that there is no new news or they are succeeding somewhat in cooling them down?
babycondor
Muse
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Unfortunately I believe it may be the latter. The numbers will be overwhelming.
Rolfe
Adult human female
My very rough figures suggest about 1.5 million population in the affected area, and we're told that half a million people are in shelters. I would imagine a fair number weren't affected, for example houses high enough not to be reached by the wave - say another half million?
I'm not suggesting the death toll is going to be half a million, because there are probably a lot more survivors that aren't in the actual shelters, but 15,000 total or whatever it is they're putting out at the moment just doesn't square with what each town is saying about its own situation.
ETA: the most recent BBC report says
That's about 21,500, but it still seems amazingly low. I hope it's right, but it's very much at odds with what people are saying about the numbers unaccounted-for in each individual town.
Rolfe.
I'm not suggesting the death toll is going to be half a million, because there are probably a lot more survivors that aren't in the actual shelters, but 15,000 total or whatever it is they're putting out at the moment just doesn't square with what each town is saying about its own situation.
ETA: the most recent BBC report says
That's about 21,500, but it still seems amazingly low. I hope it's right, but it's very much at odds with what people are saying about the numbers unaccounted-for in each individual town.
Rolfe.
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jayh
Muse
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Interesting side point. I saw a newspaper account of the 1925 Japan earthquake which estimated the death toll at 260,000 for just Tokyo and Yokohama alone, despite much smaller populations than now. A tribute, I think, to the benefits of modern building methods and disaster management.
Rolfe
Adult human female
That's very true. The vast majority of the fatalities this time seem to be due to the tsunami, not to the earthquake.
How widespread was the old Japanese practice of building very flimsy houses to minimise casualties in earthquakes, as seen in the first scene of Madam Butterfly? I've heard much of the damage in 1925 was related to the adoption of western construction methods based on brick, without realising these structures performed very poorly during earthquakes.
Rolfe.
How widespread was the old Japanese practice of building very flimsy houses to minimise casualties in earthquakes, as seen in the first scene of Madam Butterfly? I've heard much of the damage in 1925 was related to the adoption of western construction methods based on brick, without realising these structures performed very poorly during earthquakes.
Rolfe.
The Central Scrutinizer
Penultimate Amazing
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Looks like they may do something similar here as they did in Chernobyl: