Tag Archives: japan

International

Typhoon Talas: Still dumping record rain as Tropical Storm Talas, 5.9 feet in one area, at least 54 land slides

Typhoon Talas, now Tropical Storm Talas, continues to slam Japan.  On the Kii Peninsula, in west central Japan, rainfall has topped a record-breaking 1,800 millimeters (5.9 feet) in one village.

Even though the storm is over the Sea of Japan it continues to pummel land with rain as it moves north. Talas is expected to dump up to 40 millimeters (1.5 inches) of rain per hour in the Kanto and Tohoku regions, in eastern to northeastern Honshu.

Hokkaido, the island north of Honshu, heavy rain of up to 60 millimeters (2.4 inches) per hour could fall through Tuesday.  To make matters worse, another storm is approaching Japan.

All the rain has caused at least 54 landslides. In Nara Prefecture, mid-western Japan, an overflowing river has reportedly been dammed up with mud and rocks at five locations in Tenkawa Village and Gojo City.  This could cause a massive flood once the nature made dams break lose.  Emergency officials are scrambling to figure out what to do.

 

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: TEPCo to build giant 2,625 feet long Iron Wall around Fukushima Daiichi?

05 September 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company says it is growing concerned (finally) about the amount of radioactive water still building up in the basements of the reactor buildings.

TEPCo officials say even if they keep it from running off into the Pacific Ocean, it will eventually soak into the groundwater, which eventually runs into the Pacific Ocean.

To try and stop anymore contamination from hitting the ocean, TEPCo proposes to build a 800 meter (2,625 feet) long wall!  The wall will be made of huge iron pipes.

Each pipe, 22-meters (72 feet) long and 10 centimeters (4 inches) wide, will be installed deep below the sea bed to stop the flow of groundwater.

TEPCo says they will also attempt to use pumps to pump out contaminated water.  They hope to start building the wall by the end of the year, and think it will take two years to complete.

International

Typhoon Talas: Japan still flooding, Death toll rises, Sacred Sites destroyed

Japanese media reporting that many areas of Japan, that were hit by typhoon Talas on Friday and Saturday, are still flooding.

The damage is the worst since typhoon Tokage hit in 2004.

At least 34 people were killed, and at least 55 are missing.   In Nachikatsuura, Wakayama Prefecture, rescuers found the body of Saki Teramoto, the daughter of Mayor Shinichi Teramoto. Saki was engaged to be married.  Mayor Teramoto’s wife, Masako, is still missing.

Bridges, roads and even World Heritage Scared Sites have been destroyed.

Talas is a word from the Philippines meaning “sharpness.”

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: 70% of Japanese Prefectures say they can not prepare for nuclear disasters due to lack of standards

An NHK survey revealed that 70% of Japan’s prefectural governments can not hold nuclear disaster drills, because there are no national nuclear standards.

13 prefectures were surveyed.  They’ve held nuclear disaster drills before.  The problem is that the ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi has literally erased previous guidelines concerning nuclear disasters.

Most of the prefectures are waiting for the national government to come up with new standards. However, four prefectures says they will come up with their own temporary guidelines, and hold their nuclear disaster drills anyway.

International

Typhoon Talas: Conflicting reports of deaths in Japan, 5 feet of rain for Nara

NHK reported 9 people dead and more than 30 others missing. Russian media reporting more than 20 dead and 50 missing. Canadian media, citing Reuters, reporting at least 17 dead.

The south western portion of the big island of Honshu, and the island Shikoku, suffered major flooding and landslides.  Many homes were hit, or swept away by the landslides.

NHK reporting that Nara got 1,800mm (70 inches, that’s 5.8 feet!!!) of rain since late Thursday.

Talas is now tropical depression strength and is heading up the western side of Japan, in the Sea of Japan.

 

Fukushima

Government & Corporate Incompetence: More Japanese Tea contminated with Cesium!

As the nuclear disaster continues in Japan, more tea leaves have been found with extremely high levels of cesium.

The Japanese health ministry says radioactive cesium has been detected in harvested tea leaves in Chiba and Saitama prefectures, near Tokyo  (about 297km or 185 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant).

One type of tea from Chiba Prefecture contained 2,720 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, more than 5 times the safety limit.

1,530 becquerels per kilogram was detected in three kinds of tea leaves from Saitama Prefecture.

The local governments will try to trace which tea farms the contaminated leaves came from.

Fukushima

What Economic Recovery? New Japan Prime Minister says no recovery without Fukushima

“Without the revival of Fukushima, there will be no revival of Japan.”-Noda Yoshihiko, Prime Minister of Japan

The new Japanese Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko, said there will be no recovery for Japan, without the recovery of Fukushima Prefecture.

Hello, Fukushima is contaminated with radiation! The Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant is still out of control!  Latest cesium readings show at least six towns in Fukushima Prefecture have radiation levels higher than areas around Chernobyl!

The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, Ukraine, happened in the 1980s and it still has not recovered!  I guess this means Japan is toast?

Fukushima

Typhoon Talas hitting Japan with heavy rain, warnings issued, school hit by landslide

Typhoon Talas is coming ashore between Shikoku and Hiroshima.  Heavy rain, flooding and landslides being reported from Tokyo area, and several hundreds of miles north east to the island of Hokkaido.

Rain warnings for the hardest hit areas: Tokai (Nagoya) and Kinki (Osaka, Kobe, & Kyoto), may get drenched with 800mm (31 inches) of rain in the next 24 hours!!!

Landislide warnings for the following prefectures:  Tokushima, Wakayama, Nara, Mie, Shizuoka, Yamanashi, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi, Iwate and Hokkaido.

There are reports that a school in Nabari, Mie, has been hit by a landslide.

Wind damage to buildings in Kobe, Osaka and Wakayama.

Air travel canceled, some roads closed.

Business/Economics, International, Technology

Good idea from Japan: Books that tell you how to escape a natural disaster, you can’t rely on your cell phones

In Japan some of the fastest selling books are how to books that show you how to get out’a town in case of a natural disaster.

The 9.0 quake of March 11 was the motivator for such books.   Even though Tokyo was at least a hundred miles from the epicenter of the quake, the public transportation systems went down.  About 6 million people walked or rode bikes home.

People who did well walking out had road maps, or had read the 2005 book Map for Walking Home in the Event of an Earthquake.  The book was the result of experiences of the editors in a 2004 earthquake.

Amazingly the book was undergoing a revision when the March 11 quake hit.  In fact one of the editors ended up walking home over the next two days, it proved to be useful in making the revisions: “For example, there were big advertising signs above the roads, which can break and fall on pedestrians, and such potentially dangerous sites we included on the maps.”-Tatsuya Nakajima, Shobunsha Publications

Since then 150,000 of the books have sold.  Prior to that, 1 million copies had sold.  Here’s one good reason such books are in demand, cell phones did not work on March 11: “People could not access online maps on their mobile phones right after the quake because telecom systems were overloaded.  That’s probably why the demand for paper maps has increased and this book has sold well since.”-Tomoko Okawa, Shobunsha Publications

A subsidiary of Shobunsha Publications has recently solved that problem, at least if you have an iPhone, a downloadable app that does not require an active cell service to work.

 

 

Fukushima

Pacific Ring of Fire: Japanese University says big quakes are coming for Tokyo

“If there is drastic plate movement, there is no guarantee that the scale of the quake will be in line with the government’s prediction of up to magnitude 7.3.”-Hirata Naoshi, Earthquake Research Committee

The University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute believes that major earthquakes are in the near future for Tokyo city, and Ibaraki Prefecture, no thanks to the 11 March 2011 9.0 quake.

Even though the 11 March earthquake was at least a hundred miles north of Tokyo, it was so powerful that the tectonic plate under Tokyo has changed so dramatically, that scientists think a massive quake caused by action on two or more areas of the plate is highly likely.  Since 11 March, the number of Tokyo quakes of magnitude 3 or greater has increased by fourfold.

Tokyo is subject to earthquakes that are located along plate boundaries, as well as quakes that happen along fault lines within a single plate.

Ibaraki Prefecture, just south of Fukushima Prefecture, is even worse off.  Since 11 March, quakes of magnitude 3 or greater have increased by 20 times!

The high tectonic activity is on the coastline, inland quake activity has not increased, but it has changed.

Japanese scientists say that recent inland quakes are much more shallower that past earthquakes.