Japan News 2/18
Mar. 18th, 2011 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarker3/17
More bits and pieces
There was an amateur video from the first day of the quakes/tsunamis shown. Really amateur -- at one point we got to watch his feet while they were talking, and the camera jerks at some points. Still, riveting in part because you know it's real. Started with him filming the tsunami, from the building they were in. Flooded below them, carrying all the familiar wreckage. And when the waters stopped moving, below them was a crazy quilt, including a silver container on its side partly under the curved awning of the building, another maybe half-container or trash container -- red, also on its side, sort of at the end of the silver one, and more wreckage around and beyond that. Just past the red half-container, there's a black van on its side, tilted. And a man standing in the driver's window, holding two kids in his arms, looking out at the water. Ahead of the van, there's a tree -- and a man holding on to it, standing on loose wreckage. Nearer the building, there's a woman, just standing on the wreckage.
The men in the video start calling to these people, telling them to hold on, they are going to rescue them. They get a firehose from somewhere in the building and use that as a rope. First they climb across the roof to stand just above the curved awning, and throw the end of the firehose to the woman, who has climbed onto the red half-container. She ties it around her, leaving a long tail with a heavy fitting. Then she crosses the half-container, gets up on the full container and crosses it, and starts onto the curved awning. And there's an aftershock. She sprawls on the awning, while the man standing on a flat roof above her crouches, and throws the fire hose around a nearby protrusion. He yells at her to hold on.
After a moment or two, they look around, and get up. She scrambles across the curved awning. He grabs her arms, and lifts her onto that roof. From there, other men pull the hose up, and quickly get her up to the balcony where the man is filming. She's shaking, crying, and thanking everyone, bowing.
There's an interlude, while they pull another man in a company driver's uniform up at the other end of the building. The man taking the video asks about his truck, and he just waves at the water. "It's gone."
Now they get back to the original rescue. The man at the tree refuses to let go. They try to throw the firehose to him, but it's too heavy and short. Then someone gets a yellow-and-black line (looked like a clothesline to me), and they manage to get that to him. He ties it around himself, and scrambles across the debris.
The man with two children is still standing, braced in the window. One child is standing on the car, but the other is in his arms. They call to him, but he can't carry both children and somehow jump to the debris or one of the containers. They tell him to hold on, they will get him.
The man taking the video starts to fret about the battery. He says he's going to turn it off until they can do more. Screen goes black.
We're watching this video on Thursday night, almost a week afterwards. And Mitsuko and I are both on the edge of our seats, saying "What happened? Did they save them?"
And the video resumes. Relief! It's starting to get dark, but the guy is still standing in his van, holding his kids. Even with early evening darkness, he has to have been standing there for a couple of hours. They've got more people from the building, with the firehose and ropes, and they are crossing the debris to him. There's a human chain that takes one kid out of his arms and carries him to the next person, on the red half-container, who takes the boy and passes him to someone else. As they lift the boy onto the balcony, he suddenly starts screaming and yelling, kicking his legs. They assure him that he's all right, and ask him if he's hurt. He says his legs are wet. This was the older boy, who had been standing on the van.
They quickly get the other child up to the building, along with the father, and the amateur rescue team. That was where they ended the video on TV.
Well done!
There's a lot of coverage of ships and helicopters taking supplies to northern Japan. Apparently a chunk of the trucking route to areas above the quake/tsunami area has been taken out by the devastation.
Lots of speculation last night about the yen dropping below 80, down to 76 and now hovering around 78 or 79 to the dollar. I had missed the fact that this is a strong yen -- 76 yen to the dollar is very strong! No one seems to have a good explanation of why the yen would be getting stronger at this point, although the speculation around people expecting that there will be a strong rebuilding effort, which will boost the economy, makes some sense. Still, usually in times of disaster money gets weaker, not stronger.
Among the evacuated people from near Fukushima is a mother and baby daughter who went to Yamagata. Apparently they were on TV, in the emergency center, with her worrying about her baby. And families in the Yamagata area are opening their homes, getting those who need better shelter into it. They showed the family that took in the mother and daughter, all sitting in their house.
A friend said he had been to CostCo this week. Apparently bottled water, rice, and other stuff like that is sold out. We stopped by the local mall, which has a bigger supermarket. They also are sold out of rice, with bottled water disappearing. There's a big sign over the cases of bottled water saying that they will only sell one case per customer right now.
Talking with the assistant dean. The second entrance exams for the national universities was scheduled for last Saturday. Needless to say, they didn't happen in Northern Japan, and apparently most schools in the Tokyo area cancelled them. Even in Southern Japan, they were definitely disrupted. So there is talk of accepting students this year based on GPA, applications, and background material without the normal exams. That's actually a big shift for Japan, where the "entrance exam hell" is part of the undergraduate framework.
Finally catching up with some of my email. Turns out the IEEE Energy folks sent an update about the reactors. Nice background on what's going on over here.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/energy/nuclear/explainer-what-went-wrong-in-japans-nuclear-reactors
So what we really have are hydrogen explosions -- that explains the fires that I didn't really understand. And that thing I guessed was some kind of heat sink is the spent rod cooling pool. Very interesting.
Among the ads that have started returning, one of them that has repeated so much that it is almost irritating is really simple. Young man in school uniform starts bouncing up the stairs past an old woman who is slowly climbing, holding onto the railing. In the background, the voiceover (and script on the side) says, "No one can see a thought..." The young man pauses, then goes back, and starts to help the old woman up the stairs. "But anybody can see a thoughtful action."
3/18 morning news
The search for the dead and missing continues. Especially in the central areas, I notice that they are reporting roughly 2 to 1 numbers -- e.g., one area has about 3,800 missing, 1,900 confirmed dead. The total dead/missing seems to be bouncing around -- they said 15,000 today, and I remember the other day it was pushing 20,000? Maybe double reporting? It would be good if that number drops.
Pictures of the emergency centers. The families mostly are living on one blanket, with shoes carefully lined up at the edge. There seems to be a lot of boredom, especially for young kids. Cell phones and PSPs seem to be popular. There was one picture of a young teacher who had set up a kami shibai (paper pictures with narration) -- she had drawn a big crowd of kids, and I think some of the parents were watching, too. Still, figuring out something for the kids to do in that kind of crowded situation ... maybe we can get a game company to donate decks of those cards? RPGs? Mitsuko laughed when I suggested group singing, but I still think it would be better than just sitting there.
There's a shot of a town. It's like a massive junkyard, with bulldozed paths and a few buildings (or frameworks) scattered around.
One of the national banking chains had some kind of trouble last night. "System Trouble" is what they are announcing. And they are insisting that it is not quake related.
And the SDF got their helicopters working! Dumped lots of water on the reactors (some around, too, but...). Plus they have started running the fire truck water guns in. And some of the commentators are surprised that the exposure levels didn't immediately drop back to zero? Why do I get this impression that people really expect magic?
That's about it for today. Wow! It has been a week since this started? Seems like just yesterday... Back to work!
More bits and pieces
There was an amateur video from the first day of the quakes/tsunamis shown. Really amateur -- at one point we got to watch his feet while they were talking, and the camera jerks at some points. Still, riveting in part because you know it's real. Started with him filming the tsunami, from the building they were in. Flooded below them, carrying all the familiar wreckage. And when the waters stopped moving, below them was a crazy quilt, including a silver container on its side partly under the curved awning of the building, another maybe half-container or trash container -- red, also on its side, sort of at the end of the silver one, and more wreckage around and beyond that. Just past the red half-container, there's a black van on its side, tilted. And a man standing in the driver's window, holding two kids in his arms, looking out at the water. Ahead of the van, there's a tree -- and a man holding on to it, standing on loose wreckage. Nearer the building, there's a woman, just standing on the wreckage.
The men in the video start calling to these people, telling them to hold on, they are going to rescue them. They get a firehose from somewhere in the building and use that as a rope. First they climb across the roof to stand just above the curved awning, and throw the end of the firehose to the woman, who has climbed onto the red half-container. She ties it around her, leaving a long tail with a heavy fitting. Then she crosses the half-container, gets up on the full container and crosses it, and starts onto the curved awning. And there's an aftershock. She sprawls on the awning, while the man standing on a flat roof above her crouches, and throws the fire hose around a nearby protrusion. He yells at her to hold on.
After a moment or two, they look around, and get up. She scrambles across the curved awning. He grabs her arms, and lifts her onto that roof. From there, other men pull the hose up, and quickly get her up to the balcony where the man is filming. She's shaking, crying, and thanking everyone, bowing.
There's an interlude, while they pull another man in a company driver's uniform up at the other end of the building. The man taking the video asks about his truck, and he just waves at the water. "It's gone."
Now they get back to the original rescue. The man at the tree refuses to let go. They try to throw the firehose to him, but it's too heavy and short. Then someone gets a yellow-and-black line (looked like a clothesline to me), and they manage to get that to him. He ties it around himself, and scrambles across the debris.
The man with two children is still standing, braced in the window. One child is standing on the car, but the other is in his arms. They call to him, but he can't carry both children and somehow jump to the debris or one of the containers. They tell him to hold on, they will get him.
The man taking the video starts to fret about the battery. He says he's going to turn it off until they can do more. Screen goes black.
We're watching this video on Thursday night, almost a week afterwards. And Mitsuko and I are both on the edge of our seats, saying "What happened? Did they save them?"
And the video resumes. Relief! It's starting to get dark, but the guy is still standing in his van, holding his kids. Even with early evening darkness, he has to have been standing there for a couple of hours. They've got more people from the building, with the firehose and ropes, and they are crossing the debris to him. There's a human chain that takes one kid out of his arms and carries him to the next person, on the red half-container, who takes the boy and passes him to someone else. As they lift the boy onto the balcony, he suddenly starts screaming and yelling, kicking his legs. They assure him that he's all right, and ask him if he's hurt. He says his legs are wet. This was the older boy, who had been standing on the van.
They quickly get the other child up to the building, along with the father, and the amateur rescue team. That was where they ended the video on TV.
Well done!
There's a lot of coverage of ships and helicopters taking supplies to northern Japan. Apparently a chunk of the trucking route to areas above the quake/tsunami area has been taken out by the devastation.
Lots of speculation last night about the yen dropping below 80, down to 76 and now hovering around 78 or 79 to the dollar. I had missed the fact that this is a strong yen -- 76 yen to the dollar is very strong! No one seems to have a good explanation of why the yen would be getting stronger at this point, although the speculation around people expecting that there will be a strong rebuilding effort, which will boost the economy, makes some sense. Still, usually in times of disaster money gets weaker, not stronger.
Among the evacuated people from near Fukushima is a mother and baby daughter who went to Yamagata. Apparently they were on TV, in the emergency center, with her worrying about her baby. And families in the Yamagata area are opening their homes, getting those who need better shelter into it. They showed the family that took in the mother and daughter, all sitting in their house.
A friend said he had been to CostCo this week. Apparently bottled water, rice, and other stuff like that is sold out. We stopped by the local mall, which has a bigger supermarket. They also are sold out of rice, with bottled water disappearing. There's a big sign over the cases of bottled water saying that they will only sell one case per customer right now.
Talking with the assistant dean. The second entrance exams for the national universities was scheduled for last Saturday. Needless to say, they didn't happen in Northern Japan, and apparently most schools in the Tokyo area cancelled them. Even in Southern Japan, they were definitely disrupted. So there is talk of accepting students this year based on GPA, applications, and background material without the normal exams. That's actually a big shift for Japan, where the "entrance exam hell" is part of the undergraduate framework.
Finally catching up with some of my email. Turns out the IEEE Energy folks sent an update about the reactors. Nice background on what's going on over here.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/energy/nuclear/explainer-what-went-wrong-in-japans-nuclear-reactors
So what we really have are hydrogen explosions -- that explains the fires that I didn't really understand. And that thing I guessed was some kind of heat sink is the spent rod cooling pool. Very interesting.
Among the ads that have started returning, one of them that has repeated so much that it is almost irritating is really simple. Young man in school uniform starts bouncing up the stairs past an old woman who is slowly climbing, holding onto the railing. In the background, the voiceover (and script on the side) says, "No one can see a thought..." The young man pauses, then goes back, and starts to help the old woman up the stairs. "But anybody can see a thoughtful action."
3/18 morning news
The search for the dead and missing continues. Especially in the central areas, I notice that they are reporting roughly 2 to 1 numbers -- e.g., one area has about 3,800 missing, 1,900 confirmed dead. The total dead/missing seems to be bouncing around -- they said 15,000 today, and I remember the other day it was pushing 20,000? Maybe double reporting? It would be good if that number drops.
Pictures of the emergency centers. The families mostly are living on one blanket, with shoes carefully lined up at the edge. There seems to be a lot of boredom, especially for young kids. Cell phones and PSPs seem to be popular. There was one picture of a young teacher who had set up a kami shibai (paper pictures with narration) -- she had drawn a big crowd of kids, and I think some of the parents were watching, too. Still, figuring out something for the kids to do in that kind of crowded situation ... maybe we can get a game company to donate decks of those cards? RPGs? Mitsuko laughed when I suggested group singing, but I still think it would be better than just sitting there.
There's a shot of a town. It's like a massive junkyard, with bulldozed paths and a few buildings (or frameworks) scattered around.
One of the national banking chains had some kind of trouble last night. "System Trouble" is what they are announcing. And they are insisting that it is not quake related.
And the SDF got their helicopters working! Dumped lots of water on the reactors (some around, too, but...). Plus they have started running the fire truck water guns in. And some of the commentators are surprised that the exposure levels didn't immediately drop back to zero? Why do I get this impression that people really expect magic?
That's about it for today. Wow! It has been a week since this started? Seems like just yesterday... Back to work!
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Date: 2011-03-18 03:43 am (UTC)I'm guessing there is some duplication of numbers with respect to missing persons, but the confirmed dead is probably pretty well set. Unfortunately, I lot of the missing will probably never be confirmed. So much just washed out to sea.
I hear that Sandra Bullock wrote a check for $1M for relief efforts. Don't have that kind of cash, but we made a small donation at Jacob's high school.