Japan News (3/29)
Mar. 29th, 2011 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarker3/29
Huh. One volunteer group has a mixed group of 18 to 73 year-olds, loaded on a bus and headed from Kobe to Tohoku to help. Their arrangement is that they bring their own supplies, work for four days, and live on the bus! And people are lining up for this. They did point out that the supplies are to include helmet, goggles, mask, neck towel, long-sleeved shirt, rubber gloves, ID badge... drat, I missed the rest. Boots? Also, the volunteers are paying for gas and food for their trip.
Video of people out walking the debris. I noticed one guy had a ski pole, while others have a pipe or some kind of walking stick. Good for balance, poking at stuff that may be unstable, or even (as one showed) good for poking under something to see if you can scare that feral cat out. The cat got away.
Another volunteer group. But the organizer here decided that collecting goods and sending people wasn't quite enough, he wanted something to put spirit in them. So... he got a group of elementary/middle school kids in Kobe together, and asked them to write letters and make a poster. So they wrote letters -- some fairly long -- and made a bunch of hearts with messages on them. One kid put a sun, with wide gold rays, in the middle of a poster, then they added the hearts all over that poster. So along with the supplies, this volunteer truck headed into the disaster area with a poster and letters.
They showed the shelter where the volunteers were headed. An old woman saying that this area is really a mess, you can't even drive a car there yet. Military and the volunteers come in, bringing the supplies. But also asking permission and putting up the poster and handing out the letters. The old woman is peering at the hearts, reading the messages, with tears. Others are sitting at a table, reading the letters. There seem to be more smiles in the room. It really does seem as if they brought a little bit of sunshine with them, this trip.
3/29
There's video of another hospital group visitng a shelter. The head of the hospital tells the reporter that most of what they are seeing is colds, some constipation, nothing to worry about. They have video of the doctors and nurses diagnosing and handing out medicine on the floor of the shelter. Then the reporter asked if it was true that they had oden and beer? And the head of the hospital smiled, and said yes. They showed the big pots of oden -- various things, eggs, potatoes, etc. boiled in thin broth, usually eaten with chinese mustard -- and the cans of beer. People lined up, and many of the men really seemed to enjoy that can of beer. The head of the hospital said that he thought it was important to get them something hot to eat, and indeed, several said that this was the first real hot food they'd had in two weeks. And the beer? Well, the head of the hospital said that relaxing is also important -- and he drank a beer with the people. He was... well, bald, with a fairly thick fringe of grey hair running around the back. White sideburns, running down under his chin to a thick pelt of white under his chin. White goatee as wide as his mouth running down to that same pelt. Small wire-frame glasses, nice smile. Black shirt, with a zipper at the neck pulled up reasonable high. Long sleeves pushed back to his elbows. Grey work pants. Not my picture of a hospital administrator or doctor, but he fit right in as the guy running a group doing medicine at the shelter -- and passing out a hot meal and beer, too.
That's a heartwarming story. There's a picture that's been shown a few times, of a pedestrian overpass over a train track. The train was picked up by the tsunami and laid around the area, windows smashed, some cars on their side, others piled. Apparently there was a station at the pedestrian overpass, but it's gone. And there's not much else around.
It turns out that at the time of the quake/tsunami, there were 40 people on that train. It had stopped at the station. There were two off-duty police on board. And someone watching TV on his cellphone, who announced that there was a tsunami coming. The police looked at the station, 500 meters from the shore, and immediately ordered everyone off the train, and started them up the road to the nearby town that had some high buildings. After a block or so, one old person said they couldn't walk. One of the policemen grabbed a passing truck and told the driver to take the person with them. Apparently they were later located, okay. The rest of the group kept going, on foot. The policemen say that they saw the wave following them, and ran. They got all of the others into town and into a high, strong building. Everyone was saved. One of the policemen shuddered, and said that if they had gotten off five minutes later, or gotten the news five minutes later, none of them would be alive now. They're trying to say the policemen are heroes, and they're shaking their heads. "Just doing our duty." I'll bet there are 38 people who are glad they did.
Flipping across the channels -- the national TV channel has quake/disaster coverage. Minamonte has news about the reactor. One channel has a piece about an all-you-can-eat restaurant? One is covering soccer. Kid's anime on one. And one is covering a girl's group -- singing, I guess, and dancing. This is about 7:30 in the morning?
Hoho! There is a boom in Tokyo of sales of gas generators (they run on two little bottled gas things -- like a spray can in size and shape?). Also the demand for solar panels is way up! Yes, people are worried.
Turns out that one side effect of the power outages is that the trash handling is not doing well. The manager explains that they are really set up to run 24 hours, but when there are 2 hour or 3 hour shutdowns because of power blackouts... the trash piles up! He shows this enormous room full of trash from Tokyo, and that they are falling behind on processing it, which means it climbs. He's quite concerned.
Minamonte has a representative from Tokyo Electric on. He's explaining that the Fukushima reactors provided 9 million kilowatt hours. They're now getting about 600,000 kilowatt hours from Hokkaido, and 1 million kilowatt hours from southern Japan. Minamonte asks about the difference in rates (50/60 hz) and the representative says that's no problem, they can handle that without any difficulty. He says they worry more about the ground -- apparently the ground level in different parts of the country often differs, and connecting with floating grounds is not good.
But they are still far short of the current demand. Right now, with the blackouts, they need 37.29 million kw, and they have 38.50 million kw (per day, I think). So they are just barely ahead. But the projected demand in July is 55.00 million kw, and they think they'll have 46.50 million kw available -- a major shortfall.
There's a short piece about some of the small islands off the north east coast. Haven't heard much of these, but apparently there are people out there -- and with the regular ferries smashed or down in the tsunami (I know I've seen at least one shown pictured in the middle of a town -- and wondered how they were going to get that out again) -- they are somewhat isolated. Turns out that Himawari-san (Mr. Sunflower -- except it's the name of his boat) is still out there, running. Smaller boat, with rows of seats, but he's been dropping into the islands and keeping supplies and people moving. He's brought a pregnant woman into town, along with some others, so they can visit the medical center. Oshima? Anyway, the small islanders riding with him say that if not for him, they'd be completely isolated out there.
One of the TV hosts, a young woman, joined a volunteer group -- for a one-day trip. They went up to an area further from the coast. The organizer explained that this area had about 2 meter tsunami (6 feet), so houses are mostly okay, but buried in mud and stuff. So they're going to be shoveling, lifting, helping clear. The organizer takes them around to a home owner who has asked for help. And they get into action -- using the shovels, bags, and other supplies that they have brought with them.
The reporter starts shoveling, and they show one of the dangers -- there's broken glass in the mud. Eight people spend most of the day shoveling mud, lifting junk, and (in part) lifting stuff by hand out of the garden -- the home owner says his mother planted that garden, and he'd like to save as much of the plants as possible. They do stop in the middle, for lunch. They've brought their own food, and end up sharing with the owner, who shows them the sandwich (jam and ham? I think that's what it said -- odd mixture) that he says is what the emergency relief supplied.
At the end of the day, they've cleared that garden area. Not a very large garden, maybe the size of an American driveway, but they've got a large pile of bagged mud. The owner thanks them, profusely, saying that if he had to do that by himself, he'd give up, it's just too much. The reporter tells people that it's hard work, but she's glad she did it.
Evening -- report that they've gotten power to #4 reactor room. And there's an Isreali team measuring exposure of workers?
Ah -- one refinery has had a tanker come in and hook up, and filled it up and sent it on. Not the refinery that burned, apparently. The dockside guys cheer. I guess they wanted to get that gasoline moving again.
19:54 Another small quake. 4s and 3s...
It's interesting. The pictures and focus are pretty heavily on the coast areas that got smashed with the worst of the tsunami. There's a picture this evening from one town showing the town outlined against a sheet of white that seems to be maybe a white sunset climbing into the sky -- except it's the leading edge of the tsunami, about to bury the town. But there's islands out in the ocean, people who had built a bit higher, and lots of land farther inland or up a bit that also has been through at least the earthquakes, and often some of the tsunami, just not quite the level that the sea coast areas experienced. Doesn't seem to be getting nearly as much attention as the shelters and seacoast, but... I wonder how the islands handled the tsunamis? And how many areas are like this 2 meter flooded area, digging out, but still standing.
I talked with someone today who reminded me that if there are about 250,000 in shelters, there's probably at least a million who are struggling to get along in their houses or other places. I'm not sure how you get a measure of this disaster -- the little individual stories are one thing, but fitting them together into a whole is puzzling.
Huh. One volunteer group has a mixed group of 18 to 73 year-olds, loaded on a bus and headed from Kobe to Tohoku to help. Their arrangement is that they bring their own supplies, work for four days, and live on the bus! And people are lining up for this. They did point out that the supplies are to include helmet, goggles, mask, neck towel, long-sleeved shirt, rubber gloves, ID badge... drat, I missed the rest. Boots? Also, the volunteers are paying for gas and food for their trip.
Video of people out walking the debris. I noticed one guy had a ski pole, while others have a pipe or some kind of walking stick. Good for balance, poking at stuff that may be unstable, or even (as one showed) good for poking under something to see if you can scare that feral cat out. The cat got away.
Another volunteer group. But the organizer here decided that collecting goods and sending people wasn't quite enough, he wanted something to put spirit in them. So... he got a group of elementary/middle school kids in Kobe together, and asked them to write letters and make a poster. So they wrote letters -- some fairly long -- and made a bunch of hearts with messages on them. One kid put a sun, with wide gold rays, in the middle of a poster, then they added the hearts all over that poster. So along with the supplies, this volunteer truck headed into the disaster area with a poster and letters.
They showed the shelter where the volunteers were headed. An old woman saying that this area is really a mess, you can't even drive a car there yet. Military and the volunteers come in, bringing the supplies. But also asking permission and putting up the poster and handing out the letters. The old woman is peering at the hearts, reading the messages, with tears. Others are sitting at a table, reading the letters. There seem to be more smiles in the room. It really does seem as if they brought a little bit of sunshine with them, this trip.
3/29
There's video of another hospital group visitng a shelter. The head of the hospital tells the reporter that most of what they are seeing is colds, some constipation, nothing to worry about. They have video of the doctors and nurses diagnosing and handing out medicine on the floor of the shelter. Then the reporter asked if it was true that they had oden and beer? And the head of the hospital smiled, and said yes. They showed the big pots of oden -- various things, eggs, potatoes, etc. boiled in thin broth, usually eaten with chinese mustard -- and the cans of beer. People lined up, and many of the men really seemed to enjoy that can of beer. The head of the hospital said that he thought it was important to get them something hot to eat, and indeed, several said that this was the first real hot food they'd had in two weeks. And the beer? Well, the head of the hospital said that relaxing is also important -- and he drank a beer with the people. He was... well, bald, with a fairly thick fringe of grey hair running around the back. White sideburns, running down under his chin to a thick pelt of white under his chin. White goatee as wide as his mouth running down to that same pelt. Small wire-frame glasses, nice smile. Black shirt, with a zipper at the neck pulled up reasonable high. Long sleeves pushed back to his elbows. Grey work pants. Not my picture of a hospital administrator or doctor, but he fit right in as the guy running a group doing medicine at the shelter -- and passing out a hot meal and beer, too.
That's a heartwarming story. There's a picture that's been shown a few times, of a pedestrian overpass over a train track. The train was picked up by the tsunami and laid around the area, windows smashed, some cars on their side, others piled. Apparently there was a station at the pedestrian overpass, but it's gone. And there's not much else around.
It turns out that at the time of the quake/tsunami, there were 40 people on that train. It had stopped at the station. There were two off-duty police on board. And someone watching TV on his cellphone, who announced that there was a tsunami coming. The police looked at the station, 500 meters from the shore, and immediately ordered everyone off the train, and started them up the road to the nearby town that had some high buildings. After a block or so, one old person said they couldn't walk. One of the policemen grabbed a passing truck and told the driver to take the person with them. Apparently they were later located, okay. The rest of the group kept going, on foot. The policemen say that they saw the wave following them, and ran. They got all of the others into town and into a high, strong building. Everyone was saved. One of the policemen shuddered, and said that if they had gotten off five minutes later, or gotten the news five minutes later, none of them would be alive now. They're trying to say the policemen are heroes, and they're shaking their heads. "Just doing our duty." I'll bet there are 38 people who are glad they did.
Flipping across the channels -- the national TV channel has quake/disaster coverage. Minamonte has news about the reactor. One channel has a piece about an all-you-can-eat restaurant? One is covering soccer. Kid's anime on one. And one is covering a girl's group -- singing, I guess, and dancing. This is about 7:30 in the morning?
Hoho! There is a boom in Tokyo of sales of gas generators (they run on two little bottled gas things -- like a spray can in size and shape?). Also the demand for solar panels is way up! Yes, people are worried.
Turns out that one side effect of the power outages is that the trash handling is not doing well. The manager explains that they are really set up to run 24 hours, but when there are 2 hour or 3 hour shutdowns because of power blackouts... the trash piles up! He shows this enormous room full of trash from Tokyo, and that they are falling behind on processing it, which means it climbs. He's quite concerned.
Minamonte has a representative from Tokyo Electric on. He's explaining that the Fukushima reactors provided 9 million kilowatt hours. They're now getting about 600,000 kilowatt hours from Hokkaido, and 1 million kilowatt hours from southern Japan. Minamonte asks about the difference in rates (50/60 hz) and the representative says that's no problem, they can handle that without any difficulty. He says they worry more about the ground -- apparently the ground level in different parts of the country often differs, and connecting with floating grounds is not good.
But they are still far short of the current demand. Right now, with the blackouts, they need 37.29 million kw, and they have 38.50 million kw (per day, I think). So they are just barely ahead. But the projected demand in July is 55.00 million kw, and they think they'll have 46.50 million kw available -- a major shortfall.
There's a short piece about some of the small islands off the north east coast. Haven't heard much of these, but apparently there are people out there -- and with the regular ferries smashed or down in the tsunami (I know I've seen at least one shown pictured in the middle of a town -- and wondered how they were going to get that out again) -- they are somewhat isolated. Turns out that Himawari-san (Mr. Sunflower -- except it's the name of his boat) is still out there, running. Smaller boat, with rows of seats, but he's been dropping into the islands and keeping supplies and people moving. He's brought a pregnant woman into town, along with some others, so they can visit the medical center. Oshima? Anyway, the small islanders riding with him say that if not for him, they'd be completely isolated out there.
One of the TV hosts, a young woman, joined a volunteer group -- for a one-day trip. They went up to an area further from the coast. The organizer explained that this area had about 2 meter tsunami (6 feet), so houses are mostly okay, but buried in mud and stuff. So they're going to be shoveling, lifting, helping clear. The organizer takes them around to a home owner who has asked for help. And they get into action -- using the shovels, bags, and other supplies that they have brought with them.
The reporter starts shoveling, and they show one of the dangers -- there's broken glass in the mud. Eight people spend most of the day shoveling mud, lifting junk, and (in part) lifting stuff by hand out of the garden -- the home owner says his mother planted that garden, and he'd like to save as much of the plants as possible. They do stop in the middle, for lunch. They've brought their own food, and end up sharing with the owner, who shows them the sandwich (jam and ham? I think that's what it said -- odd mixture) that he says is what the emergency relief supplied.
At the end of the day, they've cleared that garden area. Not a very large garden, maybe the size of an American driveway, but they've got a large pile of bagged mud. The owner thanks them, profusely, saying that if he had to do that by himself, he'd give up, it's just too much. The reporter tells people that it's hard work, but she's glad she did it.
Evening -- report that they've gotten power to #4 reactor room. And there's an Isreali team measuring exposure of workers?
Ah -- one refinery has had a tanker come in and hook up, and filled it up and sent it on. Not the refinery that burned, apparently. The dockside guys cheer. I guess they wanted to get that gasoline moving again.
19:54 Another small quake. 4s and 3s...
It's interesting. The pictures and focus are pretty heavily on the coast areas that got smashed with the worst of the tsunami. There's a picture this evening from one town showing the town outlined against a sheet of white that seems to be maybe a white sunset climbing into the sky -- except it's the leading edge of the tsunami, about to bury the town. But there's islands out in the ocean, people who had built a bit higher, and lots of land farther inland or up a bit that also has been through at least the earthquakes, and often some of the tsunami, just not quite the level that the sea coast areas experienced. Doesn't seem to be getting nearly as much attention as the shelters and seacoast, but... I wonder how the islands handled the tsunamis? And how many areas are like this 2 meter flooded area, digging out, but still standing.
I talked with someone today who reminded me that if there are about 250,000 in shelters, there's probably at least a million who are struggling to get along in their houses or other places. I'm not sure how you get a measure of this disaster -- the little individual stories are one thing, but fitting them together into a whole is puzzling.
