Japan News (3/31)
Mar. 31st, 2011 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarker3/29
There's a video of Nissan Carlos Ghosn somewhere in the disaster area -- Ibaraki? -- looking at a damaged factory. He tells the workers and reporters that they're going to get people in here, and he expects partial production by mid-April. And he says it will be better than before. And he expects they will hit full production again by June. They show him and a ring of local workers doing a cheer, shoving their fists into the air together.
A little video of some people who are probably not very popular right now -- building inspectors, who are going around to standing buildings and houses, checking them for damage, including simple weight on a string checking for vertical. Lots of work to do.
One of the earthquake and tsunami measurement groups was talking about trying to figure out how far inland the tsunami reached. They showed on a map that on one river (or creek), the furthest point inland that was reached was 8 km up the river from the shore (5 miles). That's a long ways, but Japan is at least 100 km across at Sendai, and even wider at Tokyo.
A little bit about doing exercises in the shelters. Doing exercises to the radio -- or music -- is still pretty common in Japan. So having group exercises is one way to avoid just sitting around all day.
The dead and missing toll is at 28,000.
Some video from Iwate prefecture. A short clip of burning incense and fresh flowers (typical death offerings) in dirt, with debris piled behind. There's a backhoe in the background, and cars driving on a bulldozed road.
There's a news piece about cell phone outages in the disaster area. Apparently many people have been upset that cell phone service went out and hasn't been restored in many places in the disaster area. The reporter starts by explaining that cell phones depend on the towers (I would've said cells, but towers is okay). And the earthquakes, flooding, and power outages took out many of the towers. Apparently there were something like 6,800 towers in the area before the quake -- and 680 operating now. They show how the cell phone services have set up little desktop units near the shelters to provide connectivity there. There's also a van that Docomo (NTT -- Japan's Bell Telephone service) has sent out. This is a mobile unit like a truck that has temporary towers. Park, extend the towers up, and link up -- service. However, apparently there aren't many of these portable tower units around. Docomo has 22, and two other cell phone services have something like 8 each? So less than 50 of these units, apparently.
One of the earthquake specialists is talking about the aftershocks. He says that the main quake was magnitude 9, and there have been 372 aftershocks since then that were greater than magnitude 5. For comparison, the 1994 quake was magnitude 8.2, and had 106 aftershocks greater than magnitude 5.
One of the reporters goes down to a coastal town. Amid the piles of debris, there's still significant water on the ground. She starts to wade across it, but when it reaches about halfway up her shin, she stops. They show that the seawall is still broken. They talked to an 84-year-old woman from the area, who tells them that during the tsunami she had water up to her waist. They also talk to the mayor of the town, who says he thinks they may have to accept that that part of the town is going to be underwater. He says he thinks there are two causes, the ground in that area is thought to have dropped 70 cm (2 feet?), and he thinks the local river may have changed its course.
On another show, they're talking with an expert about the evacuation circles versus measured radioactivity. They have a map, with the 20 and 30 km circles around Fukushima, along with an ink blot outline that extends to the north-west well outside the 30 km, comes back inside 20 km to the west, and then extends pseudopods to the southwest and south. They're asking why these measured areas aren't inside the circles? The expert starts out well, explaining that wind at different times and strengths, has influenced the measured area -- the inkblot. So with wind across Fukushima to the northwest, it extends that direction. He points out that on the west side, you can actually go closer to Fukushima than the evacuation circles before encountering measured radioactivity levels. The host and panel members are nodding, and seem to be happy with this. However, the expert continues to explain that rain also will have a strong effect on the measurements, washing dust out of the air and concentrating it in rivers and other areas. Then he frowns and says, in fact, some of the rivers from that area feed into the Tokyo water supply. He's waving his hands in the air, describing wind, rain, dust... and people are looking very worried. I think if he had stopped with the wind, everyone would have been a lot happier.
Ouch. Somewhere near the coast -- this is a video of a chicken farmer -- actually, he supplies eggs -- who is going back to his ... I want to call it a chicken coop, but it's way more than that. Racks of cages, six or seven high? Seemingly several rows, stretching back into a long, long building. He says he had 70,000 chickens here. The building is still standing, although clearly beaten by the tsunami (and quakes). The racks of cages have broken, and there are dead chickens, along with some live ones. He and his brother are there to see what, if anything, they can salvage. His brother has a small power saw (rotary blade) that he is using to cut the cages and free the remaining chickens. They show several eggs loose in the dust under the cages. The farmer says he'd like to collect the eggs, but there's no way right now. I assume he means that the machinery that would ordinarily collect it is broken and unpowered -- I wondered if he could get kids from the shelter to help him collect the eggs by hand? I know farmers used to do it that way... and I'll bet it still works.
Aha! What I thought was some kind of uranium is Iodine. Radioactive isotope 131? I just learned that unlike many elements, iodine has a thoroughly Japanese word for it. Related to the fertility principle?
Croquette, or Hiroshi Takigawa, a well-known comedian who does monomane (personality imitations), went out to a shelter. He did his act, wearing a glittering coat, singing, getting laughs. They also show him with the other volunteers, lifting boxes. And there's a short clip of him hugging an old woman, who is crying on his shoulder.
In one of the auditoriums, preparing for graduation, there's a group of American military in their camouflage fatigues helping the local teenagers. John McMahon (maybe) said we're glad that we can help get Japan back on its feet. The teenagers certainly seemed happy to have them help.
Another quirky photo -- debris, etc. with a girder poking up, and a colorful 1000 cranes hanging from the girder. This is several strings, with folded paper cranes threaded together.
There's some video of the US-Japan Council in Los Angeles meeting. They're talking about possibly having a Hollywood charity event for the relief effort. There's also video of the American Red Cross meeting with... I think it's the Japanese ambassador to America.
There's a report from a small harbor town. Apparently before the quake there were about 1300 boats here. They say 1200 are gone, broken, sunk... I know some of them are gracing the streets and fields, probably. Anyway, there are only about 100 boats left. I think most of these are working boats -- fishing.
And one Japanese manufacturer of decorative string -- nice gold cord, black cord, etc. -- reports that his French customers are demanding that he certify -- or get certified -- that the string is not radioactive? The reporter says that cosmetics, machines, even books have been faced with similar demands recently. The green tea industry which is just gearing up for the 2011 season reports that American, Canadian, Chinese, and Arab purchasers have canceled this year's orders. They finished the report showing the string manufacturer talking with a Geiger counter salesman, who measured the box of string and said it had only ordinary background levels. But the string manufacturer is not sure if buying a measurement device and checking all his product will satisfy foreign purchasers or not. As he asks the reporter, who certifies this kind of thing?
3/31
There's another group measuring the various effects of the tsunami and earthquake. The reporter talks with one man who is looking at buildings, tanks, and other large structures that were damaged. The man points out that the nearby three-story concrete building sitting on its side probably stood up to the original tsunami from the ocean side. He thinks this building, and many other structures, were mostly destroyed by the returning flood. He says it's like a roller coaster -- the water coming in is like going up the slope, and then there's the return which is the wild ride down.
They've also got a map of the seacoast, with estimated heights of the wave at many points going down the coast. It starts with something like 7 or 8 meters, and has several peaks of 10 or so, with one hitting 15 meters, and then dropping down again. 10 meters -- that's like 30 feet, or three stories.
More temporary housing -- Ishonomaki. Looks as if they have claimed some open spaces in the middle of a suburb, actually. There are regular houses in the background, anyway. About 135 units going in. But they aren't using the container units, these have modular walls, but they are putting up flooring and so forth. They say there will be 3 types, 1DK (dining room, kitchen) -- 27 units, 2DK -- 83 units, and 3K -- 25 units. They also say that this is just the beginning of what's needed.
A small group of about 4 or 5 volunteers. Young women, who end up helping young kids first to study -- which of these animals is in this picture? -- and then to go sledding in the snow.
There's also a short piece about a set of ramen cooks who came out to one of the shelters and set up, feeding everyone ramen. As one of the cooks says, that's what he does best, so he thought volunteering to do that here was a good idea.
I have to admit, some of this flood of talent, volunteers, cooks, and so forth reminds me vaguely of the USO tours that used to turn up in the news now and then. It has that same feel, with the talents and others giving the "troops" (the people who are staying in the shelters) a break.
Hum. They're covering a meeting of the volunteer net, which apparently is really organizing now. One man says he will be sending 205 volunteers into the disaster area (not sure if that was from his town, or overall). Of course, with 250,000 in shelters, that's kind of drop in the bucket, but enough drops does fill the bucket, right?
There's also a video -- the game and toy companies have contributed a bunch of stuff, and the volunteers are packing up ... goody boxes, I guess would be the best name. A mixture of various toys and games for the kids in the shelters.
One of the towns is known for big colorful flags. The town is pretty well destroyed, but... a company that does the flags has taken their flags, run clotheslines from high point to other high point, and decorated the town. The company building is a wreck on the ground floor, but higher up the balcony is covered with flags, and has several clotheslines tied to it. The owner says he has no idea when or if they will be able to make more, but for right now, he wanted to put some color into the town. It is a lot brighter, with the flags, hung like banners, blowing in the wind.
An older man (69, I think) is shown with his ventriloquist dummy. He's apparently fairly well known -- and of course, he's doing a tour of the shelters. I didn't understand all of the patter, but he's got young kids smiling and laughing.
I was wondering today what it would be like to be one of these children? I mean, for them, life has been sort of normal, but then ... quake, tsunami, radiation danger! And now you're living in a shelter, with famous people and volunteers coming through, news people taking pictures, all kinds of stuff being given to you... and in a year or two? Will they go back to a normal life, or will they expect that this kind of thing will happen any day now? Will they consider normal life as kind of boring? What will they take away from this experience?
There's a video of Nissan Carlos Ghosn somewhere in the disaster area -- Ibaraki? -- looking at a damaged factory. He tells the workers and reporters that they're going to get people in here, and he expects partial production by mid-April. And he says it will be better than before. And he expects they will hit full production again by June. They show him and a ring of local workers doing a cheer, shoving their fists into the air together.
A little video of some people who are probably not very popular right now -- building inspectors, who are going around to standing buildings and houses, checking them for damage, including simple weight on a string checking for vertical. Lots of work to do.
One of the earthquake and tsunami measurement groups was talking about trying to figure out how far inland the tsunami reached. They showed on a map that on one river (or creek), the furthest point inland that was reached was 8 km up the river from the shore (5 miles). That's a long ways, but Japan is at least 100 km across at Sendai, and even wider at Tokyo.
A little bit about doing exercises in the shelters. Doing exercises to the radio -- or music -- is still pretty common in Japan. So having group exercises is one way to avoid just sitting around all day.
The dead and missing toll is at 28,000.
Some video from Iwate prefecture. A short clip of burning incense and fresh flowers (typical death offerings) in dirt, with debris piled behind. There's a backhoe in the background, and cars driving on a bulldozed road.
There's a news piece about cell phone outages in the disaster area. Apparently many people have been upset that cell phone service went out and hasn't been restored in many places in the disaster area. The reporter starts by explaining that cell phones depend on the towers (I would've said cells, but towers is okay). And the earthquakes, flooding, and power outages took out many of the towers. Apparently there were something like 6,800 towers in the area before the quake -- and 680 operating now. They show how the cell phone services have set up little desktop units near the shelters to provide connectivity there. There's also a van that Docomo (NTT -- Japan's Bell Telephone service) has sent out. This is a mobile unit like a truck that has temporary towers. Park, extend the towers up, and link up -- service. However, apparently there aren't many of these portable tower units around. Docomo has 22, and two other cell phone services have something like 8 each? So less than 50 of these units, apparently.
One of the earthquake specialists is talking about the aftershocks. He says that the main quake was magnitude 9, and there have been 372 aftershocks since then that were greater than magnitude 5. For comparison, the 1994 quake was magnitude 8.2, and had 106 aftershocks greater than magnitude 5.
One of the reporters goes down to a coastal town. Amid the piles of debris, there's still significant water on the ground. She starts to wade across it, but when it reaches about halfway up her shin, she stops. They show that the seawall is still broken. They talked to an 84-year-old woman from the area, who tells them that during the tsunami she had water up to her waist. They also talk to the mayor of the town, who says he thinks they may have to accept that that part of the town is going to be underwater. He says he thinks there are two causes, the ground in that area is thought to have dropped 70 cm (2 feet?), and he thinks the local river may have changed its course.
On another show, they're talking with an expert about the evacuation circles versus measured radioactivity. They have a map, with the 20 and 30 km circles around Fukushima, along with an ink blot outline that extends to the north-west well outside the 30 km, comes back inside 20 km to the west, and then extends pseudopods to the southwest and south. They're asking why these measured areas aren't inside the circles? The expert starts out well, explaining that wind at different times and strengths, has influenced the measured area -- the inkblot. So with wind across Fukushima to the northwest, it extends that direction. He points out that on the west side, you can actually go closer to Fukushima than the evacuation circles before encountering measured radioactivity levels. The host and panel members are nodding, and seem to be happy with this. However, the expert continues to explain that rain also will have a strong effect on the measurements, washing dust out of the air and concentrating it in rivers and other areas. Then he frowns and says, in fact, some of the rivers from that area feed into the Tokyo water supply. He's waving his hands in the air, describing wind, rain, dust... and people are looking very worried. I think if he had stopped with the wind, everyone would have been a lot happier.
Ouch. Somewhere near the coast -- this is a video of a chicken farmer -- actually, he supplies eggs -- who is going back to his ... I want to call it a chicken coop, but it's way more than that. Racks of cages, six or seven high? Seemingly several rows, stretching back into a long, long building. He says he had 70,000 chickens here. The building is still standing, although clearly beaten by the tsunami (and quakes). The racks of cages have broken, and there are dead chickens, along with some live ones. He and his brother are there to see what, if anything, they can salvage. His brother has a small power saw (rotary blade) that he is using to cut the cages and free the remaining chickens. They show several eggs loose in the dust under the cages. The farmer says he'd like to collect the eggs, but there's no way right now. I assume he means that the machinery that would ordinarily collect it is broken and unpowered -- I wondered if he could get kids from the shelter to help him collect the eggs by hand? I know farmers used to do it that way... and I'll bet it still works.
Aha! What I thought was some kind of uranium is Iodine. Radioactive isotope 131? I just learned that unlike many elements, iodine has a thoroughly Japanese word for it. Related to the fertility principle?
Croquette, or Hiroshi Takigawa, a well-known comedian who does monomane (personality imitations), went out to a shelter. He did his act, wearing a glittering coat, singing, getting laughs. They also show him with the other volunteers, lifting boxes. And there's a short clip of him hugging an old woman, who is crying on his shoulder.
In one of the auditoriums, preparing for graduation, there's a group of American military in their camouflage fatigues helping the local teenagers. John McMahon (maybe) said we're glad that we can help get Japan back on its feet. The teenagers certainly seemed happy to have them help.
Another quirky photo -- debris, etc. with a girder poking up, and a colorful 1000 cranes hanging from the girder. This is several strings, with folded paper cranes threaded together.
There's some video of the US-Japan Council in Los Angeles meeting. They're talking about possibly having a Hollywood charity event for the relief effort. There's also video of the American Red Cross meeting with... I think it's the Japanese ambassador to America.
There's a report from a small harbor town. Apparently before the quake there were about 1300 boats here. They say 1200 are gone, broken, sunk... I know some of them are gracing the streets and fields, probably. Anyway, there are only about 100 boats left. I think most of these are working boats -- fishing.
And one Japanese manufacturer of decorative string -- nice gold cord, black cord, etc. -- reports that his French customers are demanding that he certify -- or get certified -- that the string is not radioactive? The reporter says that cosmetics, machines, even books have been faced with similar demands recently. The green tea industry which is just gearing up for the 2011 season reports that American, Canadian, Chinese, and Arab purchasers have canceled this year's orders. They finished the report showing the string manufacturer talking with a Geiger counter salesman, who measured the box of string and said it had only ordinary background levels. But the string manufacturer is not sure if buying a measurement device and checking all his product will satisfy foreign purchasers or not. As he asks the reporter, who certifies this kind of thing?
3/31
There's another group measuring the various effects of the tsunami and earthquake. The reporter talks with one man who is looking at buildings, tanks, and other large structures that were damaged. The man points out that the nearby three-story concrete building sitting on its side probably stood up to the original tsunami from the ocean side. He thinks this building, and many other structures, were mostly destroyed by the returning flood. He says it's like a roller coaster -- the water coming in is like going up the slope, and then there's the return which is the wild ride down.
They've also got a map of the seacoast, with estimated heights of the wave at many points going down the coast. It starts with something like 7 or 8 meters, and has several peaks of 10 or so, with one hitting 15 meters, and then dropping down again. 10 meters -- that's like 30 feet, or three stories.
More temporary housing -- Ishonomaki. Looks as if they have claimed some open spaces in the middle of a suburb, actually. There are regular houses in the background, anyway. About 135 units going in. But they aren't using the container units, these have modular walls, but they are putting up flooring and so forth. They say there will be 3 types, 1DK (dining room, kitchen) -- 27 units, 2DK -- 83 units, and 3K -- 25 units. They also say that this is just the beginning of what's needed.
A small group of about 4 or 5 volunteers. Young women, who end up helping young kids first to study -- which of these animals is in this picture? -- and then to go sledding in the snow.
There's also a short piece about a set of ramen cooks who came out to one of the shelters and set up, feeding everyone ramen. As one of the cooks says, that's what he does best, so he thought volunteering to do that here was a good idea.
I have to admit, some of this flood of talent, volunteers, cooks, and so forth reminds me vaguely of the USO tours that used to turn up in the news now and then. It has that same feel, with the talents and others giving the "troops" (the people who are staying in the shelters) a break.
Hum. They're covering a meeting of the volunteer net, which apparently is really organizing now. One man says he will be sending 205 volunteers into the disaster area (not sure if that was from his town, or overall). Of course, with 250,000 in shelters, that's kind of drop in the bucket, but enough drops does fill the bucket, right?
There's also a video -- the game and toy companies have contributed a bunch of stuff, and the volunteers are packing up ... goody boxes, I guess would be the best name. A mixture of various toys and games for the kids in the shelters.
One of the towns is known for big colorful flags. The town is pretty well destroyed, but... a company that does the flags has taken their flags, run clotheslines from high point to other high point, and decorated the town. The company building is a wreck on the ground floor, but higher up the balcony is covered with flags, and has several clotheslines tied to it. The owner says he has no idea when or if they will be able to make more, but for right now, he wanted to put some color into the town. It is a lot brighter, with the flags, hung like banners, blowing in the wind.
An older man (69, I think) is shown with his ventriloquist dummy. He's apparently fairly well known -- and of course, he's doing a tour of the shelters. I didn't understand all of the patter, but he's got young kids smiling and laughing.
I was wondering today what it would be like to be one of these children? I mean, for them, life has been sort of normal, but then ... quake, tsunami, radiation danger! And now you're living in a shelter, with famous people and volunteers coming through, news people taking pictures, all kinds of stuff being given to you... and in a year or two? Will they go back to a normal life, or will they expect that this kind of thing will happen any day now? Will they consider normal life as kind of boring? What will they take away from this experience?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-04-01 03:14 am (UTC)