Japan News (4/14)
Apr. 14th, 2011 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarker4/11
There were several pieces about memorial services held in different areas of the disaster. Mostly, at 2:46, people stood up, bowed their heads, and quietly remembered the last month.
In one of the towns, a man... probably the mayor... made a speech on the public address system which got repeated several times. He started out saying that this is not an earthquake or tsunami warning. After talking about what they had experienced and done over the last month, he ended by saying, "From now on, ganbarimasho!" (a fairly polite, but strong let's fight on!). There were also pictures of what one man had done in a town -- with sheets of plywood and wood, he had made a large sign. Take two sheets of plywood, and stack them side by side (long ways), then put a row of these double-high sheets together. The sign was probably 2 sheets high (roughly 8 feet?) And about five or maybe six sheets along -- 40 feet? Across this large wooden sign, he had painted in black letters "Ganbare" and the name of the town.
The government secretary who has been coordinating and making announcements showed the standard map of Fukushima -- the reactors -- with the 20 km and 30 km bull's-eye on it. However, one of the prefectures to the northwest, where they have had higher background radiation measurements, also was colored. He recommended that people living in that area prepare to evacuate. They stressed that they were not asking people to evacuate yet, but that they might. He also said that they would be evacuating people with special needs.
4/12
That was cute. There's a group of I would guess elementary school kids in Osaka -- southwestern Japan, well away from the disaster area -- who are making a hand-lettered (and somewhat drawn) newspaper, or broadsheets, that they are sending to one of the shelters in the disaster area. At the shelter, they have a large board where the sheets from the kids are posted and read. The reporter talked with the kids, and there was a young girl who said she had decided that this was a good way to get news to them, and apparently organized the other kids to do this. The reporter also talked with the adults in the shelter, who said they really enjoy them. They did mention that kids see the world and the news in a slightly different way. Watching this, I got to thinking about the connections that are being created by this disaster. I'm fairly sure that those elementary school kids before the disaster would not have taken on sending out regular news to the people in northern Japan. It will be interesting to see what this turns into in the future.
There was another poll of people in the shelters. Apparently at least in this area, 88% want to rebuild and move back to their homes.
8:08 AM -- magnitude 6.3 quake in the ocean? Chiba had five, and Tokyo had fours and threes. A little further south than the original disaster area, basically on the lower edge.
The lunchtime news was interrupted by a quake in Chiba again. 3.8? Not very big.
There's a report about the men who are taking radiation measurements. They have their uniform, masks, and the measuring equipment in its small plastic cover. They showed a team of two people measuring a spot in the middle of a street. They're looking at the meter, and writing numbers on a sheet. Then they move a carefully measured distance and direction away, and repeat the process. The reporter talked with some of the people in the area. Basically, the ordinary people say it's pretty scary to see these people doing this. I was trying to think how to explain that they really need to do measurements across a standardized grid on a repeated basis -- and that seeing them do it doesn't mean there's anything wrong. I think if I was the reporter I might try to compare it with the electric company or gas company person reading the meter.
There's an estimate that there are 62,000 temporary homes needed -- I'm not sure of the area. They showed some more prebuilt modules -- walls and the floor, at least. I'm not sure why they are building more than using the container housing that was fairly popular in the Kansai earthquake. Although it may have to do with supply routes -- trucking containers in really requires fairly good roads, while the disaster seems to have left a lot of the area without good roads.
And apparently the IAEA has upgraded Japan to level 7, right up there with Chernobyl. The commentators point out that there have been no deaths in Japan from the reactors, while Chernobyl had 29 or so? They also are comparing the radiation levels, and it looks as if Japan is significantly lower. 3 mile Island was a five, Chernobyl was a seven, and now Fukushima is right up there with Chernobyl. I'm not sure that the label really affects things very much. I did wonder whether there were political or other reasons to prefer being rated seven?
There is some video of the backhoes and claws at work doing cleanup. But the commentator points out that they are actually moving one piece of debris at a time, picking things up very slowly. He explains that at this point, they are still looking for bodies, so they have to go slowly. In this particular area, there are 380 people still missing. They show that each of the backhoes has two observers watching carefully and poking into things. Once the debris has been picked up and moved, they can more rapidly pick it up and put it in the dump truck. However, the need to check each of the pieces as they go is making the cleanup relatively slow.
4/13
Several of the news shows are asking experts when we will see the last of the big aftershocks. I thought the expert on Minamonte handled it best. Minamonte is a popular talk and news show host -- he was the host on the Japanese version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And has become quite well known. They started with what has become well-known, a picture of the Pacific plate pushing under the Japanese plate. Minamonte said "So this is moving under us all the time?" The expert said, "Yes. It moves about 8 cm a year. About as much as your hair grows." Comparing the movement of the Pacific plate to the rate at which your hair grows... that's not so scary!
Next, Minamonte asked when the end of the aftershocks would be. "Aren't we done yet?" The expert said he didn't think we had seen the worst yet, and got out a chart. It showed Sumatra with a 9.3, and a big aftershock about a year or so later. It also showed New Zealand with a large quake, and a big aftershock a year or so later. The bottom of the chart had Japan, with a 9.0. The box for the aftershock simply had a large question mark in it. Minamonte said well what should we do, and the experts said three things. First, listen and pay attention to warnings. Second, have a bug-out-bag ready -- a backpack with essential stuff that you keep ready to grab and go! Third, when you go to sleep, wear pajamas or something that you could escape in, and make sure you know where your shoes are. There's something about wearing pajamas and making sure that you have shoes to run in when you go to sleep that changes that scary unknown earthquake aftershock thing into much more human "I can do that" terms.
At one of the towns in the disaster area, a 7-Eleven -- convenience store -- has opened again. There are no buildings. Instead, they have various goods set out in an open-air market, with a truck nearby. They actually had a number of customers who were picking up baskets full of stuff. The workers also seemed happy, wearing their 7-Eleven uniform jackets, and smiling as they sold stuff.
One of the towns in the disaster area has started to put up solar powered street lights. They don't yet have electricity, but these units have a integral solar panel on the top, and a white light lower down on the pole. I'm not sure how bright they are, but apparently people felt that it was a good move to get these up now. One of the people in the town said, "With some light at night, I feel safer."
They showed an area where they are putting in stakes, rolling the ground, preparing to put up temporary housing. They're talking about the units being available starting next month.
And in one shelter, they're handing out replacement drivers' licenses. These are for people who didn't bring them along when they escaped. One of the women looked at her driver's license and said, "I don't have anything. But now I've at least got this." She seemed really delighted to have a driver's license again. I hadn't thought about it, but they take your picture, and it's identity.
And in another town in the disaster area, the cleaner has opened up. They showed baskets of clothing that people had brought in, thick with mud and salt from being caught in the tsunami, then sitting for some time. The man who runs the cleaner said that right now he is doing one thing priority -- school uniforms. He showed a rack of school uniforms, and said that he was doing those first.
And this evening, the government secretary announced that mushrooms from one of the prefectures was being added to the list of vegetables that should not be bought or sold because of radiation concerns. Apparently at least some mushrooms showed a relatively high radiation count? I guess mushrooms are grown outside, and the rain could wash radioactive materials onto them.
Today's good news is that Sendai Airport, the airport that got clobbered by the tsunami, has opened again. They still don't have power, so they are only open for daylight flights, but they did have a flight in. I think it was an ANA flight, but it was greeted by a banner and lots of attention. They talked with passengers -- one woman had brought a bag of bread, because she had heard it was hard to get in the area.
6 PM news
Sakana-kun visited the shelters. I've got to explain this. He is a somewhat thin man, wearing a white lab coat, with slightly protruding eyes, and wearing a blue, yellow, and green hat that has a nose, eyes, flippers, and a tail -- it's a fish. As I understand it, he is a university professor. He loves fish, and has become well-known for public appearances talking to kids about fish. An ichthyologist, perhaps? He gets so excited when he talks about fish that his voice squeaks, he bounces on his feet, and he just exudes excitement about fish. In this case, they've gathered an audience of kids from the shelters, and he draws fish on flipcharts, stopping to ask if they know what the fish is yet, then adding a couple more lines... Sakana-kun literally means fish boy, and that's what everyone knows him as. The kids are jumping up and down holding their hands up, almost as excited as he is. I guess he's kind of the rock star of fish?
They showed an elementary school. The school is about two stories high, a concrete shell that obviously got clobbered by the tsunami. Of the students, 64 are known dead, 10 are missing. They say that about 70% of the students are dead or missing -- so it must've had about 100 students. They're holding a service. Parents and relatives and friends bring flowers. There is one man who has what looks like a small basketball in his hands. He sets that with the other offerings. There's also a priest, red robe, chanting.
They talk with one of the farmers in the area where the mushrooms are embargoed. He shows the racks and racks of wooden poles with mushrooms growing on them in the woods. He also shows his... I guess you call it a drying room... anyway, the room with crates full of mushrooms picked and waiting to be shipped. He says he had 200 kg of shitake mushrooms ready to sell when the government announcement was made. He doesn't know what he's going to do now.
4/14
Aha. There is an office where you can go and get a certificate of environmental radioactivity levels. I'm not sure if it existed before, but there is one now. I noticed that the certificates that they showed are all written in English. This may indicate why they are providing such certificates now.
That's discouraging. Apparently some of the older houses that are now debris had asbestos in them. So the cleanup teams now are also checking for asbestos in the debris and in the air.
7:35 another little earthquake. 5.2?
The Emperor and Empress are visiting the shelters. I guess once you've invited people in to use your bathtub, it's polite to stop in and see how they're doing.
One report says 33,000 houses are still without water, 37,000 are without sewage, and some number are without gas (they took the chart away too fast, I didn't get it written down). They were talking about how the aftershock the other day affected this. Apparently the aftershocks are not helping the repair and cleanup. I know there was a report that one house collapsed in the aftershock, with something like six people dead and three injured. There are also videos of one area where they were working on a landslide on a road -- and the aftershock brought down the repair work that they had been doing.
Tokyo reports that one of the prefectures that had been embargoed for vegetables has now been cleared. The farmers from that area held a... celebration sale? Apparently the vegetables did sell briskly. The reporter points out that the government is checking the vegetables on a weekly basis, and intends to lift or apply the embargoes as needed. The reporter also points out that while the government has ordered mushrooms from an entire prefecture to be embargoed, actually only mushrooms from one town had a high level.
And lunchtime -- 12:09! A magnitude 5.5 on land. 4s, 3s, 2s around it.
Watching the news here right now is such a hodgepodge. There's a piece about the disaster area, health concerns, etc. There's stuff about the reactors and the area around them. There's pieces about concerns in Tokyo, people washing their baby in one bottle of mineral water, vegetable prices skyrocketing, etc. And then there's news from Kyoto about the cherry blossoms and night lighting in case you want to visit at night. And reports of the worldwide support for northern Japan, even while the nuclear plant is drawing protests? Ah well. Wear pajamas and know where my shoes are. I can do that.
There were several pieces about memorial services held in different areas of the disaster. Mostly, at 2:46, people stood up, bowed their heads, and quietly remembered the last month.
In one of the towns, a man... probably the mayor... made a speech on the public address system which got repeated several times. He started out saying that this is not an earthquake or tsunami warning. After talking about what they had experienced and done over the last month, he ended by saying, "From now on, ganbarimasho!" (a fairly polite, but strong let's fight on!). There were also pictures of what one man had done in a town -- with sheets of plywood and wood, he had made a large sign. Take two sheets of plywood, and stack them side by side (long ways), then put a row of these double-high sheets together. The sign was probably 2 sheets high (roughly 8 feet?) And about five or maybe six sheets along -- 40 feet? Across this large wooden sign, he had painted in black letters "Ganbare" and the name of the town.
The government secretary who has been coordinating and making announcements showed the standard map of Fukushima -- the reactors -- with the 20 km and 30 km bull's-eye on it. However, one of the prefectures to the northwest, where they have had higher background radiation measurements, also was colored. He recommended that people living in that area prepare to evacuate. They stressed that they were not asking people to evacuate yet, but that they might. He also said that they would be evacuating people with special needs.
4/12
That was cute. There's a group of I would guess elementary school kids in Osaka -- southwestern Japan, well away from the disaster area -- who are making a hand-lettered (and somewhat drawn) newspaper, or broadsheets, that they are sending to one of the shelters in the disaster area. At the shelter, they have a large board where the sheets from the kids are posted and read. The reporter talked with the kids, and there was a young girl who said she had decided that this was a good way to get news to them, and apparently organized the other kids to do this. The reporter also talked with the adults in the shelter, who said they really enjoy them. They did mention that kids see the world and the news in a slightly different way. Watching this, I got to thinking about the connections that are being created by this disaster. I'm fairly sure that those elementary school kids before the disaster would not have taken on sending out regular news to the people in northern Japan. It will be interesting to see what this turns into in the future.
There was another poll of people in the shelters. Apparently at least in this area, 88% want to rebuild and move back to their homes.
8:08 AM -- magnitude 6.3 quake in the ocean? Chiba had five, and Tokyo had fours and threes. A little further south than the original disaster area, basically on the lower edge.
The lunchtime news was interrupted by a quake in Chiba again. 3.8? Not very big.
There's a report about the men who are taking radiation measurements. They have their uniform, masks, and the measuring equipment in its small plastic cover. They showed a team of two people measuring a spot in the middle of a street. They're looking at the meter, and writing numbers on a sheet. Then they move a carefully measured distance and direction away, and repeat the process. The reporter talked with some of the people in the area. Basically, the ordinary people say it's pretty scary to see these people doing this. I was trying to think how to explain that they really need to do measurements across a standardized grid on a repeated basis -- and that seeing them do it doesn't mean there's anything wrong. I think if I was the reporter I might try to compare it with the electric company or gas company person reading the meter.
There's an estimate that there are 62,000 temporary homes needed -- I'm not sure of the area. They showed some more prebuilt modules -- walls and the floor, at least. I'm not sure why they are building more than using the container housing that was fairly popular in the Kansai earthquake. Although it may have to do with supply routes -- trucking containers in really requires fairly good roads, while the disaster seems to have left a lot of the area without good roads.
And apparently the IAEA has upgraded Japan to level 7, right up there with Chernobyl. The commentators point out that there have been no deaths in Japan from the reactors, while Chernobyl had 29 or so? They also are comparing the radiation levels, and it looks as if Japan is significantly lower. 3 mile Island was a five, Chernobyl was a seven, and now Fukushima is right up there with Chernobyl. I'm not sure that the label really affects things very much. I did wonder whether there were political or other reasons to prefer being rated seven?
There is some video of the backhoes and claws at work doing cleanup. But the commentator points out that they are actually moving one piece of debris at a time, picking things up very slowly. He explains that at this point, they are still looking for bodies, so they have to go slowly. In this particular area, there are 380 people still missing. They show that each of the backhoes has two observers watching carefully and poking into things. Once the debris has been picked up and moved, they can more rapidly pick it up and put it in the dump truck. However, the need to check each of the pieces as they go is making the cleanup relatively slow.
4/13
Several of the news shows are asking experts when we will see the last of the big aftershocks. I thought the expert on Minamonte handled it best. Minamonte is a popular talk and news show host -- he was the host on the Japanese version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And has become quite well known. They started with what has become well-known, a picture of the Pacific plate pushing under the Japanese plate. Minamonte said "So this is moving under us all the time?" The expert said, "Yes. It moves about 8 cm a year. About as much as your hair grows." Comparing the movement of the Pacific plate to the rate at which your hair grows... that's not so scary!
Next, Minamonte asked when the end of the aftershocks would be. "Aren't we done yet?" The expert said he didn't think we had seen the worst yet, and got out a chart. It showed Sumatra with a 9.3, and a big aftershock about a year or so later. It also showed New Zealand with a large quake, and a big aftershock a year or so later. The bottom of the chart had Japan, with a 9.0. The box for the aftershock simply had a large question mark in it. Minamonte said well what should we do, and the experts said three things. First, listen and pay attention to warnings. Second, have a bug-out-bag ready -- a backpack with essential stuff that you keep ready to grab and go! Third, when you go to sleep, wear pajamas or something that you could escape in, and make sure you know where your shoes are. There's something about wearing pajamas and making sure that you have shoes to run in when you go to sleep that changes that scary unknown earthquake aftershock thing into much more human "I can do that" terms.
At one of the towns in the disaster area, a 7-Eleven -- convenience store -- has opened again. There are no buildings. Instead, they have various goods set out in an open-air market, with a truck nearby. They actually had a number of customers who were picking up baskets full of stuff. The workers also seemed happy, wearing their 7-Eleven uniform jackets, and smiling as they sold stuff.
One of the towns in the disaster area has started to put up solar powered street lights. They don't yet have electricity, but these units have a integral solar panel on the top, and a white light lower down on the pole. I'm not sure how bright they are, but apparently people felt that it was a good move to get these up now. One of the people in the town said, "With some light at night, I feel safer."
They showed an area where they are putting in stakes, rolling the ground, preparing to put up temporary housing. They're talking about the units being available starting next month.
And in one shelter, they're handing out replacement drivers' licenses. These are for people who didn't bring them along when they escaped. One of the women looked at her driver's license and said, "I don't have anything. But now I've at least got this." She seemed really delighted to have a driver's license again. I hadn't thought about it, but they take your picture, and it's identity.
And in another town in the disaster area, the cleaner has opened up. They showed baskets of clothing that people had brought in, thick with mud and salt from being caught in the tsunami, then sitting for some time. The man who runs the cleaner said that right now he is doing one thing priority -- school uniforms. He showed a rack of school uniforms, and said that he was doing those first.
And this evening, the government secretary announced that mushrooms from one of the prefectures was being added to the list of vegetables that should not be bought or sold because of radiation concerns. Apparently at least some mushrooms showed a relatively high radiation count? I guess mushrooms are grown outside, and the rain could wash radioactive materials onto them.
Today's good news is that Sendai Airport, the airport that got clobbered by the tsunami, has opened again. They still don't have power, so they are only open for daylight flights, but they did have a flight in. I think it was an ANA flight, but it was greeted by a banner and lots of attention. They talked with passengers -- one woman had brought a bag of bread, because she had heard it was hard to get in the area.
6 PM news
Sakana-kun visited the shelters. I've got to explain this. He is a somewhat thin man, wearing a white lab coat, with slightly protruding eyes, and wearing a blue, yellow, and green hat that has a nose, eyes, flippers, and a tail -- it's a fish. As I understand it, he is a university professor. He loves fish, and has become well-known for public appearances talking to kids about fish. An ichthyologist, perhaps? He gets so excited when he talks about fish that his voice squeaks, he bounces on his feet, and he just exudes excitement about fish. In this case, they've gathered an audience of kids from the shelters, and he draws fish on flipcharts, stopping to ask if they know what the fish is yet, then adding a couple more lines... Sakana-kun literally means fish boy, and that's what everyone knows him as. The kids are jumping up and down holding their hands up, almost as excited as he is. I guess he's kind of the rock star of fish?
They showed an elementary school. The school is about two stories high, a concrete shell that obviously got clobbered by the tsunami. Of the students, 64 are known dead, 10 are missing. They say that about 70% of the students are dead or missing -- so it must've had about 100 students. They're holding a service. Parents and relatives and friends bring flowers. There is one man who has what looks like a small basketball in his hands. He sets that with the other offerings. There's also a priest, red robe, chanting.
They talk with one of the farmers in the area where the mushrooms are embargoed. He shows the racks and racks of wooden poles with mushrooms growing on them in the woods. He also shows his... I guess you call it a drying room... anyway, the room with crates full of mushrooms picked and waiting to be shipped. He says he had 200 kg of shitake mushrooms ready to sell when the government announcement was made. He doesn't know what he's going to do now.
4/14
Aha. There is an office where you can go and get a certificate of environmental radioactivity levels. I'm not sure if it existed before, but there is one now. I noticed that the certificates that they showed are all written in English. This may indicate why they are providing such certificates now.
That's discouraging. Apparently some of the older houses that are now debris had asbestos in them. So the cleanup teams now are also checking for asbestos in the debris and in the air.
7:35 another little earthquake. 5.2?
The Emperor and Empress are visiting the shelters. I guess once you've invited people in to use your bathtub, it's polite to stop in and see how they're doing.
One report says 33,000 houses are still without water, 37,000 are without sewage, and some number are without gas (they took the chart away too fast, I didn't get it written down). They were talking about how the aftershock the other day affected this. Apparently the aftershocks are not helping the repair and cleanup. I know there was a report that one house collapsed in the aftershock, with something like six people dead and three injured. There are also videos of one area where they were working on a landslide on a road -- and the aftershock brought down the repair work that they had been doing.
Tokyo reports that one of the prefectures that had been embargoed for vegetables has now been cleared. The farmers from that area held a... celebration sale? Apparently the vegetables did sell briskly. The reporter points out that the government is checking the vegetables on a weekly basis, and intends to lift or apply the embargoes as needed. The reporter also points out that while the government has ordered mushrooms from an entire prefecture to be embargoed, actually only mushrooms from one town had a high level.
And lunchtime -- 12:09! A magnitude 5.5 on land. 4s, 3s, 2s around it.
Watching the news here right now is such a hodgepodge. There's a piece about the disaster area, health concerns, etc. There's stuff about the reactors and the area around them. There's pieces about concerns in Tokyo, people washing their baby in one bottle of mineral water, vegetable prices skyrocketing, etc. And then there's news from Kyoto about the cherry blossoms and night lighting in case you want to visit at night. And reports of the worldwide support for northern Japan, even while the nuclear plant is drawing protests? Ah well. Wear pajamas and know where my shoes are. I can do that.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-04-14 05:15 pm (UTC)I don't tend to think about my driver's license very much, but then, I am surrounded by the things that reflect who I am, what my identity is. In some way my house and all the things in it are reflections of who I am, a touchstone that confirms where I've been and where I am today, even gives a sense of where I am going next. I have a really hard time imagining losing all of those things, but if I did, it might be really important to have some confirmation of self to carry around.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 12:47 am (UTC)