8.9 quake in Japan triggers massive tsunamis

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Tousi said:
I think the relative absence of looting over there has something to do with them as a society....something about conformity, discipline, spartan living, etc
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I'd say it's because they've been thru this before... you know - 2 atomic bombs... dozens of earthquakes... Godzilla rampage...
 
Babyblue said:
I think it is the culture in whole. More disciplined.
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I don't think it's discipline. we don't get trained in it. Looking at where the area is affected... it's mostly rural, small towns, and small cities. Those kind of area tends to be very family-oriented and community-oriented. However... I can't say same for those living in major city.

It is observed that people living in town/rural area tends to fare much better than city dwellers in case of major disaster.

However... right now - it's been 5 days since tsunami disaster. It's just a matter of time till hell breaks out. It's expected. This is very common all around the world - refugee shelters getting crowdy... bathrooms filled up... no or little electricity & water... food running low... We can only hope that international relief response is quick and well-funded.
 
In Refugee Shelters, Misery and Uncertainty
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OFUNATO, Japan — For the past five days Takiko Kinno has slept on a crowded gymnasium floor, without electricity or running water and living on food rations that in the beginning amounted to one and a half rice balls per day.

But the toughest part, she says, has been the uncertainty about how long she will have to stay here after last week’s tsunami destroyed much of this small port city in northern Japan.

“We are stuck in limbo,” said Ms. Kinno, 69, who shares the gym with 500 other residents, most in their 60s or older. “We don’t know where we will live, how we will live, how long it will take to leave here.”

It is a predicament shared by tens of thousands across northern Japan. In stricken communities like this one, tsunami refugees have gathered in hundreds of schools, hospitals and public gyms that have been converted into makeshift shelters. In Ofunato, with a population of 41,000, there are 61 such shelters housing 8,437 people, according to city officials.

The residents of these shelters often live in desperate and primitive conditions with little more than a roof over their heads. They have endured days of living in the dark and cold, an ordeal made even worse on Wednesday as a winter storm brought heavy snow and below-freezing temperatures to many devastated areas. The privations underscore the difficulties that Japan has faced in responding to the some 700,000 refugees created by Friday’s tsunami, the nation’s largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. While national news media and opposition politicians have been quick to criticize Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s handling of it, locals said they had low expectations of the central government to begin with.

“The central government has a big debt, no money, so we can’t rely on it,” said Noriko Kikuchi, 71, one of those seeking refuge in Ofunato’s gym.

But some help is finally starting to trickle in, usually in the form of food and water brought by Japan’s military, after many shelters were cut off from the rest of the world in the first days after the disaster. At the gym in Ofunato four portable toilets arrived a day ago to supplement the two over-used restrooms. A cheer went up in the early afternoon when electricity was partly restored, giving the refugees their first electric light since the waves hit.

Those living there say they still face severe shortages. They say have not bathed or changed their clothes in five days — and for Japanese, who look forward to a nightly ritual of immersion in a hot bath, that is particularly distressing. For many, their clothing was all they brought with them as they fled the tsunami, leaving them essentially marooned in the shelters because they had no money to hire a taxi or go shopping. The waves swept away everything else they owned, and in many cases their savings as well, because many older Japanese keep their savings in their dressers, not a bank. Those who have bank accounts could not withdraw money because power problems froze ATM networks.

“I would leave tomorrow if I could,” said Emi Sasaki, 64, a homemaker living at the gym with her daughter and granddaughter. “Access to phones and money would let me at least try to find a place to live.”

Those in the shelters try to maintain the orderly routines of normal Japanese life, seen in the tidy rows of shoes and muddy boots at the doorway to the shelters, where everyone is in socks. But there are also stressful differences: the lack of privacy, the growing odors of hundreds of unwashed bodies and the cries of fear every night during the countless aftershocks that have followed Friday’s earthquake.

They also feel cut off from their families and the outside world, with no phones or newspapers or Internet access. Meanwhile, the closure of highways and lack of goods have slowed government efforts to deliver more supplies.

“We have no idea what will happen to us next,” said Noriko Kikuchi, 71, whose home and small cigarette stand were destroyed by the waves. “I cannot call relatives or friends to ask for help.”

Even those whose homes were spared have found themselves living in a state of privation that this modern and wealthy nation has not known since World War Two. Entire swaths of northern Japan remain without electricity, water or cell phone service.

Chronic shortages of everything from rice to gasoline have led to empty or closed stores, and lines at filling stations that extend a mile or more. Maki Niinuma, a 30-year-old homemaker, said her biggest anxiety was providing for her children, particularly her seven-month-old son. While the waves spared her home, fuel shortages have made it hard for her to shop because she wants to keep enough gas in her car to drive the baby to an inland hospital if he gets sick.

As a result, she has had to ration baby formula and try to fill the gap with less nutritious substitutes like rice porridge. She also said she had tried to make his disposable diapers last longer by waiting till they filled up before throwing them away.

“If I don’t have enough to eat, I can endure it,” she said. “But I’m worried about my children’s nutrition.” .

Many Japanese have endured the privations with a similar mood of quiet stoicism, and the strong sense of community that still prevails in these northern rural areas. Even the hardest-hit areas have remained orderly and friendly, and crimes like looting are largely unheard of.

This communal spirit is apparent at many shelters, some of which are run by community volunteer groups who donate and cook the food, and even clean the overused toilets. In Ofunato, about a third of the shelters are run by volunteers with the rest administered by the city.

Mamoru Mikami, a city official who oversees the refugee centers, said the government was beginning to take over the volunteer-run shelters as it now appears that it will take weeks or months to build temporary housing for those left homeless.

He said doctors had volunteered to check shelter residents for disease or stress, though the city had a chronic shortage of medicines for common ailments like cold and flu, or medicines like insulin for those with preexisting diseases like diabetes. In the longer term, he said, the bigger challenges would be depression and stress, both from living in the shelters, where people have no privacy as well as no water and electricity, and also from the shock of the destruction that they have witnessed.

Mr. Mikami said some symptoms were already appearing, such as denial, or emotional swings between giddiness and tears.

“It is happening to me, too; I still feel like I’m in a dream,” said Mr. Mikami, who barely survived the tsunami by running uphill. “So many of my co-workers at city hall died.”

Those who do leave the shelters have little choice but to live amid the debris of their smashed homes. Osamu Niinuma, 68, was ejected from one shelter because he insisted on bringing his dog. With many of his friends lost to the tsunami, he said he could not part with the best friend, a beagle named Pan.

Now, he lives with Pan in the shattered shell of his home, wearing four layers of clothes to stay warm at night.

“I didn’t want to stay in the refugee shelter forever anyway,” said Mr. Niinuma, a former teacher. “People need to get out and rebuild their lives.”
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Jiro said:
I don't think it's discipline. we don't get trained in it. Looking at where the area is affected... it's mostly rural, small towns, and small cities. Those kind of area tends to be very family-oriented and community-oriented. However... I can't say same for those living in major city.

It is observed that people living in town/rural area tends to fare much better than city dwellers in case of major disaster.

However... right now - it's been 5 days since tsunami disaster. It's just a matter of time till hell breaks out. It's expected. This is very common all around the world - refugee shelters getting crowdy... bathrooms filled up... no or little electricity & water... food running low... We can only hope that international relief response is quick and well-funded.
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So it is culture and discipline. It is how they were raised and family oriented. It is how they grew up Or (trained).
 
I always thought the Cubs player name Fukudome would have been a good nam for the Cowboys new Billion dollar stadium
 
I wonder if cub fans chant. Let's go Fu Ku. Clap clap clapclapclap
 
I think Phuket is pronounced Foo-ket. :giggle:
 
There is no more water in the spent fuel rod pool - next step is spraying boric acid to neutralize the radiation? Sand, gravel, cement? Massive evacuation and quarantine?

I really want to physically helpt the Japanese. I can operate heavy machinery in efforts to clean up. Anyone know if any US private contractors are hiring to help with the aid?
 
Jiro said:
I don't think it's discipline. we don't get trained in it. Looking at where the area is affected... it's mostly rural, small towns, and small cities. Those kind of area tends to be very family-oriented and community-oriented. However... I can't say same for those living in major city.

It is observed that people living in town/rural area tends to fare much better than city dwellers in case of major disaster.

However... right now - it's been 5 days since tsunami disaster. It's just a matter of time till hell breaks out. It's expected. This is very common all around the world - refugee shelters getting crowdy... bathrooms filled up... no or little electricity & water... food running low... We can only hope that international relief response is quick and well-funded.
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I agree. The survival instinct is the same among people worldwide, and just wait till it gets really bad, then you will see some, um, unpleasantness.
 
Even the the top 20 alone in the U.S. are all above 7.5.
 
Steinhauer said:
There is no more water in the spent fuel rod pool - next step is spraying boric acid to neutralize the radiation? Sand, gravel, cement? Massive evacuation and quarantine?

I really want to physically helpt the Japanese. I can operate heavy machinery in efforts to clean up. Anyone know if any US private contractors are hiring to help with the aid?
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they mix salt water with boric acid. this is the last resort option.
 
Beowulf said:
I agree. The survival instinct is the same among people worldwide, and just wait till it gets really bad, then you will see some, um, unpleasantness.
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Yeah because it isn't really bad now.... :roll:

The death toll has only doubled Katrina.....still going....And I bet the people in Sendai wish they had a Superdoom to crowd into about now
 
MSNBC is showing pics of Fukushima plant with strange white smoke coming out of reactor number three.
 
Japan redoubles efforts to get control of stricken nuke plant

Published March 17, 2011
| EFE
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Tokyo – The deterioration of one reactor after another at Japan's Fukushima nuclear center on Wednesday continued to feed fears of a pending nuclear disaster as desperate attempts to control a radioactive leak did nothing to provide even a glimmer of hope that the situation would be resolved successfully.

The seriousness of the situation spurred Emperor Akihito to address his countrymen in his first televised message in the 22 years of his reign asking them to keep fighting and help one another in this unprecedented crisis, after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and accompanying tsunami killed or caused to go missing some 12,000 people.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed from its headquarters in Vienna that the No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors at Fukushima are damaged, but it added that it cannot be said that the situation is "out of control."

Measurements of the radioactivity in the vicinity of the plant reached the alarming level of 10,000 microsieverts per hour, a situation that forced authorities to temporarily evacuate plant workers on the scene trying to remedy the situation.

Japanese defense forces sent to the zone a helicopter loaded with seawater to dump onto the center, but that mission ultimately had to be aborted because the radiation was too high even for that type of "stand-off" operation.

Despite the worsening situation at Fukushima, the Japanese government insisted on Wednesday that the radiation levels farther away from the center than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) still do not imply any immediate risk to human health.

But residents of Tokyo - some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from Fukushima - on Wednesday faced the radiation threat by wearing facemasks and by staying off the streets, given that many peoople work from their homes and many foreigners have opted to leave the country.

The man who oversaw the Chernobyl nuclear center between 1986 and 1991, Yuli Andreev, said in an interview with Efe that Japanese authorities have not learned the lessons of the accident in the old Soviet Union.

Andreev said that leaving the handling of a critical situation like Fukushima in the hands of a private company - TEPCO - is reckless.
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Japan redoubles efforts to get control of stricken nuke plant - Fox News Latino
 
I have a feeling before all is said and done there will be a global facepalm at Japan. You would think as serious as this is, Japan would be calling upon the best of the best international nuclear engineers to come in and handle this situation. I assume that TEPCO is the equivalent of Entergy working at ANO??
 
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