News Japan - March

GEJET
Fukushima cleanup

Before and right after pictures of tsunami area

Noda comments on tsunami – CNN perspective

Noda comments on tsunami - Dutch perspective

Translation:

Prime minister Japan acknowledges failing government after tsunami

Prime minister Yoshihiko Noda admits that the Japanese government has failed in her reaction to the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. Important information was communicated too late and the ‘safety myth’ of nuclear energy was believed too long. “We can no longer use the excuse that what has happened was unpredictable and more than we could imagine”, Noda said on Saturday to journalists. “Crisis management demands that we imagine what might be unimaginable.” ‘Soteigai’ or ‘beyond our imagination’ was the term used often by the electrical company Tepco to explain why it wasn’t prepared for the tsunami that followed the heavy earthquake of 11 March. Noda said that Japan has learned important lessons to be better prepared for tsunami and power outages. Due to the power outages after the tsunami several reactors in Fukushima became overheated, creating the worst nuclear disaster since Tsjernobyl.

Japan

Numbers of young scientists declining in Japan

Land prices rising

Disaster aid vending machine

New faults discovered near Japan coast

Chiba population in decline

Field Trip to Chuugoku and Kinki region - day 4

Kobe is a very long and stretched city, squeezed between the Northern mountains and the Southern harbors. I could see across the bay to Osaka and other parts of Honshu island. The Jica building was next door to the earthquake disaster prevention center. It was tragic to learn that since the Kobe earthquake in 1995, even though many houses were refurbished and reinforced, if a similar earthquake would strike nowadays there would still not be enough evacuation centers to take care of all the evacuees, wounded or not. The National Seismic Hazard Map pointed out that Tsukuba is just in a higher risk area; however it's dated 2009. The center also featured informative and playful ways to demonstrate the effects of earthquakes.

Our final stop was East of Osaka, at the Kamenose landslide area. Since the 1950s, pillars worth 40 million euro each have been put into the mountain. The top sand layer of the mountain has been removed, and an intricate network of tunnels and filters has been installed, all in order to prevent landslides. The Yamato river, whose basin originates in the Nara area, has only one way to flow to the ocean. This is at the Kamenose landslide area, where two mountain ranges are briefly intersected by this river. Should a landslide occur, then the single most transportation route for humans and the river would be cut off as a natural dam would be created, and the Nara area would become a lake. Aside from the information hall, we also got to walk inside one of the tunnels themselves. Strangely enough, after these tunnels are constructed, there is no further removal of soil. Supposedly the inflow is stopped by filters. Afterwards we traveled back by shinkansen once more.

Field Trip to Chuugoku and Kinki region - day 2

After staying the night in Matsue city, we visited the Ohashi river community center, the construction site of the Hii river diversion channel, and the Obara Dam.

We strolled along the river connecting Shinji lake and Nakaumi lake. Matsue city lies on both sides of the river, making it prone to floods. It has been decided that the river should be widened, and people close to the river front have to move elsewhere. The Western Shinji lake is slightly salty, about one tenth of the ocean, and the Eastern Nakaumi lake about one third. Signs and stickers along the riverfront warn about how high previous floods were. There are several measuring stations and data collection houses scattered along the way.

In the river community center a model showed us the three different measures taken after the prefecture governor decided in 1972 that the floods must be reduced. Only just now the measures are being completed. Aside from the national policy to protect certain species, a yearly study is conducted to inventory the riverside insects and monitor their presence.

Driving on the highway to the diversion channel, we could see many sabo works preventing landslides and crazy high connecting streets. 'High' way is taken too literally. The 13 km long diversion channel is nearly finished and will transport excess water from the Hii river to the Kando river, more to the West. During this final construction phase the main dam is created.

At the Obara dam we learned it became operational only two weeks ago with a successful stress test of the strength of the concrete. The orange buoys are to prevent trees and other debris swept along the rivers from hitting the dam. The MLIT officer was very proud that current day computers were so small, as they would have been bigger than himself 15 years ago. Even so, should the computer operating system fail, there is still a mechanical safety system in place that can be operated with keys, conveniently placed below the switches. The snow on the slopes hinted at what was still to come.

We rode by bus over the Honshu island from North to South, following the track of the Hii river by highway 54. As the altitude increased, naturally the river became smaller and we saw more and more snow. Halfway in the mountains, we arrived at a Kando river lake. At Miyoshi we switched to the JCT tollway again all the way to Hiroshima. The JICA building itself was in Higashi Hiroshima however, and in the middle of nowhere.

Rather than partying it out again, we decided to stay in and connect to our friends online. At this time, just before 21:00 in the evening, most of us heard of the big earthquake in Sanriku oki, of 6.8 and shindou 4. Not soon after, the next big one struck home. An earthquake of 6.1 at Chiba ken Toho-oki, with shindou 5+! Apparently it was a little scary, but nothing fell out of the cupboards. One thing was proven once more: magnitude means nothing, it's the local shindou that affects the earthquake experience the most. Given the experiences of the students on a field trip last year, I was worried to get home alright if the earthquakes kept increasing. 30 aftershocks later, it seemed to be decreasing.