Japan Earthquake

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 25 Mar 2011, 22:59

biffvernon on March 14th wrote:There's been a few mentions of the Japan quake being the second most expensive ever, after Katrina.

Insurance value maybe, as it seems the Japanese are habitually under-insured, but my gut feeling is that replacing all that infrastructure and housing, not to mention a nuclear power industry, is going to add up to more than the cost of a fair chunk of New Orleans.

We are now told that the Japanese government has put the rebuilding cost at $309bn (£191.8bn). That's about three times the cost of Katrina. And that probably does not include the fallout from Fukushima, economic or otherwise.

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 26 Mar 2011, 00:59

Candy Wrote:

I wonder who insured them?

Unfortunately same people who insure us, global markets and all that. Means that the insurers will be looking to keep their profits as BAU... so we are screwed too.

Car insurance, home insurance, life insurance etc... it is all owned by the same (b)ankers and we will pay. Not them, for sure.

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 26 Mar 2011, 01:06

Nice:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_against_God

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 27 Mar 2011, 21:03

The Horizon programme on BBC2, just ended, was remarkably good. Geologist Iain Stewart presenting.

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 27 Mar 2011, 22:13

biffvernon wrote:The Horizon programme on BBC2, just ended, was remarkably good. Geologist Iain Stewart presenting.

+1

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 28 Mar 2011, 07:27

The Independent - 28/03/11

Tsunami alert as new quake hits eastern coastline

Article continues ...

Ippoippo · Post by **Ippoippo** » 28 Mar 2011, 08:54

biffvernon wrote:The Horizon programme on BBC2, just ended, was remarkably good. Geologist Iain Stewart presenting.

It was pretty good. There was one on Channel 4, very similar, last Thursday. That one was better. The guy presenting the programme, a seismologist, was in Tokyo at the time the quake happened.

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 28 Mar 2011, 11:44

Don't know about you, but it is very hard to work out what exactly is going on at these nuclear plants.

I find the WSWS one of the best sources.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar20 ... -m28.shtml

What it talks about is outragious, workers given almost no protection! This is shocking.

The implication is that Tepco kept these workers operating in radioactive water for at least three hours without adequate protective clothing and without rotating in a new team to limit the exposure of any individual worker.

A similar picture of the dangers to which workers have been exposed emerges from interviews that the UK-based Sunday Telegraph has managed to conduct with some of those who were sent to Fukushima. The leader of a team of firefighters described spending 26 hours on site with no more protective gear than respirators and normal fire service uniforms. All their clothes were confiscated afterwards because they were contaminated.

Still no sign of a actual improvement in the situation.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 28 Mar 2011, 12:19

The trouble is that there are not many sources of facts. Most of the stuff written is just interpretation of the facts and one has to decide whether the author is a better interpreter of the facts that oneself.

If one is smart about the subject it may be best to go to the original sources, some of which clearly have their own agendas, but you may think you can do the interpretation as well as others.

WSWS is clearly a secondary source, using the same information as you can get directly.

So we are left with the announcements from TEPCO and the Japanese government, as translated by the Japanese media into English. A good deal of judgement has to be used as the the honesty and reliability of these sources.

There's the IAEA, but that is an organization that is very much part of the nuclear industry and will be cautious about rocking boats.

ZAMG are the Austrian-based body responsible for monitoring the atomic weapons proliferation treaty. They have their own instrument network and know what the weather is doing. The remarkable feature of their daily animations is that they show just how lucky the Japanese have been. Every day since the disaster started the prevailing westerly winds have dominated with practically all of the radioactive plume heading out to sea. There have just been occasional eddies returning the pollution to coastal areas north and south of Fukushima.

Had there been a few days of north-easterly wind, bringing that plume over Tokyo, I fancy we would be getting some very different news stories.

ujoni08 · Post by **ujoni08** » 02 Apr 2011, 21:52

All seems quiet in the news at the moment, but there are a few new photos coming out, as can be seen over on chrismartenson.com:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/brea ... sletter_12

'The efforts at Fukushima are probably weeks away from even basic stabilization and we are years away from any sort of a final resolution. This crisis is going to be with all of us for a very long time. Radioactive material will continue to escape from the complex into the environment for weeks at best, months or years at worst.'

Jon

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 02 Apr 2011, 22:22

biffvernon wrote:
Had there been a few days of north-easterly wind, bringing that plume over Tokyo, I fancy we would be getting some very different news stories.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/87

North-easterly forecast for Tokyo tomorrow and Tuesday.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 02 Apr 2011, 22:32

ujoni08 wrote:All seems quiet in the news at the moment, but there are a few new photos coming out, as can be seen over on chrismartenson.com:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/brea ... sletter_12

'The efforts at Fukushima are probably weeks away from even basic stabilization and we are years away from any sort of a final resolution. This crisis is going to be with all of us for a very long time. Radioactive material will continue to escape from the complex into the environment for weeks at best, months or years at worst.'

Jon

If this is true then it will have a big impact on the future of the nuclear power industry. It will destroy what is left of the general public's faith that nuclear is safe. It is hard to play down the risks whilst these reactors in Japan continue to belch radioactive iodine and God knows what else all over the place.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 02 Apr 2011, 22:35

ujoni08 wrote:All seems quiet in the news at the moment,

That is partly because of all the other shit going down at the moment. It's been a while since there was a slow news day.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Jun 2011, 12:03

A remarkable new bit of tsunami video has emerged: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6GzxcXsecg

The big sea wall in the film is said to be 10 metres high. The Japanese met office surveys reveal that the water rose 40.5 metres in one area.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 13 Jun 2011, 12:55

Nature possesses awesome powers to make humans look puny.

PowerSwitch

Japan Earthquake

Fukushima

Re: Fukushima

Re: Fukushima