Complete with patch – more surgical than piratical — the premier later explained to reporters that the self-inflicted blow came in the dark as he rushed to try to pick up an unexpected call.
“The phone suddenly rang in the middle of the night,” the prime minister explained, “so I got up and rushed to get it, and then bumped into a pillar.”
If you’ve been watching the news the last few days, chances are you’ve heard about that researchers are now saying that Tokyo is facing a 70% chance of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in the next four years:
The preliminary calculations conducted by a team from the university’s Earthquake Research Institute were based on intensified seismic activity in the area after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11.
The findings are more dire than a similar estimate by the central government’s Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion, which states there is a 70 percent chance a quake of the same scale will hit the southern Kanto region, including the metropolitan area, within 30 years.
Sounds pretty scary. Should we believe the forecast? Not necessarily.
When one compares the Japanese government’s national seismic hazard map to the actual areas where large earthquakes have occurred in the last 30 years, one notices the problem:
“Although such maps may seem authoritative, a model is just a model until the methods used to produce it have been verified. The regions assessed as most dangerous are the zones of three hypothetical ‘scenario earthquakes’ (Tokai, Tonankai and Nankai; see map). However, since 1979, earthquakes that caused 10 or more fatalities in Japan actually occurred in places assigned a relatively low probability. This discrepancy — the latest in a string of negative results for the characteristic earthquake model and its cousin, the seismic-gap model — strongly suggests that the hazard map and the methods used to produce it are flawed and should be discarded.”
Very general predictions are possible:
“If global seismicity and the historical record in Tohoku had been used as the basis for estimating seismic hazards, the 11 March Tohoku earthquake could easily have been ‘foreseen’ in a general way, although not of course its particular time, epicentre or magnitude.”
But the Japanese government continues to rely on methods that attempt – and apparently fail – to predict earthquakes of specific magnitudes taking place in specific regions.
“All of Japan is at risk from earthquakes, and the present state of seismological science does not allow us to reliably differentiate the risk level in particular geographic areas. We should instead tell the public and the government to ‘prepare for the unexpected’ and do our best to communicate both what we know and what we do not. “
Much of Geller’s article focuses on the Japanese government’s official Tokai earthquake prediction. However, the general message is clear: there is no reliable method for forecasting earthquakes.
The latest forecast for Tokyo does not appear to represent a sudden new breakthrough in the field of earthquake predictions. What’s new about it is that heavy emphasis is placed on the increase in seismic activity that occurred in the 6 months following the March 11th disaster. [For a detailed analysis of the forecast - see this post. ]
Some of the articles about the new Tokyo prediction have presented it alongside the highly questionable Tokai earthquake prediction. Both predictions are based on methods that have not been verified as accurate.
Don’t trust the hype. Big earthquakes do happen in Japan, but experts do not know where and when the next big one will occur. If you live in Japan, be prepared for earthquakes, even if you’re outside of what have been deemed high risk areas.
Are you wondering how a group at the Tokyo University Earthquake Research Institute (ERI) calculated a 70% chance of a Magnitude 7 quake occurring in the Tokyo area within the next four years? If so, take a look at the above plot of historical Japanese earthquake data that compares the number of quakes per year to the total energy released by each quake.
First of all, ERI didn’t do this from scratch. They started with a potentially flawed government calculation and suggested a new value based on recent observations. This new value is 98% chance within 30 years, which translates to 70% in 4.
Now to the plot. let’s consider the filled symbols, which represent data spanning as much as the past 55 years, up to 2010. The frequency of earthquakes rapidly and predictably decreases with magnitude, meaning larger quakes happen much less often than smaller ones. The relationship between frequency and magnitude is shown by the dashed lines. One line doesn’t fit the entire dataset. Rather, the occurrence of quakes in excess of M4 decreases more rapidly with size (and therefore plot along a different line).
Next, let’s look at the open blue circles, which are about 6 months worth of data, from March 11 to August 1, 2011. As you can see, these data exhibit a similar slope but plot significantly higher than the pre-3/11 data. This indicates that higher-magnitude earthquakes have occurred more frequently since 3/11, a fact of which anyone living in eastern Japan is keenly aware. There appear to be too few occurrences of quakes larger than M4 to calculate a robust fit, (i.e., no corresponding dashed line) though it appears that the slope for the larger quakes is also similar to the pre-3/11 data.
Finally, we come to the new prediction. In the bottom right of the plot, the government’s official prediction of a M6.7 – 7.2 quake occurring in Tokyo is overlain as a yellow star and horizontal solid line. The folks at ERI simply recalculated this based on the equation for the extrapolated fit between earthquake frequency and magnitude since 3/11.
There you have it. That’s how they did it. But is it correct?
I’d argue that this analysis, while interesting, contains several important flaws.
The new prediction is based on extrapolation from a perturbed state. That is, the frequency of earthquakes is currently elevated but likely to drop to normal over time.
It is based on very few observations.
It is based on extrapolation beyond the limits of the data.
It appears to be based on an inappropriate equation (the M4 and smaller frequency/magnitude relationship).
It does not account for uncertainty.
Most importantly, the correlation between frequency and magnitude breaks down for large quakes in the pre-Tohoku dataset, and if calculated, would be significantly lower for the M4 and greater quakes since 3/11. Could this increased uncertainty yield a result that is statistically indistinguishable from the government’s prediction? Maybe, but without the raw data, I can’t say for sure.
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Contributor Bio: Steve has been splitting time between the US and Japan for the past 10 years or so and is now a researcher at a Japanese university.
Kentucky Fried Chicken has brought its famous Double Down sandwich to Japan. Who needs bread when you can have healthy pieces of fried chicken instead?
It’s currently available only at the KFC near Sunshine City in Ikebukuro. Double Downs will be available at stores across Japan starting on February 2nd.
Here’s a TV news report about it, which also mentions that McDonald’s Japan is offering 100 yen chicken nuggets until January 26th:
As you can see from the video, the promo branch near Sunshine City has been totally redecorated to celebrate the Double Down. The sandwich will be sold under the name “Chicken Fillet Double.”
A quick update on the ongoing tale of Christopher Johnson, a freelance journalist whose Narita Airport “Gaijin Gulag” story has been picked up by several major news websites (The Economist, Boing Boing, Reddit).
In my last post, I noted that Johnson’s refusal to disclose his visa status had created considerable controversy about his account of detention and deportation.
Johnson’s article is an ever-evolving work. He has been constantly editing his blog post, changing the wording of old passages and adding new information. His latest edit may have answered the big question about his visa.
It now has a new passage (emphasis added):
Though I had work visas dating back to 1989, and papers saying the government had acknowledged the receipt of my application to renew my work visa, I was detained at Narita airport and expelled.
If this is correct, it seems to confirm what many people had suspected: Johnson did not have a valid work visa. Paperwork stating that the government had received an application does not grant permission to enter the country. Should immigration officers have assumed that the application would be accepted? [UPDATE: Less than two hours have passed since I made this post, and Johnson has DELETED the above-mentioned passage from his blog post! Just how are we supposed to explain that? ]
I have been in similar situation. I applied for a visa renewal but during the month that it took to process the paperwork, my previous visa expired. I was told that I could remain in the country until I received the results of the renewal application. The validity of the re-entry permit in my passport was tied to the date of the previous visa. So if I left the country during that week of “limbo” between visas, there was a high risk that I might not be allowed back in. I was also not supposed to engage in work during the period between visas. If Johnson’s case was the same, it is baffling that he left the country before the new visa had been approved.
Oddly enough, Johnson has not changed an older passage about the visa situation:
I first had a work visa for Japan in 1989, and my last renewal began in 2008. I have never overstayed, and never broken laws in Japan.
Did he apply for a renewal in 2008 and not receive a response until 2011? I might be safe to assume that one of the two passages is wrong. Maybe the most recent one? It sure is hard to fully understand a situation when the details keep changing…
Johnson also added a passage about a “similar” case (taken from a credible source – an anonymous internet comment):
In an account similar to my own, a Canadian using the pseudonym “mxlx3″ explained his ordeal in a comment to The Economist’s Banyan blog. After 11 years working legally and paying taxes in Japan, he lost his $125,000 per year job, all his possessions in his apartment, and his Japanese fiancee, because bureaucrats messed up his renewal for a work permit. After his sponsored work visa expired, immigration officers told him to leave Japan and come back on a tourist visa while his new employment visa was being processed. But upon returning from Guam in 2002, he was detained and expelled.
Johnson has stated today that his visa status “has been explained,” but questions remain: had the previous visa expired? Why had he left the country before the renewal was processed?
Part II: Johnson Changes His Story Again
Update [Jan. 26]: For the past several days, a user called “imcanjapn” had been leaving comments on the Economist’s website, closely mirroring Christopher Johnson’s statements on other sites. After several users claimed to have “outed” him as Johnson’s sockpuppet account, he disappeared.
Now, Johnson himself has appeared on that comment thread, making new claims about his visa status:
Those who accused me of doing “visa runs”, “over-staying” or “gaming the system” for 22 years have been proven false. I had work visas dating back to 1989, and documents from the immigration department regional office in Tokyo in 2011 that acknowledged they were processing my application to renew my visa to continue working legally in Japan as a freelance journalist. Under new regulations, I was allowed to keep my passport during this time. Immigration officers in Tokyo kindly told me several times I could leave and return to Japan during this process, thanks to new procedures. I had no problem returning to Japan, on this same basis, from trips to Canada and Germany in 2011.
Commenting on the older version of his article, which stated that he several beers on the short morning flight, Johnson claimed that he was “not drunk or high upon arrival at Narita.”
He continues to claim that officials did not tell him the reason why he was given an expulsion order. Once again, he has implied that the Japanese government was out to get him because of his heroic truth-telling. Supposedly, Johnson used to work for NHK World, but was “blacklisted” by them because he started spreading the word about how NHK was “squandering of millions of yen of taxpayers funds on cash-cow programs which can’t be seen in Japan.” (Isn’t that the whole point of NHK World – to make programs for an audience outside Japan?)
If his latest claim about visa status is true, one wonders why he has evaded answering questions about his visa. Why would he hide that information, and lash out at people who asked about it? Why in the world would he leave such critical details out of the original version of his story. It makes no sense at all. Few of his critics are likely to trust him now.
“Maybe Chris Johnson was lucky on his earlier entries, maybe they were during the life of the previous visa, or maybe the decision not to allow his renewal was made coincidentally during his time in Korea. Maybe he misunderstood what Immigration were telling him, and looked at it all a bit too optimistically.
Or maybe it is a global world conspiracy by NHK, Serbians and the nuclear industry specifically targetting him. I wonder which is more likely.”
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Extra: Unlike those other foreigners…..
Update: Reading over Johnson’s article, I noticed one interesting passage in his blog post (emphasis added):
But I didn’t flee Japan like thousands of foreigners after the March 11 disasters. I made personal sacrifices to tell the world about the plight of disaster victims, to generate sympathy for Japan. I earned income from sources outside Japan, and spent it inside Japan.
I thought this whole “flyjin” issue was behind most of us, but since Johnson wants to bring it up, let’s take a look at the record. Some quick Googling found that Johnson did indeed stay in Japan after the disaster. However, while millions of us stayed at our homes and workplaces in Tokyo, Johnson joined the panic-stricken and got the got on a bullet train.
On March 16th, Canada’s CTV network aired a telephone interview with Johnson, who has bravely decided to stay in the city of Hamamatsu..which he claims could still be in harm’s way. Johnson implies that the people who didn’t flee Tokyo were the ones who had given in to fear.
(In the video, CTV has erroneously included “On the line from: Tokyo” at the top of the screen.)
—-Begin Transcript——
News anchor asked him how close he is to the exposed areas.
CHRIS JOHNSON: “…I’m not sure if I’m in the exposed area or not…..[explains that Hamamatsu is "a little over a hundred kilometers" southwest of Tokyo]…I decided to come here so that I could still be close to Tokyo but…uh…I wanted to get out before there was any sort of mass attempt at an escape…[mentions strong winds near Hamamatsu]….But if…if there is a meltdown, I am going to try to get down to Osaka or anywhere south, if I can.”
News anchor asked him if he is personally concerned.
CHRIS JOHNSON: “I think everybody is…COUGH excuse me..I am one of the LAST people I know to leave Tokyo. All my friends left earlier. Basically anybody that had small children we-were leaving. When I took the bullet train, the high speed Shinkansen bullet train here, it was just full of Japanese mothers with their babies. While their husbands were still working in Tokyo today. But even…uh…Sony for example..uhm..normally has 6,000 people working at their headquarters. They only had about 120 today. Everybody else has left.”
News anchor asks where people are going.
CHRIS JOHNSON: “They try to go to where they have relatives in other parts of the country that are outside the disaster zone. Or a lot of them go to Osaka, stay in hotels. In fact, I am told the Austrian embassy has relocated to Osaka. A lot of foreign journalists have moved down there too. So everybody is just sort of waiting and watching…and uh..fearful about the situation. But there are a lot of people still in Tokyo and a lot of people are not able to leave. They don’t know where to go. They don’t have a lot of money and a lot of people are sort of paralyzed with with shock and fear…”
—-End Transcript——
There you have it: Christopher Johnson did not flee Japan like thousands of other foreigners. No way. He only contributed to the English language news reports that exaggerated the exodus from Tokyo and encouraged others to flee. For his heroic service, he apparently deserves special treatment at immigration checkpoints.
For the latest information, check out these discussion threads about Johnson’s article:
