Archive for April, 2011

Softbank President Masayoshi Son Will Donate 10 Billion Yen to Earthquake Relief Efforts

Entrepreneur Masayoshi Son will be donating 10 billion yen ($119 million) to earthquake relief efforts:

Son will also donate all his earnings until retirement to support orphans, including those who lost their parents in the earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people dead or missing, the company said. Softbank Corp. is the holding company of the Softbank Group, whose core business is cell phone services.

Softbank has already decided to donate ¥1 billion to assist the Japanese Red Cross Society and other volunteer groups helping to pay the medium- and long-term living and education costs of orphans, the company said in a statement.

Son, a Zainichi Korean who naturalized and became Japanese in 1990, is the founder and CEO of the SoftBank Mobile. Forbes ranks him as richest man in Japan and the 112th richest man in the world, with a net worth of approximately $8.1 billion.

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Homemade Evacuation Shelter Saved 70 People From Tsunami

When Higashi Matsushima resident Yoshifumi Sato decided to build his own evacuation shelter 10 years ago, neighbors were skeptical. The area already had an officially designated evacuation shelter, so few people expected that anyone would every use Sato’s shelter.

However, when the tsunami hit on March 11th, the official shelter was overtaken by the waves. Only Sato’s shelter, which stood atop a 30-meter hill, survived. About 70 people spent the night inside it:

Survivors were extremely grateful, and told the media they probably would be dead if they had not gone to Sato’s shelter.

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Using Google Earth to Visualize Japan Earthquake Damage

Professor Hidenori Watanave of Tokyo Metropolitan University’s Graduate School of System Design writes to inform us about two projects that use Google Earth to visualize the damage from the March 11th earthquake and tsunami:

1. Three-dimensional photo-overlays from “The Aftermath in Japan” by New York Times

Users can view 40 photographs from New York Timesusing google earth,
and compare sceneries before / after the earthquake. All photographs
are overlapped with three-dimensional geographical features. The
damage situation of the Sendai airport and the Fukushima nuclear power
plant and others can be understood three-dimensionally. And also, Google’s
imagery update of Japan is included, users can switch latest and past
satellite image by radio-buttons. We will add more photographs as much
as possible.

2. Traffic results information of Japan Earthquake from HONDA & TOYOTA

The traffic results information of the area of devastation of the
Japan Earthquake (daily update) by HONDA and TOYOTA are overlapped
with other geographical data. Available roads and other information
are overlapped, so users can understand the real situation of the area
of devastation easily. Two or more layers can be switching with check
boxes. Please wait for a while until contents are displayed because
the data size is large.

For more details about the project, you can check this site (Japanese).

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How Sand Compaction Piles Saved Tokyo Disneyland From Earthquake Damage

When the March 11th earthquake struck Japan, I was at Tokyo Disneyland. Inside the park, I saw absolutely no damage from the quake, but when I exited Disney and walked around the streets of Urayasu City, I saw quite a bit of cracked and damaged streets. The above photo, which I snapped in front of Maihama Station, demonstrates the effects of soil liquefaction:

The liquefaction left houses and power poles tilting in many areas.

Liquefaction occurs when saturated sandy ground, such as that found in reclaimed land and marshes, is loosened by a strong earthquake. The unconsolidated sand becomes like muddy water. This muddy water gushes up through cracks and opening in sidewalks and roads, and then drains away to leave the sand on the ground.

The latest earthquake caused ground subsidence of up to 50 centimeters, which destroyed underground water and sewerage pipes.

Reclaimed land usually stabilizes with time. Some areas along Tokyo Bay were reclaimed during the Edo period (1603-1867) and before World War II. However, the areas hit hardest by liquefaction during the March 11 earthquake had been reclaimed after the war with sediment taken from the seabed. In those areas, digging down a few meters will reveal a saturated sandy layer.

The Tokyo Disney Resort was also built on recently reclaimed land. Why did it not suffer from liquefaction?

The answer, as explained in this FTV news video, is sand compaction piling:

The sand compaction pile method, developed in Japan about 50 years ago, uses steel pipes to insert large amounts of compacted sand into the ground, strengthening relatively weak soil against liquefaction.

Sand compaction piles were placed under the Tokyo Disney Resort and Haneda Airport, and both survived the earthquake without suffering significant liquefaction damage.

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Prime Minister Kan Caused Nuclear Plant Explosion? Visit to Fukushima Delayed Controlled Release of Vapor

The Yomiuri Shimbun reports that Prime Minister Kan’s visit to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant on March 12th caused workers to delay critical tasks, worsening an already bad situation:

Temperatures and pressures inside the pressure vessels of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors began rising sharply, complicating the injection of cooling water into the reactors. When the level of water in the reactors drops, nuclear fuel rods become exposed, overheat and may start melting, risking damage to the reactor as well as the emission of radioactive substances.

On the night of March 11, TEPCO planned a controlled release of vapor mixed with radioactive substances from the No. 1 reactor, in an operation to decrease pressure in the pressure vessel.

However, the operation was not carried out until 10:17 a.m. the following day, four hours after Prime Minister Naoto Kan left the Prime Minister’s Office to travel to the Fukushima Prefecture plant for an inspection. Also, evacuation of residents in areas within 10 kilometers of the power plant had not been completed at that time.

Then, on the afternoon of March 12, a hydrogen explosion occurred at the No. 1 reactor, destroying the reactor building roof.

Kenzo Miya, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, an expert on nuclear engineering, said the prime minister’s inspection delayed TEPCO’s original plans to vent the pressure vessel.

“Because of the prime minister’s [impending] inspection, the start of the ‘vent’ was delayed. The possibility that the subsequent actions all fell behind can’t be denied,” Miya said.

Haruki Madarame, chairman of the Cabinet Office’s Nuclear Safety Commission, also noted the time-loss disadvantage.

“Work [to conduct the 'vent'] took time to get under way. As a result, several hours were lost before starting to inject seawater [to cool the reactor]. It was a painful incident,” Madarame said, when recalling the situation on the night of March 23.

It would be unfair to blame Kan for what happened, since we do not know if he was told about the importance of venting the gas as soon as possible.

A few days ago, a member of the opposition Your Party criticized Kan’s lack of further visits to the Fukushima area, arguing that the Prime Minister should follow the example of the brave the fictional American president from the “24″ TV series:

“Prime Minister Kan, I imagine you are busy but I think you have time to watch one episode on a DVD if it’s late at night,” mused Mr. Matsuda on his blog Wednesday afternoon. “Please take a look at ‘24’ (season 2).”

Mr. Matsuda, the founder of the Tully’s coffee shop chain in Japan and a novice lawmaker, is referring to an episode when the fictional U.S. President David Palmer declares he will go to and command from Los Angeles immediately amid fears of radioactive fallout to be close to “the people who feel the most uneasy.” Prime Minister Kan made a helicopter visit to the Fukushima area March 12, the day after the earthquake struck, but has yet to return, having postponed a visit planned for March 21.

While the lawmaker, part of the tiny Your Party, recognizes that “24” is not reality, he believes it encapsulates important lessons in crisis management. Mr. Matsuda repeated his proposal that Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano conduct his daily press conference from within the precarious 20 – 30 kilometer radius away from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Kan has since made a visit to command center set up at J-Village, about 20 kilometers from the nuclear plant. Judging from the video of his visit, the radiation levels in that area are low enough that he did not require any protective gear:

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CNN Reports About Anti-TEPCO 2channel Threads

CNN’s Kyung Lah visits a dormitory building in Tokyo owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO):

Residents of the building are not happy about reporters violating their privacy. The nuclear accident in Fukushima has made them a target of anger and threats, so they don’t want the location of their homes broadcasted on television. Lah, who is standing in and practically blocking the entrance of the building, doesn’t understand why they are asking her to leave a “public street.”

While TEPCO certainly needs to be scrutinized, it’s unclear what Lah meant to accomplish by ambushing low level employees as they entered or left their company dormitory. Maybe she expected that they would get angry and call the police, giving her some dramatic footage to include in her report?

They also report about death threats being posted on “numerous Japanese internet chat sites”, but only show footage of threads on the anonymous 2ch.net bulletin board. They zoom in on a few death threats and postings of private information about company executives. The addresses of the company executives were posted on a site that has since been deleted.

Japanese police tell them not to broadcast the video they’ve taken at the dormitory. CNN broadcasts it anyway, including the name of the building and the faces of several TEPCO employees.

Japan apparently has very strict laws regarding privacy and image rights, so when the Japanese media reports about scandals, it is usually very careful about what footage it includes. The names of buildings and surrounding scenery are often blurred so as to not reveal the exact location being filmed. They also typically do not show the faces of people interviewed, so as to protect their identities.

[hat tip to Kei]

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