Archive for April, 2011

Japan Self-Defense Forces Radiation Safety Procedures

A short clip shows how members of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are working hard to prevent radioactive contamination:

Vehicles and persons are sprayed with water to remove radioactive particles. Every vehicle and person are checked for radiation. Of course, the soldiers are also all wearing protective gear.

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Child Modeling Agencies Suffer After Foreign Parents Flee Japan

A report from Japan’s NTV news mentions the impact that foreign fearfulness is having on tourism, the modeling industry, and art exhibitions:

• Asakusa is usually packed with tourists, but that hasn’t been the case lately. The situation is explained by Patrick Lovell, a tour guide for Japan Walk-Caster. Lovell says that 99% of tour reservations for May, June, and July have been cancelled.
• The Sugar & Spice Modeling Agency says that about 90% of its foreign child models are no longer available. Their panic-stricken parents have taken them to other countries because of radiation fears. The agency is now relying on Japanese or Half-Japanese models, and only probably only make about 50% of what it was making prior to the earthquake.
• The Yokohama Museum of Art was supposed to begin its “Pushkin: Masterpieces of French Paintings from the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow” exhibition on April 2nd. However, the exhibition has been postponed because the Russian government decided it would not be safe to lend the paintings. Art exhibitions in Okayama and Hiroshima have also been postponed or cancelled for similar reasons.

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Shanghai Motor Show: Foreign Cars Scanned For Radiation

The 2011 Shanghai Motor Show has begun. ATV reports that Chinese authorities have been using geiger counters to scan every vehicle imported for display at the show:

The radiation scans are apparently not limited to Japanese cars. Every foreign car is being scanned.

In late March, Chinese authorities turned away a Mitsui container ship after claiming that they detected 3.5 microsieverts per hour on the ship. The ship has stopped in Tokyo on March 17th.

On Monday, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association announced that it had begun radiation testing on all vehicle shipments for export and the domestic market.

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March 11th Earthquake Caused Parts of Japan to Sink into the Sea

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan caused large parts of Tohoku to sink. In most areas, the ground has only dropped a few centimeters, making the change barely noticeable. However, as this report from ATV shows, some coastal areas have sunk to below sea level, leaving them permanently flooded:

Their reporter visits an area of Ishinomaki city. The neighborhood was spared from the full force the tsunami, but its drop in elevation has left it flooded. Depth of the water changes as the tides come in and out. In one spot, a manhole seems to be sticking out of the ground. Residents originally believed that the earthquake had pushed the manhole out of the ground, but in reality, the ground had sunk and the manhole had remained in place.

One man says he and his family have given up on the first floor of their house. They are living on the second floor. Their dog spends his time on the roof. The water that floods the streets is usually dirty and foul-smelling.

Back in the studio, we are shown a computer generated example of the sinking:

The worst sinking- 84 centimeters (2.75 feet) – occurred in part of Rikuzentakata city. That’s about as tall as a bicycle.

From Kyodo:

The largest fall of 84 cm was observed in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, followed by 78 cm in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, said the institute that released the findings of its survey which used the global positioning system.

A drop of 29 cm was also found in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, it said.

The drops were caused by a sharp movement of plates below the Tohoku region in northeastern Japan due to the magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11.

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Concert For Japanese Troops

On April 16th, Japanese singer-songwriter Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi visited Miyagi prefecture and put on a special concert for members of the Self-Defense Forces:

About 1,500 men and women of the SDF attended the concert, singing along with some of the songs.

Over 100,000 members of the SDF have been deployed in Tohoku to assist in rescue, relief, rebuilding efforts. Media coverage about the SDF has been quite positive, and it might be fair to say that this disaster has helped improve the public image of the Japanese armed forces.

Related Video: Here’s a video tribute to the SDF’s relief efforts (created by the United States Navy):

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Japan’s Struggling Tourism Industry

ATV reports about a 50.3% decrease in the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan in March:

The graph below breaks down decreases in tourism by nationality (red = March 2010 / blue = March 2011):

Tourists from the South Korea, China, and the United States have dropped by nearly 50%. The decrease in tourists from France and Germany is nearly 60%.

They provide the numbers about falling foreign tourism as an intro to a piece about how a movie is being used to promote Yamanashi prefecture’s Isawa Onsen. After the earthquake, resort hotels in the area experienced a huge amount of cancellations. It is hoped that the problem can be fixed with movie that uses the area’s natural beauty as a setting. The movie, entitled “Marriage Supporter Girls” (婚活サポーターガールズ), appears to be aimed a domestic audience. There is no mention of foreign tourists.

After the segment, anchors in the news studio resume a discussion about foreign tourists. One claims that news reports about the situation in Japan has been “particularly terrible” in Germany, and that most of the fear about coming to visit Japan is based on a “misunderstanding” of the situation. He thinks that the Japanese government is not trusted by the international media, so any efforts from the national government to correct the misunderstandings will not succeed. Creative marketing efforts by local tourism boards will probably have better results.

Here’s a bit more information, from the Yomiuri:

According to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey, at least 80,000 foreigners have called off visiting Japan and canceled hotel bookings and tours since the Great East Japan Earthquake. Some foreign airlines have also canceled flights to this country.

Many business operators in domestic tourist spots have blamed their plight on damage caused by rumors about the ongoing crisis at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

“I’ve never experienced this before,” said a 59-year-old employee at Suzuya, a souvenir shop in Asakusa, Tokyo, that opened during the early Showa era (1926-1989). She glanced down the normally packed Nakamise shopping street leading to Sensoji temple, but the street was almost deserted.

Suzuya’s sales since the March 11 disaster have dropped more than 90 percent, and it is selling rice and vegetables to stay afloat.

The Noboribetsu hot spring resort in Hokkaido usually attracts about 200,000 overseas tourists per year, but more than 20,000 tourists–mainly from South Korea and Taiwan–canceled their reservations at hotels and inns in the wake of the disaster.

“The whole nation is being affected by rumors exaggerating the danger of visiting because of the nuclear plant accident,” an official of the Noboribetsu Tourist Association said.

Okinawa Prefecture is nowhere near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, but it saw more than 10,000 cancelations by overseas tourists in the weeks up until April 8.

In Tokyo, the number of non-Japanese taking Hato bus tours to sightseeing spots in the capital and surrounding areas has decreased to an average five people per day, according to Hato Bus Co.

The Japanese media has also been reporting a great deal about the troubles facing the domestic tourism industry. I haven’t seen exact stats about the decline, but I’d guess it’s just as damaging as the decrease in foreign tourism.

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