Ontake

[wagyl]

Fresh news, so few details. Eruption, but I can't really say to what extent.

The Meteorology Agency is currently just giving a Level 3 (do not approach the mountain, but not a call to evacuate), but NHK say in Japanese that at least eight are reported injured, three of them unable to move. Clickbaitiste extraordinaire Buzzfeed is accumulating stuff from Twitter (warning filming in portrait).

[Mike Oxlong]

Volcano erupts in central Japan; several injured, aircraft diverted

A volcano in central Japan erupted on Saturday injuring at least eight people and forced aircraft to divert flying routes to void the billowing ash cloud.

The Meteorological Agency said Mt Ontake, which straddles Nagano and Gifu prefectures, erupted at around 11:53 a.m., sending smoke down the mountain’s south slope for more than three kilometers.

“Seven people were lightly injured and one person suffered serious injuries as a result of the eruption,” Makoto Hasegawa of the Nagano Prefecture fire department told Reuters.

The eruption is still taking place, he said.

“Aircraft are diverting their flying routes to avoid the ash cloud,” said Hasegawa.

NHK public broadcaster showed footage of the 3,067-meter mountain sending thick, grey smoke into the air.

Mt Ontake is located some 200 kilometers west of Tokyo. No nuclear power plants are located nearby.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/nati ... t-diverted

[wagyl]

No nuclear power plants are located nearby.

Oh For Fuck's Sake! Hamaoka is about the same distance from Ontake as Fukushima Daiichi was from the epicenter of the Tohoku Earthquake. So can we say that no nuclear power plants were located near the Tohoku Earthquake?

There are, however, a number of hydroelectric plants nearby where the dam walls might not be able to hold* in the event of a flow of volcanic material, flooding the populous valleys downstream. Why don't you tell us about that, Mr News?

* pure conjecture and scaremongering on my part.

[Yokohammer]

Just watching this on the news. Looks like a pretty major eruption from multiple vents.


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[Yokohammer]

They're saying that there have been volcanic tremors going on as of the 10th of this month, and "caution was advised" ... So why the fuck were people up there enjoying a leisurely Saturday afternoon hike?


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[Hijinx]

Glad I climbed that one last year.

[wagyl]

They're saying that there have been volcanic tremors going on as of the 10th of this month, and "caution was advised" ... So why the fuck were people up there enjoying a leisurely Saturday afternoon hike?

There is no record of any past cautions being given in relation to volcanic activity http://www.data.jma.go.jp/svd/vois/data ... keiho.html unlike, for example, Kusatsu Shirane which still has a Level 4 (do not approach crater, in effect a 1 Km radius no go zone) which has closed the car park and walk tracks and resthouse/souvenirs for over three months now. I somehow think that the "caution" which was advised was no more than the usual level of cover your arse/nanny state caution that is usually given. The ropeway certainly appears to have only just cancelled an event scheduled for tomorrow, due to the eruption http://www.ontakerope.co.jp/ and appear to have been operating this morning. Indeed they are tweeting a link to Green Season discount tickets not 20 minutes ago https://twitter.com/ONTAKEROPEWAY

[Yokohammer]

They're saying that there have been volcanic tremors going on as of the 10th of this month, and "caution was advised" ... So why the fuck were people up there enjoying a leisurely Saturday afternoon hike?

There is no record of any past cautions being given in relation to volcanic activity http://www.data.jma.go.jp/svd/vois/data ... keiho.html unlike, for example, Kusatsu Shirane which still has a Level 4 (do not approach crater, in effect a 1 Km radius no go zone) which has closed the car park and walk tracks and resthouse/souvenirs for over three months now. i somehow think that the "caution" which was advised was no more than the usual level of cover your arse/nanny state caution that is usually given. The ropeway certainly appears to have only just cancelled an event scheduled for tomorrow, due to the eruption http://www.ontakerope.co.jp/

WTF? The eruption alert for the eruption that occurred at 11:53 was issued at 12:36?

The comment about volcanic tremors since the 10th comes from NHK, and it was accompanied by a telop so I assumed it was an important point.

Somewhat confused about the handling of this one.


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[wagyl]

They have a 30 minute delay in issuing the cautions to hide the fact that they organised it in advance through the HAARP project assess the proper level of warning, type out all that detail and get the necessary hankos.



Erratum: Kusastu Shirane is at Level 2, not 4. The 1 Km radius restriction is correct, I made an error with the number of the level. Level 1 is closest to normal, Level 5 is run for your life.

[Yokohammer]

Ah-ha ... I now have reason to believe that NHK completely screwed up that comment. They're now saying that tremors were occurring as of 10 minutes before the eruption.

BTW, that was a 43 minute delay. I sure hope they're planning to skip the typing and hanko bit if, say, North Korea decides to fling a nuke at us, or something.

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[Mike Oxlong]

Over 30 feared dead after Japan volcano spews ash and rock

More than 30 people were feared dead on Sunday near the peak of the Japanese volcano that erupted a day earlier, sending a huge cloud of ash and rock tumbling down its slopes, while packed with hikers.

Police said they were found in a state of "cardiopulmonary" arrest, but declined to confirm their deaths pending a formal examination, as per Japanese custom.

Hundreds of people, including children, were stranded on Mount Ontake after it erupted without warning on Saturday, sending ash pouring down the slope for more than 3 km (2 miles.)

Most made their way down that evening but at least 30 spent the night near the 3,067 meter (10,062 feet) peak.

More than 40 people were injured, several with broken bones, and authorities were trying to confirm the whereabouts of 45 people, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said earlier.

The volcano was still erupting on Sunday, pouring smoke and ash hundreds of meters into the sky. Ash was found on cars as far as 80 km (50 miles) away.

Volcanoes erupt periodically in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active nations, but there have been no fatalities since 1991, when 43 people died in a pyroclastic flow, a superheated current of gas and rock, at Mount Unzen in southwestern Japan.

Satoshi Saito, a 52-year-old hiker who climbed Ontake on Saturday and descended less than an hour before the eruption, said the weather was good and the mountain, known for its fall foliage, was crowded with people bearing cameras.

"There were no earthquakes or strange smells on the mountain when I was there," Saito, who usually climbs Ontake several times a year, told Reuters, adding that there were no warnings of possible eruptions posted on the trail.

"But a man who runs a hotel near the mountain told me that the number of small earthquakes had risen these past two months, and everyone thought it was weird."

Video footage on the internet showed huge gray clouds boiling towards climbers at the peak and people scrambling to descend as blackness enveloped them.

Footage on NHK national television showed windows in a mountain lodge darkening and people screaming as heavy objects pelted the roof.

"All of a sudden ash piled up so quickly that we couldn't even open the door," Shuichi Mukai, who worked in a mountain lodge just below the peak, told Reuters. The building quickly filled with hikers taking refuge.

"We were really packed in here, maybe 150 people. There were some children crying, but most people were calm. We waited there in hard hats until they told us it was safe to come down."

The mountain, some 200 km (125 miles) west of Tokyo, is a popular site to view autumn foliage.

Flights at Tokyo's Haneda airport suffered delays as planes changed routes to avoid the peak, which straddles Nagano and Gifu prefectures, but were mostly back to normal by Sunday, an airport spokeswoman said.

An official at the volcano division of the Japan Meteorological Agency said that, while there had been a rising number of small earthquakes detected at Ontake since Sept. 10, the eruption could not have been predicted easily.

"There were no other signs of an imminent eruption, such as earth movements or changes on the mountain's surface," the official told Reuters. "With only the earthquakes, we couldn't really say this would lead to an eruption."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/ ... 5K20140928

[dimwit]

That is kind of weird. 30 people are in cardiac arrest but somehow that is different from dead. As far as it being a Japanese custom, I don't recall them talking about 10,000 people in Tohoku suffering from cardiopulmonary arrest. I guess phreatic eruptions are required.

[wagyl]

It is just like all those people transported to hospital but declared dead on arrival. The paramedics are not murderous fools, it is just that a person with certain qualification has to be the one to certify death, and they are not on mountains, at the scenes of the various accidents, or riding in the back of ambulances.

Basically, you are not dead until I tell you you are, OK?

The other way to look at it:

in Japan officialdom, nuclear meltdown not ongoing, poverty and crime not increasing, #Ontake hikers not dead. Tokyo media parlay fairytale

[Russell]

It is just like all those people transported to hospital but declared dead on arrival. The paramedics are not murderous fools, it is just that a person with certain qualification has to be the one to certify death, and they are not on mountains, at the scenes of the various accidents, or riding in the back of ambulances.

Basically, you are not dead until I tell you you are, OK?

The other way to look at it:

in Japan officialdom, nuclear meltdown not ongoing, poverty and crime not increasing, #Ontake hikers not dead. Tokyo media parlay fairytale

It's somewhat like quantum physics.

With Schrödinger's cat and all...

[dimwit]

The not dead yet count still stands at 27 two days after the eruption. Zombies maybe?

[Hijinx]

Still in a euphemistic "cardiac arrest."

[Taro Toporific]

To quote the masters, “RUN AWAY!!”

run-away.jpg

[matsuki]

The not dead yet count still stands at 27 two days after the eruption. Zombies maybe?

This is the land of the walking dead

[Russell]

More people with cardiac arrest found

Latest news: they could not be revived...

[Mike Oxlong]

[wagyl]

I just found out about two people I know, who, while it might have felt for them that their hearts stopped for a moment, their hearts are pumping as usual now. Just before lunch is naturally the time that you aim to be at the summit. Luckily, they were delayed en route, and got dusty at 8-gome. The duco on the car did not survive, however.

[Mike Oxlong]

Mt. Ontake Eruption: God of the Foundation of the Land Decapited by a Volcanic Rock

The statue of the god, 国之常立神（"god that always stands on the land"）, on top of Mt. Ontake is still standing, but without the head. The photo was taken by Mainichi Shinbun, shared on Twitter by @Santou.

I thought this was rather symbolic.



So far, 51 people are (finally) confirmed dead. There are still 15 people missing. From what I have read in the newspapers, there may have been people who may have been alive if they had been rescued earlier. But it seems to be "safety first" and foremost for the rescue workers including fire fighters and Self Defense Force, from the start.

The maximum density of hydrogen sulfide deemed safe by the government law (Industrial Safety and Health Law) is 10 ppm. Not so for the fire fighters, who decided to be very safe and use 5 ppm as the max they would tolerate. Not so for the Self Defense Force, who decided to be even safer than the fire fighters and use the ridiculously low 1 ppm. So, they evacuated from the mountain when their finely tuned instrument showed the density to be slightly over 2 ppm.

There is something that doesn't make sense about the rescue effort by the national government and the local municipalities.

http://ex-skf.blogspot.jp/2014/10/ot-mt ... ation.html

[Wage Slave]

The second comment:

"Anonymous said...
Maybe the statue is demonstrating that the God of Land has acquiesced to the total moral depravity of Japan.

The damage Japan has wrought upon itself is truly biblical. Hellfire and brimstone rain down - self inflicted misery."

What on earth can it mean? Moral depravity? What? Where? And why can't I have some?

[Mike Oxlong]

For me it was the image juxtaposition. Coming from North America, my own image of rescue workers is of people who rush into harm's way without regard for their own personal safety (besides equipment and training and teamwork) to help others. That blog post gave the opposite image.

[Wage Slave]

I can see how it might look like that. However, having worked on oil rigs I know just how deadly Hydrogen Sulphide is. It incapacitates in a matter of a few seconds and kills in a minute or so and frighteningly low concentrations. And it doesn't matter how strong and brave you are. The only way to survive is don full face breathing apparatus and move away from it. An full air cylinder will give you perhaps 40 minutes assuming light physical exertion.

Now, nature is an unpredictable bitch. The concentration on an erupting volcano may be 10 ppm now but there is no saying it can't shoot up at any second. If that happens you will need sufficient bottled air to make you way well clear of the mountain. To add to your misery, H2S is a lot heavier than air so it will follow you down the mountain.

Add in the fact that the chances of anyone up there surviving the rocks, ash and H2S was infinitesimally small so it was not really a rescue mission but a mission to recover the bodies. Adding more bodies to be recovered, is the least useful thing in the world.

[kurogane]

For me it was the image juxtaposition. Coming from North America, my own image of rescue workers is of people who rush into harm's way without regard for their own personal safety (besides equipment and training and teamwork) to help others. That blog post gave the opposite image.

Yeah, me too. Very refreshing, and thoroughly adult, especially given the immaturity of so many of the NA S&R adrenaline junkie crews. Given the situation, and the obvious no longer alive status of the victims, I salute the rescue team and the SDF for being adult enough to think of themselves first. Had it been a populated area there might have been different priorities, but the victims did put themselves in harm's way by hiking up there, though I don't mean that in a nasty Told You So sort of way, and I assume the eruption itself was quite a surprise even to seismologists. At the end of the day far more people need to realise that the Search & Rescue safety net far too many rely on to save them from their own stupidity is not unconditional. I mean that as a more general statement on the stupidity of too many outdoor enthusiasts, not the poor victims of this sudden eruption.

It would be nice if　Abe and crew could push this sort of soft wisdom as one of Japan's 'products', rather than this silly obsession with more and bigger guns.

BTW, from my reading of that linked news article or blog, the author was quite miffed that the SDF and S&R didn't rush headlong into potential danger and harm for no purpose at all. Is he just another Eikaiwa graduate Angry White Cunt in Japan???

[dimwit]

My opinion of the SDF rescue teams will be forever jaded by their not so thoroughly adult decision to do a campy rather try to rescue the survivors of the JAL 123 crash back in 1985.

[kurogane]

Yeah, fair point. I have long forgotten the gory details, but apparently that one is held up as a classic case of how not to conduct an S&R mission. Think of those poor buggers lying there all broken that might have made it otherwise. Yeeks.

In this case I think it fair to say the potential benefits of any S&R machismo were greatly outweighed by the potential costs. Hydrogen WTF it is gas!!??? That means the victims are dead, and it's a recovery mission.

How did the grieving families and that react? I only saw a couple of interviews before I flew out, but the ones I saw certainly weren't going the Full China/PLO route. Condolences and congratulations to them.

[yanpa]

BTW, from my reading of that linked news article or blog, the author was quite miffed that the SDF and S&R didn't rush headlong into potential danger and harm for no purpose at all. Is he just another Eikaiwa graduate Angry White Cunt in Japan???

Some armchair Fookooshimar, a primary secondary source of un-cited mis/disinformation for the paranoid crowd.

[Yokohammer]

My opinion of the SDF rescue teams will be forever jaded by their not so thoroughly adult decision to do a campy rather try to rescue the survivors of the JAL 123 crash back in 1985.

And worse ... Even though the USAF were at the crash site, ready to drop in at a moment's notice, they were refused permission. Can't have the damn yanks showing up Japan's elite SDF, now can we.


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