Floodings

[Samurai_Jerk]

It is hard to take Cyclone Greg as a threat to life and limb.

Andrew and Katrina might disagree with you.

[kurogane]

It is hard to take Cyclone Greg as a threat to life and limb.

Andrew and Katrina might disagree with you.

Greg and Andrew, sure, pretty anodyne, but anything with a woman's name (except maybe Dorothy or Madge) always has potential; they do seem to start out rather small only to grow to deadly proportions once fully matured.

So, anyways, everybody alright? That looked like a doozy up where the levee broke. Is this Joso-ville one of those post amalgamation era names? I'd never heard of it. Anyways, hopefully there were as few fatalities and injuries as possible, and none of those

78 year old Taro Hijoshiki was swept away in floodwaters after falling from his own roof, where he had climbed up to fix the TV antenna blown over by storm winds.

Those break my heart and make me giggle, which is a strange thing.

[wagyl]

The city formerly known as Mitsukaido. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Ds%C5%8D

[Samurai_Jerk]

flood.jpg

At what point do you give up on the umbrella?

Rescuers search for missing after heavy rains lash Japan

Rescue workers searched through a flooded city near Tokyo on Friday, hunting for missing people a day after raging floodwaters broke through an embankment and washed away houses and forced dozens of people to rooftops.

To the north, another river overflowed into a second Japanese city, swamping homes and fields and stranding 60 people, according to Japanese media reports.

In Joso City near Tokyo, dozens of residents were airlifted by military helicopters after waiting overnight. They arrived at an athletic field in the city, carrying bare minimum of clothes and some food in shopping bags, some of them even without shoes.

City officials said 22 people lost contact after requesting rescue and were believed missing. Three others were injured, including one seriously. More than 3,500 people were staying in evacuation centers.

[kurogane]

I always loved typhoon season: the slopeside neighbourhood streets coursing like mountain streams, the panic buying of TP and such, and the glorious, glorious rain lashing down like in a Herman Melville novel, and to top it all off, no scooter monkeys riding around the neighbourhood because rain is Aboonai.

BTW, informal studies have shown that the mere presence of an open umbrella helps calm the shrieking locals and should only be abandoned when it becomes too difficult or a balance hazard. Surely you have all been there long enough to know how dangerous rain is in its normal liquid form.........

[kurogane]

Thanks guys. I had heard of Mitsukaido; a shame they changed it to such a stupid name, but hopefully this terrible event will lead to a flood of sympathy and support.

[wagyl]

I think they were trying to avoid these kind of problems, changing the name from 水海道.

[Taro Toporific]

[Their town logo looks like dirty water sweeping through a dike.

triumvirate.png

The Triumvirate is ripped off from...

[Coligny]

Quite. Bourdieu must be yelling from his grave.

Hey, I worked for that guy...

[kurogane]

That is significant. BTW, I actually mistook the Great Man for Jean Baudrillard in the joke above, for which I apologise I actually liked both their work, but Bourdieu was the more insightful and productive, I thought. Baudrillard eventually became grad student fap material he got so,........well.............unsignificant........

[Takechanpoo]

what are you talking about?
i studied semiology by the books of Keizaburo Maruyama who in Japan is famous for the research of Ferdinand de Saussure.

[Takechanpoo]

the mayor of Joso city insisted this flood disaster was a man-made one.
actually a solar power company destroyed the part of the natural levee to put the solar panels and it collapsed from the point.

U2dXPcg.jpg

[wagyl]

what are you talking about?
i studied semiology by the books of Keizaburo Maruyama who in Japan is famous for the research of Ferdinand de Saussure.

Shhh. Don't you realise that it is rude to disturb two guys wanking each other off?

[wagyl]

the mayor of Joso city insisted this flood disaster was a man-made one.
actually a solar power company destroyed the part of the natural levee to put the solar panels and it collapsed from the point.

The levee breach, whatever the cause, has certainly not helped, but can you (or the Mayor) explain why there is flooding upstream of that breach? Is it the primary cause?

[kurogane]

I think more than any hand wringing post mortems and finger pointing we should be concentrating on what's really important: a chance to make pop culture references to a band that doesn't enjoy enough relevance to be cited that often:

To recap:
Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move

It will be interesting to see if Ishihara or Aso blame the cataclysm on the stupid name change. They had Mitsukaido, all they swallowed was some halfassed local village and they went with Joso???

[Takechanpoo]

the mayor of Joso city insisted this flood disaster was a man-made one.
actually a solar power company destroyed the part of the natural levee to put the solar panels and it collapsed from the point.

The levee breach, whatever the cause, has certainly not helped, but can you (or the Mayor) explain why there is flooding upstream of that breach? Is it the primary cause?

you mean there were another breach points?

COhjK4LUYAEH8xb.jpg

[Coligny]

the mayor of Joso city insisted this flood disaster was a man-made one.
actually a solar power company destroyed the part of the natural levee to put the solar panels and it collapsed from the point.

U2dXPcg.jpg

Not much on this picture proving that it's a/the breaching point. Just an illusion of focus because of the lack of forest behing the levee. It's too late post flood at a point where the water level is equal on both side of the levee... And over the whole levee anyway.

[Taro Toporific]

the mayor of Joso city insisted this flood disaster was a man-made one.
actually a solar power company destroyed the part of the natural levee to put the solar panels and it collapsed from the point.

Mayor links solar plant construction to flood
The Japan Times | 2015/Sept/12
The mayor of Bando has blamed a huge solar power plant project near the Kinugawa River for exacerbating the disastrous flooding in Joso, Ibaraki Prefecture, by shaving off the top of a natural sandbank that had effectively become part of its east bank...
...According to the land ministry, the sand embankment, which is private property, formed over time from sand and gravel carried down the river. Residents say it served as a natural riverbank, as opposed to the man-made levees.
Feeling the embankment had been compromised, officials in the city of Joso made several requests to the land ministry asking it to build a formal levee. The embankment, about 5 km upstream from the spot where a levee collapsed Thursday, was overwhelmed by the swollen river, flooding communities alongside it.
More...

[dimwit]

Welcome to Japan. The land where poor zoning is king.

[Takechanpoo]

[Coligny]

Mods, could we have a flood specific thread ?

[wagyl]

I tend to agree with you. Reading Yahoo! News is increasingly irresponsible.

[Takechanpoo]

60 yokota air base guys to help to restore in Kanuma, Tochigi.
http://www.yokota.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123458574

[Russell]

I'm not a mod, but there is indeed a need for a flooding thread.

Tokyo at high risk of devastating floods, experts say

It’s just a matter of time before Tokyo is struck by the same magnitude of flooding that devastated parts of the northern Kanto region this month, and should the capital remain unprepared it will most likely be “annihilated,” followed by an unprecedented death toll and economic damage, experts warn.

With the effects of global warming becoming increasingly obvious, the climatic conditions that triggered torrential rain in Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures two weeks ago is no longer a rarity, and the odds are “100 percent” that similar downpours will hit Tokyo, says Nobuyuki Tsuchiya, a civil engineering expert and author of the 2014 book “Shuto Suibotsu” (“The Capital Submerged”).

The downpours that led to the Kinugawa River overflowing its banks in Ibaraki were mainly caused by a concentration of thunderclouds that formed a lengthy band of rain, a phenomenon that was also responsible for torrential rain that killed 74 people in the city of Hiroshima in summer 2014.

Although previously considered very rare, the abnormal weather condition is becoming increasingly prevalent due to the growing impact of global warming, Tsuchiya said.

“It so happened that the rain zone moved (northeast) after striking Tokyo and stayed over the Kinugawa River. But think what a disaster it may have been if the band of rain had moved about 50 km westward and struck the Tone and Arakawa rivers instead.

“There is no way that such downpours won’t happen again,” Tsuchiya said.

The rupture of the Tone and Arakawa rivers would cause “far more severe devastation” than that of the Kinugawa deluge, he said.

With the Arakawa, for example, boasting one of the densest populations in its surrounding areas of any river in Japan, extensive flooding would lead to unprecedented fatalities and an economic catastrophe that would send shock waves around the world, Tsuchiya said.

Akira Kawamura, a professor of engineering at Tokyo Metropolitan University, agrees.

Should the banks of the Arakawa River break, the damage would be so extensive that it could annihilate the entire capital, he said, with the below-sea-level areas in eastern Tokyo, including Koto and Edogawa wards, likely to be hit the hardest.

Indeed, a 2010 government report released by a panel of outside disaster-prevention experts calculated several possible death tolls in the event that the Tone and Arakawa rivers rupture. The deadliest scenario was if the Tone River broke its banks near the cities of Koga and Bando in western Ibaraki, in which case the death toll could rise to as many as 6,300, the report said.

Tsuchiya said, however, that Tokyo should brace for an even more apocalyptic scenario, noting the amount of rain that entered the Kinugawa River was far larger than that anticipated by the report.

“If Tokyo is struck by the same level of downpours that hit the Kinugawa, I’d say the damage would be far more disastrous.”

Kawamura of Tokyo Metropolitan University also said that the recent urbanization of wider parts of Tokyo, where more land surface is covered with asphalt, and the ever-expanding subway network that stretches all the way from Saitama Prefecture to Kanagawa Prefecture, mean a faster reach of flood water in Tokyo.

“It used to be that, when the Tone or Arakawa rivers flooded, water from the ruptured areas used to take four or five days to reach central Tokyo,” he said.

“But now, the subways and underground structures have become so developed that there is nothing to absorb the river water before it arrives in Tokyo. . . .The subways would function like water drainage pipes in times of flooding disasters.”

For its part, Tokyo is trying to make itself flood-resistant and, by widening sewer pipes and digging out riverbeds to make rivers deeper, it is currently nearly ready to cope with rainfall of 50 mm per hour, Kawamura said.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government also has plans to increase the system’s capacity to accommodate precipitation amounting to 75 mm per hour by increasing the number of holding pools both on the surface and underground, but it will take some 20 years for the project to be completed, he said.

Tokyo said in a 2014 report on handling flooding and downpours that rainfall of 75 mm per hour tends to hit areas such as Nerima and Nakano wards.

Other wards and cities in Tokyo susceptible to downpours include Suginami Ward and the cities of Mitaka and Musashino, author Tsuchiya said, adding that people who live or work in these areas should be particularly keen to check hazard maps compiled by the local municipalities because rivers that may have run underneath some parts of their neighborhoods in days gone by may now have been converted into culverts.

Tsuchiya also said kanji characters used in place names are handy pointers about how vulnerable a neighborhood is to flooding and other water-related disasters.

Districts with such water-related kanji as tani (valley), ike (lake) and numa (pond) often tend to be prone to flooding and downpours. Shibuya, for example, whose name includes a kanji for valley, suffered during torrential rainfall in July.

That particular rainstorm resulted in Tokyu Shibuya Station being inundated to the point that one of its underground ticket gates temporarily shut down.

The best way to prepare for an onslaught of flooding, both Tsuchiya and Kawamura emphasized, is to check hazard maps made available by the various municipalities.

Kawamura, for one, urged residents to check flood hazard maps before buying or renting property, saying real estate agents tend not to share negative information.

“Residents should also be determined and think it’s up to them to protect their own lives,” he said, noting that when hit by torrential rain, it’s probably safer to escape to higher floors of the building they are in than trying to rush to an evacuation center as heavy rain continues to fall.

Tsuchiya added that people should ideally invest in emergency devices such as life jackets, but as a last resort Styrofoam blocks are also helpful.

“Don’t count on water rings. As was the case with the Kinugawa disaster, they will easily puncture when hit by rubble,” he said.

Link

[Coligny]

I think we should offer sacrifice to the octopus for this to happens. The mexican midget wrestler would have dun it eaonz ago if he had the admin capacity for this.

Somebody have a virgin relative that we can murder in a black mass for this to happens ? Or Takechimp's phone number...

[Taro Toporific]

... The mexican midget wrestler would have dun it eaonz ago if he had the admin capacity for this..

Yeah, my admin functions got borked in an forum upgrad about six months ago: Some work, some don't.
The "Move" posts, "Merge threads", and "Split threads" functions are DOA for me, but I still can edit and nuke posts no problem.

_________
Test of the Move.

[Samurai_Jerk]

This is an interesting thread merge.

[Taro Toporific]

________
Test of the Move.

This is an interesting thread merge.

Somehow the admin software wants to randomly pick Merge destinations: I have to go back and change the Merge destination a second time to get anything in the right place.
Like I said, many of my admin functions were borked during a forum upgrade 6 months ago.

[Salty]

the mayor of Joso city insisted this flood disaster was a man-made one.
actually a solar power company destroyed the part of the natural levee to put the solar panels and it collapsed from the point.

The levee breach, whatever the cause, has certainly not helped, but can you (or the Mayor) explain why there is flooding upstream of that breach? Is it the primary cause?

`Upstream` only has meaning within the stream (between the banks). Once a breach occurs, the water flows in all directions to lower elevations than the stream and into any such contiguous lower areas that aren`t yet flooded.

[yanpa]

Tokyo said in a 2014 report on handling flooding and downpours that rainfall of 75 mm per hour tends to hit areas such as Nerima and Nakano wards.

Other wards and cities in Tokyo susceptible to downpours include Suginami Ward and the cities of Mitaka and Musashino, author Tsuchiya said, adding that people who live or work in these areas should be particularly keen to check hazard maps compiled by the local municipalities because rivers that may have run underneath some parts of their neighborhoods in days gone by may now have been converted into culverts.

Crazy person that I am, I checked the hazard map before moving here. And checked with my very own eyes right after heavy rain to see where the water went (basically "away" in all directions). Maybe I should stock up on inflatable boats for hire.