Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster!!!

[Coligny]

Say the octopus guy...

[IparryU]

Going to blow a bunch of money but not pay people out...

Gotta love bailouts.

[Coligny]

Going to blow a bunch of money but not pay people out...

Gotta love bailouts.

It's the magic of the market, and you're going to love it, enjoy it and say thank you. You ungrateful little bitch !!!

[Russell]

Tepco dumping ice in Fukushima trenches in bid to freeze toxic water

Tokyo Electric Power Co. says it has placed tons of ice blocks in underground trenches at the Fukushima No. 1 complex in an attempt to freeze highly toxic water pooled there, a necessary step before a 1.5-km ice wall can be constructed to keep groundwater out.

[...]

In April, Tepco inserted refrigeration rods in the trenches to try to freeze the water but abandoned the effort after more than three frustrating months.

According to the company, some 11,000 tons of highly toxic water has flowed into the trenches through the No. 2 and No. 3 reactor buildings.

As an additional measure, Tepco started putting 15 tons of ice per day into the trenches late last month. Though there is now 58 tons of ice in the trenches, the utility has “yet to see” whether it will work, a Tepco official said Monday.

That sounds like a brilliant idea, freezing water by dumping ice in it...

The new method was introduced after an increasingly alarmed Nuclear Regulation Authority urged the company last month to take additional steps as soon as possible to handle the radioactive water.

The official said the company will also consider putting blocks of dry ice in the trenches to help freeze the water.

More

Someone has seen the light?

[Mike Oxlong]

US sailors prepare for fresh legal challenge over Fukushima radiation
$1bn lawsuit accuses Tepco of failing to avoid the accident and of lying about radiation
levels that have caused health problems to themselves and their families stationed in Japan
via The Guardian

[Russell]

Fukushima fallout: solidarity turns to resentment of evacuees

Like many of her neighbors, Satomi Inokoshi worries that her gritty hometown is being spoiled by the newcomers and the money that have rolled into Iwaki since the Fukushima nuclear disaster almost 3½ years ago.

“Iwaki is changing — and not for the good,” said Inokoshi, 55, who echoes a sentiment widely heard in this town of almost 300,000 where the economic boom that followed the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl has brought its own disruption.

Property prices in Iwaki, about 60 km (35 miles) south of the wrecked nuclear plant, have jumped as evacuees forced from homes in more heavily contaminated areas snatch up apartments and land. Hundreds of workers, who have arrived to work in the nuclear clean-up, crowd downtown hotels.

But longtime residents have also come to resent evacuees and the government compensation that has made the newcomers relatively rich in a blue-collar town built on coal mining and access to a nearby port. Locals have stopped coming to the entertainment district where Inokoshi runs a bar, she says, scared off by the nuclear workers and their rowdy reputation.

“The situation around Iwaki is unsettled and unruly,” said Ryosuke Takaki, a professor of sociology at Iwaki Meisei University, who has studied the town’s developing divide. “There are many people who have evacuated to Iwaki, and there are all kinds of incidents caused by friction.”

Residents across Fukushima Prefecture hailed the first wave of workers who arrived to contain the nuclear disaster in 2011 as heroes. Cities like Iwaki also welcomed evacuees from towns closer to the meltdowns and explosions. At the time, Japan’s stoicism and sense of community were praised around the world for helping those who survived an earthquake and tsunami that killed nearly 19,000 and triggered explosions at the nuclear plant.

But that solidarity and sense of shared purpose has frayed, according to dozens of interviews. Many Iwaki residents say they have grown weary of hosting evacuees in temporary housing.

And the newcomers themselves are frightened, says Hideo Hasegawa, who heads a nonprofit group looking after evacuees at the largest temporary housing complex in Iwaki.

“When they move in to an apartment, they don’t talk to neighbors and hide,” said Hasegawa, who works from a small office located between rows of gray, prefabricated shacks housing the evacuees. “You hear this hate talk everywhere you go: restaurants, shops, bars. It’s relentless.”

The 2011 nuclear crisis forced more than 160,000 people in Fukushima Prefecture to evacuate and leave their homes. Half of them are still not allowed to return to the most badly contaminated townships within 20 km (12 miles) of the destroyed plant known as the exclusion zone.

Since April, the government has allowed some residents to return to parts of the evacuation zone. But the area remains sparsely populated and riddled with hot spots where radiation is as much as four times the government’s target for public safety. Work crews in white decontamination suits have poured radiation-tainted topsoil and debris into black plastic bags piled at improvised storage sites on roadsides and public parks awaiting a shift to a more permanent nuclear waste dump.

By contrast, Iwaki has prospered. On a recent Saturday, parking lots near downtown were packed — along with restaurants near Taira, the city’s downtown. Chuo-dai Kashima, a newly developed area in Iwaki where many of the temporary housing units have been built, saw an almost 12 percent rise in land prices in the past year, according to government data. That was among the highest increases across the nation and behind only Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, a coastal city that was destroyed by the 2011 tsunami and has only just begun to rebuild.

At the heart of the tensions is an unresolved debate about how much people across Fukushima should be compensated for the suffering, dislocation and uncertainty that followed the nuclear accident.

Some Iwaki residents grumble they are being forced to shoulder the burden of hosting evacuees who receive far more compensation from the government and do not have to pay rent on their government-provided prefab temporary homes.

In January 2013, vandals threw paint and broke windows on cars parked in evacuee housing at multiple locations. Less than a month earlier, someone had painted graffiti reading, “Evacuees Go Home” at the entrance to a city office.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima plant, has paid almost $41 billion in compensation as a result of the nuclear accident. Payments vary depending on the amount of radiation recorded in a particular area, a system that evacuees have complained appears arbitrary. A family of four in one part of an evacuated town might receive $1 million, while a similar family in a less contaminated part of the same evacuated town would get just over half of that amount, according to trade ministry data.

The radioactive plume that erupted after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant traveled northwest, missing Iwaki. Most of the city’s residents evacuated for a while, but most then returned. Their compensation was also limited: the majority received about ¥120,000 ($1,200) each.

Many established residents in Iwaki complain government payouts to the newcomers have been frittered away on luxury cars and villas, locally dubbed “disaster relief mansions.”

“The food the evacuees eat and the clothes they wear are different,” said Hiroshi Watahiki, 56, a chiropractor in Iwaki. “They can afford it from their compensation funds. They have time and money to go gambling since they’re not working.”

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Looks like a social disaster waiting to happen. What if they gamble away all their compensation money?

[Hijinx]

There's no better way to disturb the wa in this country than dole out goodies in an uneven way.


"scared off by the nuclear workers and their rowdy reputation."

I thought they would have radiant personalities.

[matsuki]

Looks like a social disaster waiting to happen.

Should be Japan's new slogan

What if they gamble away all their compensation money?

Japanese with no desire to work, no rent to worry about, it's like the default programming to head to the pachinko parlor.

[Yokohammer]

This is where I got my Japanese license in 2009.

Miyagi driving school ordered to pay damages over 3/11 tsunami deaths

The Sendai District Court on Tuesday ordered a driving school in Miyagi Prefecture to pay ¥1.9 billion in damages to relatives of 25 students and a part-time employee who died in the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami disaster.

n-tsunami-a-20150114-e1421126080889-870x529.jpg

By the way, it's the "Joban-Yamamoto Driving School," not the "Tokiwa-Yamamoto" as reported by the research-challenged Japan Times.

The courts are being totally inconsistent in these judgements, saying the tsunami could have been foreseen in some cases and not in others. This is a little inaka driving school, and there's no way they're going to be able to pay 1.9 billion yen (or rather the president who wasn't there at the time and is pretty much the only survivor won't be able to pay). The staff were a really good bunch of people, but now this ... doesn't make sense. I can understand the grief of parents and loved ones, but so many of these cases are just starting to look like a grab for cash.

[wagyl]

I don't know anything about the details in this particular case but you find that many of these "why are they seeking to make that little place take responsibility" situations are insurance related. Yes, the court case is in the name of the driving school, but it may be that the driving school had insurance to cover such an event, which is why a claim is being pursued. One of the first things a lawyer should check is whether the party you want to sue has funds available, because there is no victory in getting a ruling against someone with no money. You can't get blood from a stone.

JT is currently down for me, but if you got that picture from the JT site, then their "Joban" failure is more than just poor cultural knowledge: the name is written right there in the photo, on the car.

[Yokohammer]

I don't know anything about the details in this particular case but you find that many of these "why are they seeking to make that little place take responsibility" situations are insurance related. Yes, the court case is in the name of the driving school, but it may be that the driving school had insurance to cover such an event, which is why a claim is being pursued. One of the first things a lawyer should check is whether the party you want to sue has funds available, because there is no victory in getting a ruling against someone with no money. You can't get blood from a stone.

JT is currently down for me, but if you got that picture from the JT site, then their "Joban" failure is more than just poor cultural knowledge: the name is written right there in the photo, on the car.

Good perspective on the possible reason for pursuing the claim. Thanks. But it's the inconsistent reason being given by the courts that really irks me. I don't understand how a single legal system can say the tsunami could not have been foreseen in some cases but it could in others. Location would be a weak excuse. Is that just to skirt the insurance issue because using insurance as a criterion for such a judgement would be ... let's just say "undignified"?

And yeah, that photo is straight from the JT article. They're really not on the ball, are they.

[Coligny]

They don't have concepts like legal precedent in japan where one court decision can be used to rule in on other cases ?

[Yokohammer]

They don't have concepts like legal precedent in japan where one court decision can be used to rule in on other cases ?

I always thought they did, but these rulings on tsunami responsibility are confusing the crap out of me.

[matsuki]

They don't have concepts like legal precedent in japan where one court decision can be used to rule in on other cases ?

Case by case my friend.....

reeegaru precedent? We have a prime minister!

[Russell]

I post the story from a different source, since it gives a different perspective on the case.

Negligence found by court over tsunami victims

The Sendai District Court on Tuesday ordered a driving school in Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture, to pay ¥1.91 billion in compensation to the bereaved families of an employee and 25 students at the school who died in the March 11, 2011, tsunami, citing the school’s breach of its obligation to ensure safety.

Presiding Judge Kenji Takamiya said the Joban Yamamoto driving school could have predicted the arrival of tsunami as some instructors at the school had heard the evacuation warning.

Among lawsuits filed against operators of facilities where many people died in tsunami, which was triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake, the suit filed against the Joban Yamamoto driving school was the second in which a court acknowledged a legal responsibility of an operator, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

In September 2013, the court ordered Hiyori Kindergarten in Ishinomaki in the prefecture and its former principal to pay ¥177 million in compensation to the bereaved families of four children killed by tsunami. The kindergarten and plaintiffs later reached a court-mediated settlement at the Sendai High Court.

The lawsuit against the Joban Yamamoto driving school was filed by the bereaved families of 25 students aged 18 and 19 and a female employee, then 27. The plaintiffs demanded the school pay ¥1.97 billion in damages.

According to the suit, 23 students were told by the school’s instructors and other staff to stay at the school after the earthquake hit on March 11, 2011. About an hour later, they were heading home in four of the school’s buses when they were engulfed by tsunami at about 3:50 p.m. near the school.

When the earthquake hit, two other students were taking a driving lesson, and their instructors then drove them back to the school. The two were swept away by tsunami while they were walking home. The female employee stayed at the school.

The plaintiffs had insisted the school could have predicted the arrival of tsunami because of the strong shaking of the earthquake, the announcement by fire stations and others that a major tsunami warning had been issued, as well as media reports. They had asserted that the school committed a breach of obligation to ensure safety, saying it “unthinkingly had the students stay” at the school.

The school, meanwhile, insisted it was not in a position to have students evacuate from tsunami because lessons ended or were suspended. The school also said the female employee could have evacuated on her own.

In the ruling, Takamiya said, “It can be presumed that some instructors heard a fire truck from a fire station, which was running in front of the school, calling for everyone to evacuate to a nearby middle school.

“The school was obliged to have the students and others evacuate by not ignoring this,” the ruling said.

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So, the point seems to be that there were clear warnings from the fire station to evacuate, and this was ignored for one hour. That does not seem OK to me.

One has to wonder, though, whether those students couldn't think of their own. There is no obligation to obey the driving school's teachers under all circumstances...

[Coligny]

There is no obligation to obey the driving school's teachers under all circumstances...

When you are not behind a steering wheel in a car having the karimen sticker, their authority is pretty much on par with that hobo down the river gluing the head of dead crows to broken plastic dolls.

...anyway... For disasters, in normal countries the usual chain of command in the field run like firemen->EMT->police
And when proper command post is setup you got the head of the civilian protection as top authority.
Soooo basically, if a guy in a red firetruck tell you to gtfo... You do...

^^^impressive to be i a country where this kind of shit have to be stated clearly...

[IparryU]

So, the point seems to be that there were clear warnings from the fire station to evacuate, and this was ignored for one hour. That does not seem OK to me.

One has to wonder, though, whether those students couldn't think of their own. There is no obligation to obey the driving school's teachers under all circumstances...

people here dont take fire trucks or ambulances seriously here... how many times have i seen an ambulance beg to be let through whilst taxis and pedestrians go right in front of it is a fucking joke.

so if an evacuation was ordered do you think people would really take that seriously? nope, but they sure will sue the hell out of them for their own negligence.

[Samurai_Jerk]

There is no obligation to obey the driving school's teachers under all circumstances...

When you are not behind a steering wheel in a car having the karimen sticker, their authority is pretty much on par with that hobo down the river gluing the head of dead crows to broken plastic dolls.

...anyway... For disasters, in normal countries the usual chain of command in the field run like firemen->EMT->police
And when proper command post is setup you got the head of the civilian protection as top authority.
Soooo basically, if a guy in a red firetruck tell you to gtfo... You do...

^^^impressive to be i a country where this kind of shit have to be stated clearly...

It kind of reminds me of a case in 1999 or 2000 where a family was camping on the bank of a river in Yamanashi-ken - if I remember correctly - and it suddenly starting raining buckets. They had pitched their tents near a small dam and as the water levels rose it became apparent that the damn would have to be opened which would flood the bank where they were camping. Authorities came by several times and told them to move because the area was going to flood and alarms were sounded but they ignored the warnings. Eventually the whole family including their small children ended up drowning. The reason I remember this story is I had hiked through that exact spot the day before.

[IparryU]

There is no obligation to obey the driving school's teachers under all circumstances...

When you are not behind a steering wheel in a car having the karimen sticker, their authority is pretty much on par with that hobo down the river gluing the head of dead crows to broken plastic dolls.

...anyway... For disasters, in normal countries the usual chain of command in the field run like firemen->EMT->police
And when proper command post is setup you got the head of the civilian protection as top authority.
Soooo basically, if a guy in a red firetruck tell you to gtfo... You do...

^^^impressive to be i a country where this kind of shit have to be stated clearly...

It kind of reminds me of a case in 1999 or 2000 where a family was camping on the bank of a river in Yamanashi-ken - if I remember correctly - and it suddenly starting raining buckets. They had pitched their tents near a small dam and as the water levels rose it became apparent that the damn would have to be opened which would flood the bank where they were camping. Authorities came by several times and told them to move because the area was going to flood and alarms were sounded but they ignored the warnings. Eventually the whole family including their small children ended up drowning. The reason I remember this story is I had hiked through that exact spot the day before.

that is the goat herder's neck of the woods... he should remember more details on that. I need to go pay him a visit btw. been a while.

[Russell]

There is no obligation to obey the driving school's teachers under all circumstances...

When you are not behind a steering wheel in a car having the karimen sticker, their authority is pretty much on par with that hobo down the river gluing the head of dead crows to broken plastic dolls.

...anyway... For disasters, in normal countries the usual chain of command in the field run like firemen->EMT->police
And when proper command post is setup you got the head of the civilian protection as top authority.
Soooo basically, if a guy in a red firetruck tell you to gtfo... You do...

^^^impressive to be i a country where this kind of shit have to be stated clearly...

It kind of reminds me of a case in 1999 or 2000 where a family was camping on the bank of a river in Yamanashi-ken - if I remember correctly - and it suddenly starting raining buckets. They had pitched their tents near a small dam and as the water levels rose it became apparent that the damn would have to be opened which would flood the bank where they were camping. Authorities came by several times and told them to move because the area was going to flood and alarms were sounded but they ignored the warnings. Eventually the whole family including their small children ended up drowning. The reason I remember this story is I had hiked through that exact spot the day before.

They for sure deserve their Darwin award...

[Takechanpoo]

they were families of waste collectors by the way

this kind of ppl are called "DQN"

[Samurai_Jerk]

Thanks, Takechan. That's it. It was Kanagawa not Yamanashi but otherwise I think I remembered the details pretty well considering how long ago that was.

Here's an article in English.

18 campers on the Kurokura River were swept away in the town of Yamakita, Kanagawa Prefecture.

[...]

Sources said those who were camping on the sandbar were told by local police to leave because of a possible flash flood.

A siren Friday evening, some added, also served as warning that the Kurokura Dam, 4 km upstream from the campers, was to release water.

[...]

A friend of the campers had also stopped by the site early Saturday morning to urge them to evacuate the area.

Tomomi Hakomori, 47, who was camping at the site, said “I was really scared in the pouring rain” upon hearing the siren Friday night.

Although Hakomori evacuated the area, only three other campers followed, he said.

[...]

At 6 a.m. Saturday, one of the campers in the group who had spent the night in a car came back to the campsite and urged them to pack up. The campers, however, evaluated the river and determined that things were fine since “nothing has changed.”

But half an hour later, the flood gate was opened at the dam to release water that was about to overflow.

Before the gate was opened, witnesses said local police and dam authorities argued bitterly over the releasing of water.

Police reportedly tried to keep dam operators from opening the gate, citing the campers who refused to leave. But dam officials argued that the facility was near full and holding any more water would break the dam.

According to Wikipedia 13 of the 18 people who were swept away died including 4 children between the ages of 1 and 9.

[Russell]

In this case, the police should have taken the campers in protective custody.

[Samurai_Jerk]

In this case, the police should have taken the campers in protective custody.

At least the minors. However, according the the article they didn't have the authority which was the problem. It seems like there could have been one last warning saying the dam is going to open right now so run or drown but then again maybe there was as it seems like these people were beyond stubborn and determined to die. I remember at the time an FG buddy of mine from the American South West where flash flooding is common and most people know better than to camp on river banks or in dry river beds that the cops/park rangers there will bust you if you don't move when they tell you to.

[Coligny]

In this case, the police should have taken the campers in protective custody.

Apparently they wuz busy trying to have the dam completely fail...

[Coligny]

Crossposting wurnang:

to put it simply. they sux and have a whole countrywide system to make anything suck even more in order to protect their view of themselves as rainbow shitting do gooders who's farts do not stink... their crisis management sux, their judicial system sux, their nukaplants sux, their driving sux, their flying skills sux, their army sux. And everytime their system is stress tested it collapse upon itself and there is enough shit dropped on so many fans that the planet could look like a chocolate ball. and when they miraculously make it through thanks to some divine intervention or out of pity from some summerian demon. Like the good fucking imbeciles they are, they learn no lessons and just consider that everything should have worked, it was just a case of bad luck, can't happen again, they have stats to prove it...

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/gre ... juggernaut

Clashing energy interests on the Japanese island of Kyushu have prompted Japan's government to clamp down on solar power development nationwide. While the government calls it a necessary revision to assure grid stability amidst rapidly rising levels of intermittent solar energy, critics see a pro-nuclear agenda at work—one that could stunt Japan's renewable energy potential.

I'm waiting for the pronuke to rationalize how renewable from solar and wind switched from "never being enough to supply the demand" to "being to much overproduction for the grid to handle" since Fukushima.
Because, last time I checked, when a solar panel make power that is not needed, you unplug or just ignore it. Or if you are smart you power water pump to refill water reservoirs that can be later used to make power when needed...

[Coligny]

the gift that keep on giving...

[Coligny]

Remember when I said that Areva shareholders should be pissed at the japs and Tepco...

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/0 ... er-buckles

"France's nuclear industry is in turmoil after the country's main reactor manufacturer, Areva, reported a loss for 2014 of 4.8 billion euros ($5.3 billion) — more than its entire market value.

[Coligny]

Reuters trip down memory lane:

http://jp.reuters.com/news/topNews/rpSl ... R4SUIS#a=1

[Yokohammer]

Reuters trip down memory lane:

http://jp.reuters.com/news/topNews/rpSl ... R4SUIS#a=1

It has been that sort of day. Reliving all those images on TV.

Kind of depressing, but that's reality.