Friday afternoon, Japan.

[Arch]

Yet another disaster, watched it BBC news that wave was frightening the speed it and pwer of it. My thoughts are with all the people in that part of the world. When is it all going to stop.

It isn't I'm afraid - we live on a turbulent planet. But if it wasn't turbulent, we might not exist - it's the moving nature of the planet that gives us an atmosphere, protection from deadly rays etc..

Terrible pictures. Seeing that wave of debris, and suddenly realising the 'bits' in it are lorries and houses.

Oddest of all - fires, swept along floating on the water. Just unimaginable.

A colleague of mine has a fiancee in Japan, but she's in Kochi in the south. He wasn't in today, but we looked it up on the map to check. I hope he's heard from her.

 

[JamesAC]

When I hear the word "tsunami", I think of the cinema version, with huge crashing, foaming breakers. What I saw on the telly was quite different, but at least as disturbing. A sort of dribble of water, such as sweeps up the beach at the sea-side. But it kept on and kept on coming, on and on, sweeping everything before it: cars, lorries, containers, ships, whole buildings, some on fire. On and on and on, relentlessly, pouring across roads, through villages, over fields. There was no stopping it. It just took everything with it.

My thoughts are for my friend's son, daughter-in-law and grandchild; and another friend's fiance; and for all those suffering as a consequence of the earthquake and its aftermath.

 

[JamesAC]

Yet another disaster, watched it BBC news that wave was frightening the speed it and pwer of it. My thoughts are with all the people in that part of the world. When is it all going to stop.

We can't make natural disasters stop, but we can mitigate their effects. By not building dense conurbations on geological fault lines, or on the flanks of active volcanoes, or on flood plains. Whilst ever we do these things, then the consequences of natural disasters will be much greater than they need be.

 

[Aperitif]

This is a bit offbeat, but I was thinking on this tragic event throughout the day... (thinking is always dangerous for me).
When you get a creaky hinge, or a naff chainline, a drop of oil works wonders. IF the oil is wiped away/removed, and the surfaces begin to grate against each other, sooner or later a bigger problem develops. Might not manifest itself on the 'less-oiled' components, but might result in an ill-fitting lock in the case of hinges... an ultra-worn slipping cassette on a bike.
Does the Earth need oil?

 

[Arch]

We can't make natural disasters stop, but we can mitigate their effects. By not building dense conurbations on geological fault lines, or on the flanks of active volcanoes, or on flood plains. Whilst ever we do these things, then the consequences of natural disasters will be much greater than they need be.

The trouble is, the very places that are dangerous, like volcanoes, or flood plains, are also desirable because they have very fertile soil, or just the right climate. Also, when you take away the places where human life is just too hard (Arctic Tundra), or would require enormous resources to support (like Dubai, or Las Vagas in the desert), the amount of good land left shrinks and shrinks. It's a question of weighing up the cost (human and financial) of living somewhere permanently challenging, or somewhere that's mostly nice, but occasionally throws a disaster at you.

We like to think that we've got nature beaten, and the Japanese have certainly mastered the art of living in an earthquake zone, first with paper houses and now with complex engineering, but sadly, everyso often something happens along that nothing will withstand. And when those things only happen once in 10 or more generations, we're remarkably good at forgetting and going back to normal.

 

[buggi]

So if Christchurch was 6.2 (IIRC) and this one is 8.9 (a difference of almost 3 points on the richter scale), then how much worse is this one when according to Wiki:

The energy release of an earthquake, which closely correlates to its destructive power, scales with the [sup]3[/sup]⁄[sub]2[/sub] power of the shaking amplitude. Thus, a difference in magnitude of 1.0 is equivalent to a factor of 31.6 ( [font="""]= (10[sup]1.0[/sup])[sup](3 / 2)[/sup][/font]) in the energy released; a difference in magnitude of 2.0 is equivalent to a factor of 1000 ( [font="""]= (10[sup]2.0[/sup])[sup](3 / 2)[/sup][/font] ) in the energy released.[sup]"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/sup]

 

[buggi]

Now it looks like theirs a problem at the Nuclear Station. possibility of a radioactive leak.

 

[buggi]

So if Christchurch was 6.2 (IIRC) and this one is 8.9 (a difference of almost 3 points on the richter scale), then how much worse is this one ...

Just had my question answered by BBC News...

EIGHT THOUSAND TIMES MORE ENERGY!!!!

 

[gb155]

It gets worse.

Explosion at the Nuclear plant


and now there is a Nuclear leak, not quite meltdown but TBH It looks like its heading that way potentially

 

[al78]

Horrific. Just been watching the TV news. Earthquakes - well the Japanese are as good as anyone in the world in coping with that - but Tsunamis? I don't think there's any defence against a tsunami...

I think the only way is either to build up on stilts or design the ground floor so that when the wave hits the ground floor walls give way but the main supports are strong enough to withstand the flow and support the rest of the building. In that case the water flows through the building rather than hitting a large wall area head on (the force imparted is proportional to the surface area).

 

[User482]

So if Christchurch was 6.2 (IIRC) and this one is 8.9 (a difference of almost 3 points on the richter scale), then how much worse is this one when according to Wiki:

The energy release of an earthquake, which closely correlates to its destructive power, scales with the [sup]3[/sup]⁄[sub]2[/sub] power of the shaking amplitude. Thus, a difference in magnitude of 1.0 is equivalent to a factor of 31.6 ( [font="""]= (10[sup]1.0[/sup])[sup](3 / 2)[/sup][/font]) in the energy released; a difference in magnitude of 2.0 is equivalent to a factor of 1000 ( [font="""]= (10[sup]2.0[/sup])[sup](3 / 2)[/sup][/font] ) in the energy released.[sup]"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!![/sup]

It doesn't work quite like that. The severity of an earthquake is a function of its depth and its location., as well as the total energy release. The reason the Christchurch earthquake was devastating, despite its modest rating on the Richter scale, was that it was only 5km deep and the epicentre was only 10km from the city centre.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

[QUOTE 1333976"]
There is some suggestion that mangrove swamps can dissipated some of the energy from waves like this, and that the removal of of these by us didn't help the impact of the last tsunami.
[/quote]

Indeed. Just about every natural defence against tsunami has gone from the Japanese coast - any coastal forests, wetlands etc. are long gone. This certainly has not helped.

 

[buggi]

Indeed. Just about every natural defence against tsunami has gone from the Japanese coast - any coastal forests, wetlands etc. are long gone. This certainly has not helped.

i agree too. in fact, earthquakes in general are not destructive to nature, it's man's insistance to build upon fault lines , to use the fertile lands, and thus cities etc have developed there and then us building concrete things to live in that has meant these natural occurencies have become "natural distasters" or our downfall.

I note on the other thread there is an argument ensuing about whether this is a test of God.

What bollox. if there is a God, and if he did create the earth, he didn't build cities on fault lines, and remove all of the earth's natural defences. We did that. it is entirely our own fault that we have concrete buildings falling on us, tsunami's hitting us (to a certain degree) and volcano's raining fire on us. We choose to live there, even when we know the dangers.

That said, i do understand the people don't always have a choice of where they live (obviously that choice was made WAY back in time before communities sprung up) and my heart goes out to anyone caught up in these things.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I note on the other thread there is an argument ensuing about whether this is a test of God.

No, there isn't. There was one fundamentalist fool who is now gone. I would really hope people could refrain from encouraging that kind of insensitive and entirely inappropriate discussion here. Cheers!

 

[Aperitif]

Dan Chung's video in today's Guardian is a 'cool clear light of day' piece of reporting that is quite touching. The whole event is beyond imagination.
There are a few videos to the right of the one featured too..