ARCHITECTURAL WORLD

Japanese Psyche Throughout this ordeal, foreign media have pointed out how civil Japanese people are even when faced with a great difficulty. In Tokyo that evening, people, deprived of the usual commuter transportation, walked home helping each other. Stores and restaurants offered free food and beverages. In shelters, people would line up to receive food, they respect the rules established by the self-organized governing body, and share chores and duties to run the place smoothly. Stores and gas stations offer whatever they have in stock at regular prices, never attempting to take advantage of shortage. When an octogenarian was rescued with her grandson after having been trapped in the tsunami destroyed and debris covered house for 9 days, she said to the rescuer “thank you and I am sorry for taking up your time.” There have been some petty thefts in stores vacated by storekeepers as reported in Sendai. But there has been no wide-spread plunder or violence in any part of the ...

Logistics and Impact on Economy The initial shocks destroyed some bridges, roadways, and railways, halting the distribution network of the Tohoku Region including Sendai, a city of one million people. The coastal communities north of Sendai are separated from the population centers along the spine of flat land in the middle of Honshu Island with mountains, and, thus, were rather difficult to reach even before March 11th. Then the destruction of accesses made the logistics an acute problem in the coastal region, where relief materials were needed the most. The quakes and tsunamis also put more than a handful of oil refineries along the Pacific coast out of business, at least initially. This threw the fuel (heating oil as well as gasoline) distribution off balance in the eastern half of Japan including the Tokyo region. These compounded problems made the logistics of rescue and relief activities very difficult. (See more on this below.) The Tohoku Region also has many advanced te...

Life in Shelters and Isolated Communities As of today, there are still 170,000 people living in shelters, and countless more in communities that escaped the tsunamis or radiation contamination, but still in physically damaged areas within Tohoku. Right after the earthquakes and tsunamis, people spent the night in temples, government offices, etc., but eventually they were received at designated shelters, which, in many cases were school buildings and gymnasiums, housing anywhere from 50 to 1,000 evacuees. Some simple provisions requiring only small added costs can make them more functional and comfortable for emergency uses. 1) Heat: Because the shelters are not built for residential use, heat source is often inadequate or non-existent. Compounded with the fuel distribution blockage, many shelters lack heat in the sub-zero weather. There was a story of a bio-fuel venture company offering a special boiler, which provides hot water that may be circulated through hoses placed arou...

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plants – Restoration Efforts After the building envelope of units 1 and 3 were breached, they realized that the spent-fuel pools were problematic; white steam-like clouds hovered above these units. In order to counter the possible situation where the water may be evaporating and the fuel rods exposed to environment, they (TEPCO and government) attempted first to use helicopters to pour sea water from above. Self Defense Forces (SDF) helicopters did this job a few times, but the radiation level was so high above these units that they could not come too low and the water was dispersed in the wind. TEPCO’s own fire-fighting squad tried to use their equipment to shoot water from ground with some success. Eventually the US military offered their fire engines, too. Then Tokyo Municipal Gov’t’s fire department with fire engines for tall buildings joined the group. They have not only the water shooting capability for tall buildings, but also some equipment to ...

Mechanics of Earthquakes On March 11th, at 2:46PM, three giant earthquakes occurred along the edges of the tectonic plates at the ocean bottom on the Pacific coast off the Tohoku (literally meaning “northeast”) Region. Initially it was assumed that there was one big earthquake, but with the analysis of seismic movements, scientists confirmed that there were indeed three gigantic earthquakes occurring in tandem within six minutes of each other, destroying the earth crust in the length of approximately 500 km (310 miles) in length and 200 km in width, similar to the earthquakes off Sumatra in December 2004. The monstrous tremor continued for more than 5 minutes in many locations, which was unprecedented, with a combined magnitude of 9.0. It moved, for example, Oshika Peninsula to the east of Sendai by 5.3m (17’4”) to east-southeast and sank it by 1.2m (47”); and the shift in the land mass increased the oscillation of the earth’s rotational axis by 17cm (6.7 inches) and made the day ...