Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: PierreVandevenne on March 11, 2011, 06:24:43 pm
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Are our regular contributors from Japan safe?
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Thanks for your concern, Pierre.
I am in Kobe, which hasn't been affected. I hope Bernard is too. He's in Tokyo.
Kumar
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In the meantime, in California:
CA man swept out to sea while taking tsunami pics (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/03/11/state/n095556S15.DTL#ixzz1GLB1RlFS)
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I hope Bernard is somewhere in the mountains, high above it all.
Eric
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Hello my friends,
Thanks for your concern. My wife and I were both at work in tokyo when it happened. Both of us managed to walk back home last night and are safe. No apparent damage at our building also besides a few fallen CDs and books. The only communication medium that kept working reliably was internet.
However the situation is very bad in Northern Japan.
Some have expressed the desire to help. One possible option is linked to below:
http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_src=RSG000000000&s_subsrc=RCO_FrontPagePanel
Cheers,
Bernard
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I'm glad you're both OK, and that Red Cross has a focused donation option.
Eric
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As a former resident of Japan (6 years in Okinawa, Kyoto, Tokyo) my heart goes out to the Japanese.
They live in a country where the knowledge of an imminent major earthquake and the subsequent disaster, could happen at any time, and probably will happen during their lifetimes. Yet, they make the very best of what they have though technology and preparedness. Admirable.
I hope we're able to help with their reactors and advert the most serious longest lasting damage.
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Bet your boots that The Colonel sees it as a blessing and can now get on with politics, privately, in his own way!
Funny how short the attention span of the media.
Rob C
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Bet your boots that The Colonel sees it as a blessing and can now get on with politics, privately, in his own way!
Funny how short the attention span of the media.
Are you saying that Kadhafi did it? :)
Cheers,
Bernard
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If nothing else the media coverage of this dreadful event has shown up the inadequacies of Sky and the strengths of the BBC. Sky has predictably presented the whole thing as a disaster movie with endless repeats and dramatic sound accompaniment, the egos of interviewers are placed before the knowledge of invited experts and the juxtaposition of the vision of total and utter destruction of the landscape alongside a fellow whinging that bit of concrete fell on his car bonnet simply underlines how shallow is their approach. The only light relief came from the voiceover on a clip showing a beach at Hawaii. The tsunami's arrival was eagerly anticipated as another great bit of destruction footage for the excitable children at Sky and it was only a half hour or so after the due time that we were sadly informed that "A mildly larger wave lapped up the beach at about the time the tsunami was expected to hit" You could taste the disappointment in the voice.
Whilst not being a fan of the BBC generally their coverage has been a lot more intelligent and there is a genuine sense of shock at the events as they have unfolded. They even let the experts finish their sentences, a concept that is totally lost on the Sky people.
Poor old RTE here in Ireland had an advert accompanying their coverage on the web that urged viewers to "Learn Surfing. An experience you'll never forget" Quite.
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Hello my friends,
Thanks for your concern. My wife and I were both at work in tokyo when it happened. Both of us managed to walk back home last night and are safe. No apparent damage at our building also besides a few fallen CDs and books. The only communication medium that kept working reliably was internet.
However the situation is very bad in Northern Japan.
Some have expressed the desire to help. One possible option is linked to below:
http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_src=RSG000000000&s_subsrc=RCO_FrontPagePanel
Cheers,
Bernard
Hello Bernard,
I'm really pleased to hear that you and Kumar are OK. My thoughts were with some family members who live around Tsukuba and yourselves when I heard the news. My family is OK as well, though there is some concern about the sustainability of power, water and supplies where they live.
Apart from the horrendous images we are getting of the massive destruction caused up North by the tsunami, one of the most pressing consequential dangers must be the nuclear plant at Fukushima. In one of my former incarnations I was involved with policy development for nuclear-based electricity supply and I seem to recall design practices for plant sites to have large Diesel generators on dormant standby, which could be activated for handling station service in the event of a grid outage. I'm wondering what the arrangements and situation were at Fukushima and how this terrible misfortune developed. Sure hope there will be no melt-down. It must be unbearably nerve-racking for millions of people.
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Apart from the horrendous images we are getting of the massive destruction caused up North by the tsunami, one of the most pressing consequential dangers must be the nuclear plant at Fukushima. In one of my former incarnations I was involved with policy development for nuclear-based electricity supply and I seem to recall design practices for plant sites to have large Diesel generators on dormant standby, which could be activated for handling station service in the event of a grid outage. I'm wondering what the arrangements and situation were at Fukushima and how this terrible misfortune developed. Sure hope there will be no melt-down. It must be unbearably nerve-racking for millions of people.
Hy Mark,
Thanks for your concern.
Yes, the Nuclear situation is very worrisome indeed. It appears that the back up diesel generators were damaged as well by the tsunami. An explosion in the reactor building yesterday spread wide concern that one of the reactors had been compromised, but authorities claim it is not the case. That was the status 8 hours ago, the morning news I am now watching are not super clear about the details.
It is seems that a second reactor on the same site is now facing cooling issues as well.
Accurate information is scarce as the authorities understandably try to prevent panic among the population.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Hy Mark,
Thanks for your concern.
Yes, the Nuclear situation is very worrisome indeed. It appears that the back up diesel generators were damaged as well by the tsunami. An explosion in the reactor building yesterday spread wide concern that one of the reactors had been compromised, but authorities claim it is not the case. That was the status 8 hours ago, the morning news I am now watching are not super clear about the details.
It is seems that a second reactor on the same site is now facing cooling issues as well.
Accurate information is scarce as the authorities understandably try to prevent panic among the population.
Cheers,
Bernard
Thanks for those insights Bernard.
I see on the news that they have expanded the perimeter of evacuation. Very wise under the circumstances, but you may be interested to know there is concern even here in Canada that if one of those reactor cores experiences a melt-down, depending on the wind conditions, radio-active contamination could reach British Columbia. Let's hope it all gets somehow controlled before that happens. They were very unfortunate to lose the Diesel sets, because that would have been their best protection.
Cheers,
Mark
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Forbes are now reporting a 'report' of a meltdown a the reactor...This is not going well....
http://blogs.forbes.com/christopherhelman/2011/03/12/reports-claim-meltdown-at-japanese-reactor/
Bernard - Very glad to hear you escaped unscathed and hope you and your family are ok.
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Forbes are now reporting a 'report' of a meltdown a the reactor...This is not going well....
http://blogs.forbes.com/christopherhelman/2011/03/12/reports-claim-meltdown-at-japanese-reactor/
Bernard - Very glad to hear you escaped unscathed and hope you and your family are ok.
Latest from the BBC World Service:
"The authorities said the reactor itself was intact inside its steel container."
Also:
"It appears that the reactor was shut down well before any melting occurred, which should reduce considerably the risk of radioactive materials entering the environment.
However, the detection of caesium isotopes outside the power station buildings could imply that the core has been exposed to the air.
Although Japan has a long and largely successful nuclear power programme, officials have been less than honest about some incidents in the past, meaning that official reassurances are unlikely to convince everyone this time round."
NPPs usually have multiple containment structures designed to prevent large-scale radiation leakage outside the reactor container even in the event of a meltdown, but none of this is 100% certain to work in all circumstances, so for us who know little of the facts first hand, we can only wait and see what actually happens and hope for the best.
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Our thoughts and prayers are with our neighbours to the north, and with all who have friends and relations there.
David
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How long before some purveyor of supernaturalist mumbo-jumbo blames all this on a deity's rage at <insert minority group here> or some practice allegedly outlawed in some collection of Bronze Age or Medieval myths?
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How long before some purveyor of supernaturalist mumbo-jumbo blames all this on a deity's rage at <insert minority group here> or some practice allegedly outlawed in some collection of Bronze Age or Medieval myths?
With possibly 10,000+ dead, several nuclear cores in the process of melting down, and a country - an ally, experiencing their worst natural disaster in over a hundred years.. and I say this with all due respect. Who cares? This is not the time, nor the appropriate place, to lend credence in any way to such agendas.. Not by acknowledging them, not by giving them credit through discussion. That's all I have to say about that..
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I fear that 10,000 dead will prove to be something of a conservative estimate with the final figure being somewhat vague and many months from being ascertained. What is clear though is that the enormity of it has taken some time to for Japan itself to grasp especially since the obvious billions they have spent on preparation were casually tossed aside by the sheer force of the event. Having made the financial and emotional investment in the infrastructure erected to protect the communities their belief in their invincibility takes time to overcome, two to three days in this case, and in the long run this disaster must deal one hell of a blow to the self confidence any population must maintain if it is to prosper.
Obviously there will be a range of nutters jumping up and down insisting that the Japanese have been rewarded for their sins of the past but I doubt that they will be taken seriously by any great number of people and I trust that the world will respond with compassion whether they consider Japan an ally or not.
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What is clear though is that the enormity of it has taken some time to for Japan itself to grasp especially since the obvious billions they have spent on preparation were casually tossed aside by the sheer force of the event.
You don't have a friggin clue what would have happened there had they NOT spent all those billions preparing the infrastructure for such an event. As bad as it looks now, without all they've done it would certainly have been many times worse - at least for the earthquake damage. The tsunami damage is another matter altogether. I don't know how any country would protect itself from a wall of water weighing a metric tonne per cubic meter and over 20 feet high traveling in at the cruising speed of a 747 - just think about it, and that is what caused most of the damage.
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The Japanese urban search and rescue team did wonderful work here in Christchurch over the last few weeks (as did the Chinese, British, American and other national USAR teams). We are all so sad to see them return home in such circumstances.
As Mark rightly says, time will show the money spent on infrastructure will not have been wasted. But for the time being in those areas without power, the cell phone networks will will be running out of battery power and going down. Those still working will be swamped. Landline phones will only work for those with analogue phones, the internet will be down and what is working will also be swamped. Roads not trashed will probably be clogged with traffic. No-one, especially the government, will know what's happening for a few days. Local linesemen and emergency workers will be going night and day to restore essential services but while they can work wonders it will just take time. At least people know how to look after each other and that helps us all to get through times like these.
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I fear you may have misconstrued my post there Mark.
There is no doubt that the evacuation training saved many many lives as did the engineering of their high rise buildings which is something to be greatly admired. However, the billions I was referring to specifically applies to the coastal defences which were simply not up to the task, and doubt that any country is capable of affording the sort of defences that would have been as you point out. Unfortunately I have not seen one instance on the news or web that suggests physical coastal defences saved much at all. Indeed, how could they when it is the wavelength rather than amplitude that does the damage and this was one colossal volume of water being thrown at the shoreline. I guess that further down the coast, away from the epicentre then the defences may have served their purpose, but we are not seeing that reported.
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TEPCO is reporting that they have external power to the reactor complex.
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TEPCO is reporting that they have external power to the reactor complex.
Unfortunately a little too late it would appear (from the RTE news site) -
There has been a second explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant, 240km north of Tokyo in Japan.
Seven people are reported to be missing.
One can't help feeling that they are fighting a battle that is slipping away from them. Let's hope that they get on top of it all but the thought still lingers that with nuclear power we are still playing at the edge of what mankind can handle.
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I fear you may have misconstrued my post there Mark.
Not impossible, but also maybe what you wrote in that first post was not sufficiently clear in terms of what you meant. Anyhow, for you sitting in Ireland and me here in Toronto, I'd be rather more reluctant to speculate about the psyche of a whole country I've visited a number of times but never lived in, especially at a time like this, even if such generalizations could be at all meaningful in any event. From what we're seeing in the media here, it looks to me as if the overall manner in which they are coping with this disaster both at an official and individual level is truly admirable; it makes me wonder if we could do half as well here were anything like this to ever happen, but one doesn't really know till it does. Japan will recover and rebuild - based on history that is a reasonable prediction. But between now and then, there are dire predictions that the seismic activity is still highly volatile and we can only wish them the best and help as we can.
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One can't help feeling that they are fighting a battle that is slipping away from them. Let's hope that they get on top of it all but the thought still lingers that with nuclear power we are still playing at the edge of what mankind can handle.
Mankind has been *playing at edge* of this technology for the better part of half a century or more and we know a thing or two about it. The fact that those plants didn't break apart and spew radioactive waste across a very broad region of the world attests to it. Building these facilities on fault zones has known risks and it is clear their plant design and construction standards - going back 40 years (the age of that plant) and since have been very high. They do design these things to deal with multiple, low probability contingencies, but nothing in life is 100% whether it is nuclear or anything else. The main thing we need to hope for is that the reactor cores remain largely contained. So far that seems to be the case, but there is so much we obviously don't and can't know. I can't imagine how horrible this is for the people on the front lines of those emergency measures they are trying to implement. When it's over and done with there will undoubtedly be many lessons of experience to be learned from it, because this is unprecedented in reality.
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Not impossible, but also maybe what you wrote in that first post was not sufficiently clear in terms of what you meant.
Ah! My fault of course, sincerest apologies. It's always said that America and the UK are two cultures separated by a common language, I shall bear in mind to extend that to Canada as well. But then again the difference between the Irish and English cultures (separated by just a few miles) are far greater than is at first obvious and extend way back before the Catholic church became involved but that's a different matter altogether.
Human psychology is fairly constant throughout the world and the condition of shock in response to events is common to all groups and races, it is natures way of helping us deal with life when experiencing a stress of any sort. The whole world, let alone the Japanese, were quite rightly in a state of of shock at the extent of the catastrophe but it is their country in which they have an emotional stake and have come to believe that the very best preparations had been made. It is therefore understandable that the simple swatting away of their walls and gates by the Tsunami led to a state of disbelief and even denial to begin with. Certainly that was the impression that came over whilst following it on the various news channels and web. Do I really need to visit Japan to feel as my Japanese brethren are feeling? Perhaps I should visit Ethiopia before giving to charities working to relive starvation. The ability to portray and communicate suffering of whatever type is a hallmark of modern communications for surely the conveyance of emotion and 'feelings' both experienced and witnessed is one of the reasons that many of us carry a camera at all.
Now I think we can all agree that Japan will cope as well as any other country but it is kind of you to remind us anyway. These sort of disasters are not without precedent as I am sure you are aware, for instance there were the North Sea floods of 1953 which Claimed 2,500 lives and in which my mother was caught up. She has often said that the most memorable thing about those days was the bewilderment at what was going on. Thankfully for me (if nobody else) she survived although the town of Lowestoft where she was living at the time was completely cut off and badly damaged by the surge.
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Mankind has been *playing at edge* of this technology for the better part of half a century or more and we know a thing or two about it. The fact that those plants didn't break apart and spew radioactive waste across a very broad region of the world attests to it. Building these facilities on fault zones has known risks and it is clear their plant design and construction standards - going back 40 years (the age of that plant) and since have been very high. They do design these things to deal with multiple, low probability contingencies, but nothing in life is 100% whether it is nuclear or anything else. The main thing we need to hope for is that the reactor cores remain largely contained. So far that seems to be the case, but there is so much we obviously don't and can't know. I can't imagine how horrible this is for the people on the front lines of those emergency measures they are trying to implement. When it's over and done with there will undoubtedly be many lessons of experience to be learned from it, because this is unprecedented in reality.
A half century is but a blink of an eye in the history of human development as I am sure an intelligent fellow like yourself who reads the papers like the rest of us is very much aware. Mind you we thought we could handle industrialisation but are now told that it is killing the planet with all that beastly CO2 produced. We have not mastered nuclear power, only tamed it and like a dog we consider domesticated and calm it can turn and bite our backsides without the slightest hesitation or provocation.
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Wow.. the human and environmental toll is adding up at an incredible pace, a country is suffering on an unprecedented (for modern times) scale with no end in sight.
And the best we can do is posture?
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Wow.. the human and environmental toll is adding up at an incredible pace, a country is suffering on an unprecedented (for modern times) scale with no end in sight.
And the best we can do is posture?
I know, sad isn't it.
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I know, sad isn't it.
Indeed.
I'm turning my attention to finding out the most effective agencies through which to support the rescue and recovery effort. More talk doesn't help the people of Japan.
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Putting all disagreements aside it really does appear to be turning from bad to worse. The world has offered to help but I for one am now thinking that the offer has to morph into a full scale emergency aid programme sooner rather than later.
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I'd like to remind people that Haiti is one of the poorest countries on earth by any metric, and was hit by a devastating earthquake killing perhaps more than 300,000 people, 800,000 are still in refugee camps, and further devastated by a cholera epidemic at the worst imaginable time. Most worryingly, the country and its plight has been largely forgotten by media, and aid workers and funds are being diverted to other locations despite the continued need for reconstruction which is slow or non-existent.
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I'd like to remind people that Haiti is one of the poorest countries on earth by any metric, and was hit by a devastating earthquake killing perhaps more than 300,000 people, 800,000 are still in refugee camps, and further devastated by a cholera epidemic at the worst imaginable time. Most worryingly, the country and its plight has been largely forgotten by media, and aid workers and funds are being diverted to other locations despite the continued need for reconstruction which is slow or non-existent.
You have an excellent point here. Every time there is a major emergency one sees a tremendous outpouring of pledging, only to learn some time later that while individuals may well have contributed to their chosen agencies, governments have simply not delivered on a high proportion of what they pledged. The usual explanation for it is that the receiving end was ill-equipped to absorb it, or bureaucratic hindrances were put in the way of using it effectively, and so on. There will be no such excuses in Japan, so let us see how it plays out this time. The real tragedy of Haiti of course is hundreds of years of its history. There is only so much outsiders can do to help repair a country. In the final analysis, the preparedness and resiliency of local institutions and societies is determinative; on this spectrum Japan stands at one point and Haiti at quite another - and it isn't only poverty, though poverty certainly doesn't help. That said, the attention span of the media is also very short. It rolls from one crisis to the next as they arise. Last week is was Libya, now Libya is off the radar screen and it is Japan. One wonders whether the situation in Haiti would be much improved if there were more sustained international media attention to the plight of the people there. Whatever, yes, much time has elapsed since the earthquake in Haiti. It could be important for one group or another to take a good, hard retrospective look at what happened there, what didn't happen and why.
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That said, the attention span of the media is also very short. It rolls from one crisis to the next as they arise.
You don't say - top news story on the radio this morning was Charlie Sheen going to fetch his trailer from the film set of his last series. It takes approximately one week before celebrity trumps disaster and we are back to the banal rantings of the undeserving.
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I've been very impressed with the BBC World Service coverage of what's happening in Japan. So far it has been intensively sustained from the start of the situation, looking at the evolution of circumstances from many angles. They are not only covering the banner-line events, news style, but also bringing in expertise on various aspects of the crisis, in particular the nuclear power and humanitarian situations - to provide informed analytical insight. Of course, Libya has kind of taken back-seat to this, as one supposes it should, but they haven't lost sight of it; as well they are now ramping-up coverage of Bahrain, which many people may not realize - could be a much stickier wicket for international politics than is Libya. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation also has a highly respected news and current events organization which has also been very good. But getting back to Feppe's point, it remains true that as the onset and initial shock of a crisis recedes in time, the news interest falls away while the situation on the ground continues to be dire.
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Anybody remember what major parts of Japan looked like after WW II? I do. Here's what the Tokyo Ginza looked like just eight years after the city had been almost totally destroyed. The Japanese will snap back faster than anyone can imagine at this point. They're what Winston Churchill called "a serviceable people." They'll do their mourning but they'll be busy fixing things while they mourn.
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I agree with you.
I just visited your website and looked at your Asian and Street images from the 1950s and 1960s. This is wonderful, engaging photography of real historical and photographic value. Have you thought of making them available in a Blurb book, or something similar?
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I'd like to remind people that Haiti is one of the poorest countries on earth by any metric, and was hit by a devastating earthquake killing perhaps more than 300,000 people, 800,000 are still in refugee camps, and further devastated by a cholera epidemic at the worst imaginable time. Most worryingly, the country and its plight has been largely forgotten by media, and aid workers and funds are being diverted to other locations despite the continued need for reconstruction which is slow or non-existent.
Feppe, I agree. Haiti is a sad case. But Haiti's big problem is political. Take a look at the list of Haitian heads of state for the past 200 years: http://www.haiti.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid=114. Most have been overthrown or have "died in office." Beginning in the middle fifties the country was taken over by Papa Doc Duvalier, an out-and-out criminal, followed by Baby Doc Duvalier, a chip off the old block. Finally, another criminal, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, took over and shortly thereafter was thrown out by the people. Aristide came back in the middle nineties, finished a term, was reinstated by force by the United States, and was kicked out a second time by the people. Leadership over the past couple years has been weak at best, and Aristide is back in town, though not yet in office. Until Haiti is able to find something other than a kleptocrat to lead the country, aid is going to be futile and reconstruction simply isn't going to happen.
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I agree with you.
I just visited your website and looked at your Asian and Street images from the 1950s and 1960s. This is wonderful, engaging photography of real historical and photographic value. Have you thought of making them available in a Blurb book, or something similar?
Mark, Thanks for the kudos. It always makes me happy to know that someone likes my photographs. But as I've said before, my main problem with marketing is that although I may not be the world's worst marketer, when he dies I'm probably in.
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Feppe, I agree. Haiti is a sad case. But Haiti's big problem is political. Take a look at the list of Haitian heads of state for the past 200 years: http://www.haiti.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid=114. Most have been overthrown or have "died in office." Beginning in the middle fifties the country was taken over by Papa Doc Duvalier, an out-and-out criminal, followed by Baby Doc Duvalier, a chip off the old block. Finally, another criminal, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, took over and shortly thereafter was thrown out by the people. Aristide came back in the middle nineties, finished a term, was reinstated by force by the United States, and was kicked out a second time by the people. Leadership over the past couple years has been weak at best, and Aristide is back in town, though not yet in office. Until Haiti is able to find something other than a kleptocrat to lead the country, aid is going to be futile and reconstruction simply isn't going to happen.
Yes, essentially what I meant in post 33, though I was not explicit about the facts of the situation which you correctly portray here. I would go further, however. You have stated a vital necessary condition - leadership. Of course it will not be sufficient. There is a whole legacy of social and institutional practices and attitudes built around the previous and current political structures which will need to be fundamentally rebuilt from the ground-up for sustainable change toward acceptable and effective governance to occur. That will take time, once there is a core leadership in place able and prepared to face it and do the needful. Meanwhile, what happens to all those suffering hundreds of thousands of people - not good.
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Count me in too - and there are probably slews of us! I think even before issues of the skill set arise, just wrapping one's mind around all the requirements for doing it properly is the first hurdle to overcome. The thing that's attractive about Blurb, from what I've seen of their recent work, is that especially for B&W, the neutrality of the reproductions is really very good (in fact their colour reproduction altogether looks good too), and they offer a complete publishing and selling service right on the site along with the book preparation templates, which is pretty ease to use.
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Hello my friends,
I was finally able to leverage an opportunity to try help a tiny little bit Northern Japan with my desperately weak arms.
Photography was not the purpose of the trip obviously so I couldn't do much, but the images linked below should convey the situation that remains one month after the distaster:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/
Cheers,
Bernard
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Bernard, thanks for sharing, and it is really good that you are able to lend a hand there. I am sure every little bit must be appreciated. It is really heart-breaking to see how badly disrupted are the lives of so many people.
Mark
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I've just reread the whole thread, and several things come to mind.
1. Media coverage: at the end of the day, the media know damned well that local life has to go on as usual; everybody apart from those personally connected would simply stop switching on were constantly available new tragedy to remain the only fare offered.
2. Haiti: as has been written/implied, gangsters rule. Check out parts of Italy to find more of the same. My mother was in Naples at the time of a volcanic eruption and the folks there suggested that people abroad stop sending blankets, clothes, that they simply send money in order to make it simpler for the Mafia who, in the end, control all of it. This is not a joke; it's for real.
3. Bahrain: I know people who live there. I'm told there is an unbelievable free health service, education and even university service where you are paid a salary just to attend. The real problem seems to stem from the fact, common to many parts of Europe too, that locals are too comfortable to do some of the more menial labor, so they import people from the third world who work for peanuts and then, after about five years, can get permanent permission to live there. This causes great local resentment there, again as in Europe, but the answer has to lie in making it worthwhile for the indigenous people to get their act together and do the 'low' work themselves. Pointless blaming the poor from abroad... It would seem that it's this resentment that causes the political storms to brew and become unfocussed. Or so I'm reliably informed. I suppose that the only way to make people do infra dig work is to lower benefits for doing nothing. But votes...
4. Safety of nuclear power: it isn't, but then neither is anything else. You simply have to weigh the risks of alternatives, and I'd suggest nuclear comes very low in the good side of danger!
Rob C
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For those interested, we have started to work on a blog with some friends:
http://team-nadia.org/
Cheers,
Bernard
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For those interested, we have started to work on a blog with some friends:
http://team-nadia.org/
Cheers,
Bernard
Bernard, thanks for bringing this to our attention. I visited the link. I think it is important to support such organizations doing real, grass-roots volunteer work on-the-spot. Often they have the most intimate familiarity with the needs, effective methods and priorities, but they need the means to meet their expenses. I hope to be kept informed of the results of their efforts.
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It is really saddening how such could happen to a nation. And it just describes how we are at a level playing field in reality. It is really hard to stand up when something extreme has happened but I think that they are doing a pretty good job at it.
I do not like however, the way they downplayed the real situation in their nuclear plant. Many can go on thinking that everything is okay and suddenly go boom in the next minute. The people will find out eventually so have them know the truth so they could plan things and how they could go about their daily lives.
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I do not like however, the way they downplayed the real situation in their nuclear plant. Many can go on thinking that everything is okay and suddenly go boom in the next minute. The people will find out eventually so have them know the truth so they could plan things and how they could go about their daily lives.
This is a complex topic. I am not sure you'd have wanted to be the politician rushing 30 million people out of one of the largest cities in the world when in the end the fact remains that there was very little to no impact for Tokyo.
Cheers,
Bernard
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This is a complex topic. I am not sure you'd have wanted to be the politician rushing 30 million people out of one of the largest cities in the world when in the end the fact remains that there was very little to no impact for Tokyo.
Cheers,
Bernard
How low-lying is Tokyo? What would the effect have been if the worst of the Tsunami had hit Tokyo?
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This is a complex topic. I am not sure you'd have wanted to be the politician rushing 30 million people out of one of the largest cities in the world when in the end the fact remains that there was very little to no impact for Tokyo.
Cheers,
Bernard
I agree. It's not sensible to second-guess much about what happened from the outside. The authorities will do their investigations and make their assessments; I think we should all just chill-out on this topic and wait for informed analysis.