Earthquake in Japan....9.0...ouch!

[Fourstar]

And in the length of time it takes to do this for all affected areas, what happens to the thousands of people already 5 days in withouth food or safe drinking water, or those who are still buried under rubble.

This should be Japans "all hands call".

How? Transfer the helicopters from shipping aid and searching for survivors to dumping in untrained members of the public then running food supplies to support them?

No. You use the helicopters for your specialist teams and supplying/moving as many cut off survivors as you can.

At the same time you bulldoze your way up the coast opening communities to road traffic and large numbers of search and support personnel with food, shelter and heating fuel.

At the same time the road builders repair opened and damaged roads to increase traffic capacity.

At the same time all branches of infrastructure engineers move into freshly opened areas restoring supplies.

The problem is not available labour but the logistics of utilising it. Opening and repairing roads is a critical requirement to getting people, supplies and equipment to where they are needed.

 

[JHeaton]

I can, helicopter

Helicopters are a limited resource which require skilled pilots. Cars, vans and trucks outnumber them significantly, can be driven by a larger proportion of people and in the case of the latter two can carry larger numbers of supplies. By repairing the roads, they make it possible for those vehicles, laden with supplies, to get to the people who need it.

 

[VaderDSL]

Not at all, but it's not a skilled job. If they can better utilised in the rescue effort elsewhere, then they should. If the armchair viewers amongst us think they are fine rolling a hot steamer over some freshly laid tarmac, then that's fine too. Personally, I think communication trumps transport, and even that's not up and running fully yet.

Pot, meet kettle.

Ok, so how do they get fuel to the helicopters? How do they transport heavy equipment to the hardest hit areas? How do they transport hundreds upon hundreds of rescue workers to staging areas? How do they transport spare parts and mechanics who look after the helicopters?

Oh yeah, roads.

Next time we have flooding in Cumbria there better not be any road workers around here! I'll have to go tell them to stop wasting resources and go ferry survivors out by helicopter.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Great, so whilst they pour resources into fixing the roads, thousands of people in the worst hit areas haven't even had food or aid yet. 5 days down the line some emergency teams are only just reaching worst hit areas.

Well I was going to have a go then noticed someone pointed out to you how utterly daft you were being. UNfortunately you continued to troll so felt the need to rage at you anyway.

What happens when you send an engineer and crew specialised in building roads, to look under unstable houses for people who may be alive, WITHOUT equipment, radio's, gps tracking, anyone knowing where they are, errm, yes, you get more victims.

As Scubascorpion quite rightly said, people who are great at building roads, build ruddy roads. Those who can fly choppers ARE flying choppers with aid all around the country, those who are medics are getting to the places they can be effective, those who are trained in search and rescue, are searching and rescueing.

I can't be bothered to check but weren't you being the biggest troll in this thread right after it happened, making ludicrous claims and dismissing their situation, something along those lines and now you're back, trolling.

Theres millions of people in the country, and hundreds of helicopters, lets say worst case scenario happens, another Tsunami hits with a big quake, or the plants go into critical meltdown, are they going to help evacuate several million people to South Japan in several dozen helicopters, or will they use, I dunno, THE ROADS.

What about the heavy machinery they've moved into the area, cranes, tractors, heavy lifting equipment, how much of that will fit in a chopper.

What about lorry's, a helicopter might be able to get ONE load to outlying area's quickly, but 50 lorrys loaded full will get FAR more aid to places far quicker because they can all go at one time, 50 faster trips is still a lot slower than ONE slow trip.

half a million people, more than that now, have been displaced, have needed transport, and the vast majority of them have been transported by ROAD.

 

[Django x2]

Some guff

I suggest you look up the term "Trolling" and then come back and provide an answer that doesn't make you look like someone who has just found a keyboard to type on. I'm genuinely asking, why they think building the roads is the most important thing to do. People have answered. There's no need for your "special" approach here. Thanks

WRT helicopters. There are plenty of military warships positioned which can be used as landing bases to ferry people about, survivors, aid, specialists, between land, sea and land. I've never said these road builders should suddenly become pilots, so if this is the best way that they can help in the resuce effort, then so be it. Personally, I don't think it will help for those who have been withouth food /water for 5 days.

 

[Antar Bolaeisk]

100 miles is nothing - there are people who can feel earthquakes 5000 odd miles away.

There was an article in the local paper today about the earthquake being measured here about 12 minutes after it happened.

Fair enough it required specialised equipment to measure it but that's still fairly mad.

 

[Fourstar]

To change the subject slightly have any of you who have been following events more closely than me today seen any evidence of changes in the situation at Fukushima?

I saw a few mins of the Channel4 news and the headlines on news24 tonight and they are really laying on the fear talking of desperate measures and impending catastrophe.

I wanted to throw something at the tv when John Snow was giving his summary "..what seems a losing battle against the complete disintegration of the nuclear plant in fukushima."

 

[badcompany]

Guff


not heard that classic phrase in a while, made my night thank you.

 

[badcompany]

To change the subject slightly have any of you who have been following events more closely than me today seen any evidence of changes in the situation at Fukushima?

I saw a few mins of the Channel4 news and the headlines on news24 tonight and they are really laying on the fear talking of desperate measures and impending catastrophe.

I wanted to throw something at the tv when John Snow was giving his summary "..what seems a losing battle against the complete disintegration of the nuclear plant in fukushima."

If it blows onto Tokyo is will be a catastrophe.

 

[FreeStream]

I suggest you look up the term "Trolling" and then come back and provide an answer that doesn't make you look like someone who has just found a keyboard to type on. I'm genuinely asking, why they think building the roads is the most important thing to do. People have answered. There's no need for your "special" approach here. Thanks

WRT helicopters. There are plenty of military warships positioned which can be used as landing bases to ferry people about, survivors, aid, specialists, between land, sea and land. I've never said these road builders should suddenly become pilots, so if this is the best way that they can help in the resuce effort, then so be it. Personally, I don't think it will help for those who have been withouth food /water for 5 days.

So why not let the road/rail people fix the roads/rail services, which allows the proper rescue and cleanup effort push further into the damaged areas, whilst these added choppers (which I'd imagine are all being used), are being stocked by navy/army personnel?

People are doing the jobs they are supposed to be doing, moving them away from where they know what they are doing into something they don't is not productive. Besides, Japan has done this many times before, I'm sure you agree they know exactly what they are doing, no?

 

[Cosimo]

I saw a few mins of the Channel4 news and the headlines on news24 tonight and they are really laying on the fear talking of desperate measures and impending catastrophe.

Well this sounds a wee bit desperate with the Tokyo police getting involved:

Tokyo police plan to use a water cannon truck to attempt to cool a spent fuel rod pool Thursday in a bid to contain the disaster at the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station in Japan.

The building housing the No. 4 reactor suffered what appeared to be a hydrogen explosion early Tuesday following the devastating earthquake and tsunami last week. A fire also broke out Wednesday there

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78734.html

 

[drunkenmaster]

I suggest you look up the term "Trolling" and then come back and provide an answer that doesn't make you look like someone who has just found a keyboard to type on. I'm genuinely asking, why they think building the roads is the most important thing to do. People have answered. There's no need for your "special" approach here. Thanks

WRT helicopters. There are plenty of military warships positioned which can be used as landing bases to ferry people about, survivors, aid, specialists, between land, sea and land. I've never said these road builders should suddenly become pilots, so if this is the best way that they can help in the resuce effort, then so be it. Personally, I don't think it will help for those who have been withouth food /water for 5 days.

Funny, you say its been answered, yet you repeat your ridiculous claims, and again in that reply. Why they think building roads is the most important thing, again who has said that, no one. AS everyone keeps telling you, its not either/or, its both, if you have every lorry driver, and every chopper driver getting food and aid to these people, should the guys who fix roads sit at home and wait till everything in the world is great, or you know, get on with their jobs? They fix roads, they are trained to fix roads, they are good at fixing roads, better roads means better access to get aid to those who need it.

If you don't think it will help, again you've missed the point, think about how much water 500,000 people in shelters need, then decide if a dozen lorrys, or a couple choppers is the better choice, then ask yourself how the lorries are going to get there with broken roads?

 

[Dolph]

If it blows onto Tokyo is will be a catastrophe.

Not necessarily, but as you've been playing the doomsayer throughout this thread, I'm not surprised you make such a blanket claim?

Why does no-one who actually knows what they are talking about share your view? Like, for example, Sir John Beddington:

http://ukinjapan.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=566811882

Let me now talk about what would be a reasonable worst case scenario. If the Japanese fail to keep the reactors cool and fail to keep the pressure in the containment vessels at an appropriate level, you can get this, you know, the dramatic word “meltdown”. But what does that actually mean? What a meltdown involves is the basic reactor core melts, and as it melts, nuclear material will fall through to the floor of the container. There it will react with concrete and other materials … that is likely… remember this is the reasonable worst case, we don’t think anything worse is going to happen. In this reasonable worst case you get an explosion. You get some radioactive material going up to about 500 metres up into the air. Now, that’s really serious, but it’s serious again for the local area. It’s not serious for elsewhere even if you get a combination of that explosion it would only have nuclear material going in to the air up to about 500 metres. If you then couple that with the worst possible weather situation i.e. prevailing weather taking radioactive material in the direction of Greater Tokyo and you had maybe rainfall which would bring the radioactive material down do we have a problem? The answer is unequivocally no. Absolutely no issue. The problems are within 30 km of the reactor. And to give you a flavour for that, when Chernobyl had a massive fire at the graphite core, material was going up not just 500 metres but to 30,000 feet. It was lasting not for the odd hour or so but lasted months, and that was putting nuclear radioactive material up into the upper atmosphere for a very long period of time. But even in the case of Chernobyl, the exclusion zone that they had was about 30 kilometres. And in that exclusion zone, outside that, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate people had problems from the radiation. The problems with Chernobyl were people were continuing to drink the water, continuing to eat vegetables and so on and that was where the problems came from. That’s not going to be the case here. So what I would really re-emphasise is that this is very problematic for the area and the immediate vicinity and one has to have concerns for the people working there. Beyond that 20 or 30 kilometres, it’s really not an issue for health.

 

[CrispyXUK]

There was an article in the local paper today about the earthquake being measured here about 12 minutes after it happened.

Fair enough it required specialised equipment to measure it but that's still fairly mad.

+1

There's been two quakes in england this year, not heard to look it up.

 

[drunkenmaster]

To change the subject slightly have any of you who have been following events more closely than me today seen any evidence of changes in the situation at Fukushima?

I saw a few mins of the Channel4 news and the headlines on news24 tonight and they are really laying on the fear talking of desperate measures and impending catastrophe.

I wanted to throw something at the tv when John Snow was giving his summary "..what seems a losing battle against the complete disintegration of the nuclear plant in fukushima."

They seem to be getting "closer" to getting main power hooked up but, they've seemingly had to bodge several things together and test it and hoping it will all work, they might be able to get power re-established to the cooling equipment in the next day, which if it works is fantastic.

THe problem still exists that reactor 4's spent fuel pond, is open to the air at the moment, and theres some question as to if the Japanese government/power company are withholding info to prevent a panic. Keep in mind yesterday they told us the radioactivity levels right by the reactors, which was 400milliSv, and it was vastly lower at the gate, basically even a few hundred metres and the levels drop hugely, 30km and they are barely registering. But today, they gave us the gate numbers, which were increased, but they didn't tell anyone the numbers by the reactors.

THeres also the smoke/steam from Reactor 3, however, basically it shouldn't have gotten out even if something inside broke, which isn't a great sign.


Live update very recently is no 2, 3 and 4 reactor have white steam coming out of them...........

Could be they've got back on site and established cooling, cool something hot and it will steam, or it could be uncontrolled boiling of water somewhere.... which would not be good.

 

[Sharlaw]

I suggest you look up the term "Trolling" and then come back and provide an answer that doesn't make you look like someone who has just found a keyboard to type on. I'm genuinely asking, why they think building the roads is the most important thing to do. People have answered. There's no need for your "special" approach here. Thanks

WRT helicopters. There are plenty of military warships positioned which can be used as landing bases to ferry people about, survivors, aid, specialists, between land, sea and land. I've never said these road builders should suddenly become pilots, so if this is the best way that they can help in the resuce effort, then so be it. Personally, I don't think it will help for those who have been withouth food /water for 5 days.

Just to ask can you link your source, where it states that re-building roads is the most important thing on their list? As I think you've missed it off somewhere.
You see one picture of a section of road being repaired in 4 days and suddenly the entire country has stopped delivering aid and looking for survivors, to lay tarmac. I think you should base your perspective of a little more than the content of the posts in this thread.

 

[trigger-happy]

good to see the emperor talk. You can see those sneaky ninja bodyguards in that video....

 

[Django x2]

Funny, you say its been answered, yet you repeat your ridiculous claims, and again in that reply. Why they think building roads is the most important thing, again who has said that, no one. AS everyone keeps telling you, its not either/or, its both, if you have every lorry driver, and every chopper driver getting food and aid to these people, should the guys who fix roads sit at home and wait till everything in the world is great, or you know, get on with their jobs? They fix roads, they are trained to fix roads, they are good at fixing roads, better roads means better access to get aid to those who need it.

If you don't think it will help, again you've missed the point, think about how much water 500,000 people in shelters need, then decide if a dozen lorrys, or a couple choppers is the better choice, then ask yourself how the lorries are going to get there with broken roads?

You've missed the point. How is it going to help the people who have already been 5 days without food or water? You do know how long you live for without food / water right? What good is a road (to those people) when it's 5 days too late?

 

[SkScotchegg]

Originally Posted by Lucero:

I suggest you look up the term "Trolling" and then come back and provide an answer that doesn't make you look like someone who has just found a keyboard to type on. I'm genuinely asking, why they think building the roads is the most important thing to do. People have answered. There's no need for your "special" approach here. Thanks

WRT helicopters. There are plenty of military warships positioned which can be used as landing bases to ferry people about, survivors, aid, specialists, between land, sea and land. I've never said these road builders should suddenly become pilots, so if this is the best way that they can help in the resuce effort, then so be it. Personally, I don't think it will help for those who have been withouth food /water for 5 days.

I don't like to take sides against you, as many people on online forums seem to like to do so, and its happened to me on many occasion but...

Am pretty sure roads are really important, because if you think about it, how are people going to escape? and how it help going to get into those areas in need? We need roads for emergency services and we need roads for people to flee the area.

So for those reasons I just stated I think roads are very important and we all take them for granted, but without roads, everything comes to a holt, and it makes everything 10x harder to do so I agree with Japan getting the roads back up so traffic both ways can continue.

EDIT: Originally Posted by Lucero:

You've missed the point. How is it going to help the people who have already been 5 days without food or water? You do know how long you live for without food / water right? What good is a road (to those people) when it's 5 days too late?

We also need roads for charities from around the world to drive their trucks/lorries into the areas in need to take water/food/medicine/supplies.

 

[Dolph]

You've missed the point. How is it going to help the people who have already been 5 days without food or water? You do know how long you live for without food / water right? What good is a road (to those people) when it's 5 days too late?

You're missing the point, the road is the means to get food and water to people, if they don't work on restoring it, the people are still without food and water... The rest of the logistics don't add up.