[paraclete]

Interesting how the press have started to round UP the magnitude of the quake.
There's a HUGE difference between an 8.9 and a 9.0 !!!

The scale is NOT linear in nature, but algorithmic.

Well what's a magniture between friends? You don't really think the average guy understands this stuff do you? Like this quake is 1,000 times more powerful than Haiti. Who can imagine that? We are in denial about the number of victims too. They still speak about 10,000 deaths but of how many towns and villages have they said there are 10,000 missing here. I will be surprised if the toll ultimately is lower than 100,000. If you look at the pictures there are few people, even in the evacuation centres

[Curlyben]

Problem with the "death"toll, until they find bodies they can only class people as missing.

Yes when 80% of a village of 20k is destroyed then it's a safe bet most of them are brown bread, but without proof then they are still only missing.
Also, considering the guy they found 10 MILES out at sea, I think a large number of The Missing will never be found as their remains have been washed away, food for the fishies.

[southamerica]

well what's a magniture between friends? you don't really think the average guy understands this stuff do you? Like this quake is 1,000 times more powerful than Haiti. Who can imagine that? We are in denial about the number of victims too. They still speak about 10,000 deaths but of how many towns and villages have they said there are 10,000 missing here. I will be surprised if the toll ultimately is lower than 100,000. If you look at the pictures there are few people, even in the evacuation centres

It's always so sad to think about... new year, new country, same story.

[Wondergirl]

I see so few photos of children, babies, who've survived. A column in today's paper (written by a Tokyo resident) mentioned school is out during March. Does anyone know how children are faring?

[tomder55]

I saw some children in shelters in the news. They looked cheerful . This I believe is masking a horrible reality . I heard reports of whole schools of children missing .

[DoulaLC]

There are entire populations of towns missing. On occasion you hear of a survivor found here and there, but it becomes less common, obviously, as time goes on.

I know my brother mentioned that his school hopes to reopen March 28th but of course that remains to be seen. The families of some students had left the area as soon as they were able to. One, at least, was apparently planning to head to Australia.

When I lived in California, we had earthquake kits for the students at school that would allow for us to take care of them for several days until emergency workers, or parents, were able to get through.

[tomder55]

Japan’s high density, central planning, mass transit, demographic uniformity, and a culture of mutual dependence allow millions to live humanely and successfully in quite crowded conditions (in areas of Tokyo at 6,000 persons and more per square kilometer). And compared to other Asian and African cities (Mumbai or Lagos) even Tokyo is relatively not so dense, though far more successful. Yet such urban societies are extremely vulnerable to the effects of earthquakes, tsunamis, “man-caused disasters” and other assorted catastrophes, analogous in nature perhaps to tightly knit bee colonies that have lost their queens.

I don’t know quite why many of our environmentalists and urban planners wish to emulate such patterns of settlement (OK, I do know), since for us in America it would be a matter of choice, rather than, as in a highly congested Japan, one of necessity. Putting us in apartments and high rises, reliant on buses and trains, and dependent on huge centralized power, water, and sewage grids are recipes not for ecological utopia, but for a level of dependence and vulnerability that could only lead to disaster. Again, I understand that in terms of efficiency of resource utilization, such densities make sense and I grant that culture sparks where people are, but in times of calamity these regimens prove enormously fragile and a fool’s bargain.

Works and Days The Fragility of Complex Societies

[excon]

Hello again,

Here's some irony for you. I'm struck by the fact that the FIRST event that began the cascade of events that destroyed the reactors, WASN'T the earthquake OR the tsunami. It was the MAN MADE decision to program the reactors to SHUT DOWN when an earthquake hits.

As reported, the reactors survived the quake, and wouldn't have NEEDED the backup generators that were destroyed by the tsunami, IF the reactors weren't shut down in the first place.

Pretty weird, huh?

excon

[tomder55]

Complex systems are vulnerable to the simple unseen.
I think the last time the NE grid went down there were some trees that weren't properly trimmed ;and then the cascade of failures began.