Tsunami Followed by 8.9 Earthquake in Japan

my realtive work at shape corporation japan.

where is it exactly? will he and his family be safe?

plz somebody reply

Where in Japan are they?

Shape Corp. Japan Co. Ltd. 1-5-2-502 Toei-cho. Anjo-city, Aichi Japan 446-0007

as shown in company website. where is this exactly? i really don know their exactt details. i just know company name....

As far as I can make out, that's south-east of Tokyo, and away from the coast. The earthquake epicentre was reported by CNN as nearly 400km north of Tokyo, so they should be fine.

thnaks a lot....

Correction - south-west of Tokyo. . Even better. (If you go south-east of Tokyo, you soon end up in the sea.)

I have in-laws (wife's parents) in the Aichi prefecture also. They are fine, but did feel the affects of the quake. My wife's sister (and her family) live near Tokyo, they experienced significant affects and her husband is stuck away from home as all trains and public transportation was suspended.

I think you may mean Sharpe (not Shape). My wife is familiar with them. Here is a link to a google map view of Japan with the location of Sharpe being identified.

While that area did not get hit as hard as up around Tokyo, my wife heard from her mother that they had about a magnitude 5 around Aichi.

Video footage on Sky News is quite spectacular and alarming.

Please join forces to send messages of concern, hope and support for the CR4 reader on the Pacific Rim. After all, it's only a few days since the earthquake at Christchurch, New Zealand.

Hear, hear.

So far it looks like a more of property loss than of human life, But its too early to say anything,

So far it looks like a more of property loss than of human life, But its too early to say anything

Really what news channel are you watching on NHK it varies from 15000 to 11000 dead, and 15000 more unaccounted for.

Give the guy a break. If you look at the date of his post (11 March) you would see it was immediately after the event. At that time I don't believe anyone was reporting 10,000+ dead. Also, he does go on to say it's too early.....

I hope the New Zealand people and now the Japanese people have the speediest possible recovery from these earthquakes.

It's important to point out that the northern Honshu nuclear plants were shut down deliberately, not disabled. So far as I know, they've sustained no damage, which means that as soon as the power distribution infrastructure is up again, they can be restarted. This is important because that refinery fire and the closure of seaports is going to cause a severe petroleum shortage in Japan in the aftermath of the quake and ensuing tsunami.

How did you go with the 'wave'?

First let me wish nothing but the best for all the Japanese and visitors caught up in this disaster. My heart goes out to all the people and relatives facing these consequences. I would also like to heap praise on countries like the USA who are always a first responder to disasters throughout the world. I know our country has been in contact with the Japanese government as other countries have. When it comes to boots on the ground help we usually depend on the USA. Where are the other large countries with their help?

Now the rant is over, I will enter this thread with a short discussion of megathrust earthquakes. They occur on rare occasions but they can also happen anytime it seems. This points out a problem with locating nuclear plants close to these fault lines. The Japanese have apparent high earthquake building standards, yet 2 plants are in potential trouble today, Should we be using ever higher standards like the one earthquake that occurs once in a thousand years or 10000 years? Hindsight will tell us what to expect in Japan and we should hope their plants turn out OK.

The other thing I noticed in google earth about Sendei, the most affected city, is that the oceanfront has about a 6 foot berm and then the land is at or slightly above sealevel. Most of this low land is reserved for agriculture and if it was an inhabited area, this disaster would be beyond belief. Good planning I hope. The one nuclear plant I checked near Sendai was not very high and could be affected by a tsunami. That may be a problem that could be averted if planning was for an ever worse disaster.

i have kept up to date with all thats going on in japan and find it amazing that so little back up facilities where available

in an earth quake zone and thus tsunami area you would have thought they would have put the back up generators well up the hill side

and why didn't they have emergency water storage high up thus negating the need for power to move it

why isn't the power from other nuke sites available ie site to site back up power links

as for the lack of site information haven't they heard of CCTV if there was CCTV covering all safety critical areas they could see whats happening thus supporting the information available from sensors

for a country thats supposed to be used to earth quakes they seem totally inept at emergency Planing

for all intents and purposes parts of Japan have gone back to the stone age for over a week now

I feel sorry for all hose injured or killed because of the tsunami which could have been predicted ie better protected buildings and better sea defences

and better planning for flooding ie hardened buildings high up the landscape with their own generators and independent heating positioned at strategic positions around the country

ps some of the casualties where caused because the population thought they were safe from tsunamis behind their sea defences and thus did not move when the alarm was raised

ALWAYS PLAN ON THE FOLLOWING ASSUMPTION

IF IT CAN GO WRONG IT WILL GO WRONG BETTER TO OVER ENGINEER WHILE ITS SAFE THEY TRY TO RECOVER AFTER THE EVENT

You say, " ...and find it amazing that so little back up facilities where available "

Let's see....the first back up was power from the grid (which failed), 2nd back up were the generators (washed out by tsunami), 3rd back up were batteries (limited life). I don't think I would categorize it as "little back up".

As the cliche goes 'hind sight is 20-20'. While it might be easy for you to criticize the safety/backup design after the fact, I withhold my criticism until more facts and details are known. Many factors go into designing complex facilities such as a nuclear power plant. One of those factors is cost. At some point decisions get made as to how much to spend to mitigate risks. While it's obvious the assumptions made did not account for this particular set of circumstances that does not mean the assumptions and decisions were not valid during the design.

emergency water storage high up thus negating the need for power to move it - that would work for a short time, but how much water would be needed for a weeks worth of cooling? At some point the stored water would be depleted.

why isn't the power from other nuke sites available ie site to site back up power links -firstly, why does it have to be from other nuke sites? Why not from any other sites? Secondly, they did have the cooling system connected to their grid. The problem is the grid was taken out by the tsunami.

haven't they heard of CCTV - not a bad idea. Perhaps they have CCTV....but with no power how is it used?

for a country thats supposed to be used to earth quakes they seem totally inept at emergency Planing - Japan's preparedness is exactly why there aren't more dead. The earthquake did very little damage. The Japanese routinely drill for earthquakes. My daughter and son attended Japanese elementary school and pre-school in 2009 and 2010. They frequently held drills. They have sirens/loud speakers around to warn citizens of tsunamis. The lives lost and damage done were due to the tsunami. The unique aspect of this event was two-fold, the magnitude of the quake and the close proximity to the shore. The quake's magnitude and type of movement resulted in a substantial energy imparted to the water. The close proximity meant even though a warning sounded, many people did not have time to get to safety.

You need to get your facts right.

power stations have power grids going out to the supply grids most power grids cannot reverse the power so no they cant use the power from the grid, because if they are not generating power there is no power in the grid.

why not from other nuke sites, ok sorry moron other sites

CCTV can run for months on batteries ie UPS.

The lives lost and damage done were due to the tsunami. The unique aspect of this event was two-fold, the magnitude of the quake and the close proximity to the shore. The quake's magnitude and type of movement resulted in a substantial energy imparted to the water. The close proximity meant even though a warning sounded, many people did not have time to get to safety.

most of the people heard the alarms but did not escape as they had tsunami sea defences of over 7 feet tall and they thought these would do as they have done in the past.

if they are so good at planning why are people freezing to death because the is no blanket's, fuel, shelter set aside for emergencies there are people out there dying for lack of food.water. and blankets nearly a week on.

the power company is only now putting power lines out to the grid to pick up incoming power

remember its a power station i was talking about they hadn't planned to have an alternative power source other than batteries and the generators

I used to belong to an emergency planning group in the UK and it was amazing how little back up equipment the police, fire and ambulance services had. otherwise the organisation i was in wouldn't have been needed would it?.

There is in this day and age no excuse no to be prepared for any eventuality and over engineering now is better than late engineering later.

the Americans are as bad in the early days of the shuttle it was sent into space with no ability to repair the tiles poor foresight on behalf of NASA

The Motorways in the UK cant cope with the traffic on them, Surley it would have been cheaper to build and extra lane and keep it spare until later need it must of been bloody obvious that traffic would increase not decrease,

Now its goit to cost as much as the original cost of the motorway just to add one extra lane.

Poor planning

emergency water storage high up thus negating the need for power to move it - that would work for a short time, but how much water would be needed for a weeks worth of cooling? At some point the stored water would be depleted.

PLUS: The pipeline carrying the water might be broken by the earthquake, and maybe even, at the plant level, by the tsunami.

Truly a tragedy on a massive scale but I think you put the cart before the horse. Isn't it a 8.9 earthquake followed by a Tsunami?

my relatives are fin. they are trying to come back to India as soon as possible. we were worried because there is 5 year old in the family.

thanks to all who gave all possible support....