It's a Small World - Air Travel In Australia Disrupted

The Chilean Puyehue volcanic eruption that started around 4/5th of June, 2011 has finally certainly had widespread effects well beyond the concerns for local residents. I was due to fly out to Melbourne tomorrow morning - only to find that flights have been cancelled. The above graphic (posted on the Bureau of Meteorology website, but the source agencies were NOAA, JMA and EUMETSAT (Meteosat-9, MTSAT-1R and GOES-11).

Flights had been cancelled from the 11th of June (to and from Australia and New Zealand), however, Australian domestic flights had started to be cancelled from yesterday. Melbourne and Adelaide (and Canberra) are particularly affected being in the southern part of Australia... (Australia's the big bit on the bottom of the animated gif above). Whilst the disruption to holiday-makers and business people alike is not something to be dismissed, we shouldn't forget that for the people of South America, and Chile in particular, this is far more serious.

Also, it really does bring the saying, "it's a small world" into clear focus. We get used to things being easier, and better leading to the feeling of a global neighbourhood. Often however, local environmental problems have a global significance... and they are rarely good things.

Japan - Three Long Months On

Well, it's been just over three months or so since the fateful events of March 11, 2011. The earthquake. The tsunami. The nuclear disaster. Well, as expected, the situation in Japan has largely left the media perspective, and as a result it's a little difficult to know what the current situation is these days (sitting outside of Japan).

However, here's a reminder of a few of the important things:

1. The earthquake, Magnitude 9.0, struck at 14:46 Japanese Standard Time about 130km from the major city of Sendai, at a depth of 32 km below ground.
2. The earthquake moved the crust by 10-20m, resulting in an overall shift of the island of Honshu eastwards by over 2m., and down by up to 0.8m
3. The ensuing initial tsunami struck the mainland somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes afterwards, with the vision of the inundation of Sendai Airport occurring at 15:55 (over an hour later). The initial wave was not the most powerful to hit. The height of the wave was initially estimated as 10m, however, in some locations was as high as 38m - with even a 2+m tsunami hitting Chiba prefecture near Tokyo.
4. The tsunami(s) inundated approximately 470 km2, depositing some 23 million tonnes of debris in the main three effected prefectures.
5. The death toll of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami is 15,413 confirmed deaths, and an extra 8,069 people reported missing (as of 12/6/2011).
6. As of the 14th of March, some 468,000+ people were displaced into shelters, that number has now dropped to just over 90,000 people remaining in shelters.
7. The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Reactors were classified as a Level 7 nuclear accident on April 11th, a month after the initial incident...and it wasn't until May 20th that it was officially recognized that a meltdown of Reactor 1 had in fact occured, and indeed that the reactor chamber has been breached. This reactor is continuing to leak large volumes of highly radioactive water into the plant. It is speculated that similar situations may exist in the other reactors.
8. Japanese power companies have yet to recovery electricity production to meet expected demand over summer, and have been suggesting that a further 15% reduction in power use will need to be achieved to avoid the rolling blackouts which occurred early after the disaster.
9. It is quite likely that the total radiation emitted from these reactors will exceed Chernobyl (if it hasn't already... ). 

The reality is that Japan is still very much reeling from the the effects of the triple disaster, and it's good to remember that the challenges facing the country are still very much real. Whilst the world's media attention may have moved on to more important things, the reality is that beyond the stoic patience of the Japanese lies a very wounded country facing what has been called the most expensive natural disaster in the world.

On My Way! The Big Day Has Arrived

Well finally, I'm at Adelaide Airport. But what a journey. I had the day off work (and was actually thinking of going to work today it was that busy), but it was a good thing I didn't. I haven't had a chance to relax. Even now as I sip from a beer in the Qantas Club in Adelaide Airport, I'm pretty juiced up on adrenalin. You would think that years of international travel would mean that everything goes like a well-oiled machine. However, complacency is ever comfort's enemy. I left too much to the last day, and it showed.

Well - I'm here at least. The first leg of my journey to Japan - to be reunited with my wife. Thankfully my brother's house-sitting so that T-kun (our cat) won't be too lonely whilst we're away. What a day, what a week, what a month. Seriously - I've been running on about 5 hours sleep a night for the last week, and even last night it was a 1am sleep, 5:30 am wakeup. I don't know what sort of state I will be in when I finally arrive.

So... the journey begins. Yet - to keep things nicely segmented, I won't post too much detail here, but rather get around to it on my Japanese Ties blog... in about 12 months. ?;-)

See you all on the flip-side!
Ben

PS - News from Japan is mixed at the moment, they've apparently managed to close up the leak (by just about every known technology known to humankind by the sounds of it), and yet at the same time they've just released 11,500 tonnes of radioactive water into the Pacific. I'm not sure how to reconcile those two things (is that a YEAH! or a Huh?). To make matters worse, they've detected high levels of radiation in some of the fish-life around that area. Hmmm.... sushi's looking a tad doubtful (at least until I get to Sapporo).

PPS - you'd also have thought that I would have known not to have packed a wine bottle into my carry on luggage. I did know not to... but such was the mad dash to the taxi pick-up time, that many things (including common sense) went by the by.

Drawing Breath... A Shift Towards a New Normal

Well - it's Saturday night, and there's been no serious "worse news" coming out of Japan, other than the mounting death toll (over 7,000 confirmed dead, and a growing list of the missing now exceeding 11,000). There's also been the discovery of higher than expected levels of radiation in the milk and spinach from the Ibaraki and Fukushima. And of course there's the discovery that the Miyagi prefecture was moved a whole 5.3 meters laterally, and 1.2 meters down. I think given the whole tsunami thing, if you had to move in any direction - up would have been the most desirable. On the human front, the cold weather has been causing all sorts of dramas - not least the outbreak of influenza that's claimed the lives of some of those that escaped the horror of the quake and tsunami.

On the upside, radiation seems to have stabilised and temperatures at the power plant seem more manageable after an amazing series of actions to pump water into the four reactors. Also power has been restored to the reactors - at least some of them. It's hard to see that there'd be much left to work after all that's happened. Also, work is about to commence to construct the first 200 pre-fabricated houses as a starting point to reconstructing people's lives. And it's with these small steps that life reverts to a new form of normal. It's to be sure that normal will be a whole different type of creature than it was a little over a week ago.

And whilst we've had our own dramas (on a much different scale) in terms of working out whether we're going to Japan or not... we feel a small level of calm spreading, like the dawn's light, across our emotional landscape.

To remind us all of the real situation, a M6.1 quake hit the already ravaged Ibaraki Prefecture just a couple of hours ago.

Normal will almost certainly involve a more uncomfortable relationship with the earth for the weary and worn Japanese of the Tohoku region of Japan. May they find some pause in their own struggles, that they too may draw breath.

Family Travel Update to Japan - Travel via HGK and Osaka

Well - I have to say that Qantas have come through (we've taken our travel agents out of the loop)...this morning we rang Qantas and changed the flights to go via Hong Kong (unavoidable for the foreseeable future) but instead of transiting through Tokyo (either Narita or Haneda) we've gone the slightly safer - though slower - path of travelling via Osaka (KIX airport). This has the advantage of avoiding any risk of things going worse. We've also delayed a further 2 days to allow T-chan to collect herself and just to let the dust settle a bit more (it's been a long, stressful week).

Our Qantas contact was especially good in helping us out, and was very patient when we bombarded her with multiple options. Very helpful and very informative. A BIG thumbs up to Qantas.

Stress levels receding - hopefully like the radiation levels in Fukushima.

Update - the power has been at least partially restored to the power station (according to T-chan's parents via skype just now); and at least one of the diesel motors has been restarted. Not sure which reactor they're trying to power up first.

Australian Government Now Says "Do Not Travel" To Tokyo

I've just noticed that the DFAT travel advisory has been ramped up from "reconsider need to travel" to Tokyo, to "Do Not Travel" to Tokyo. Not sure what the implications are - or whether this is a precaution against the inherently more dangerous phase that the Fukushima operation has enetered. The overall Japanese advisory has also been upgraded from the lowest level of "Be Alert" to "High Degree of Caution".

I have to say, it doesn't get much more blunt than that. This comes on top of Australia following the US lead by increasing it's recommended exclusion zone to a radius of 80km from the Fukushima reactors.

Update - Australians Told To Leave Tokyo

The continuing (worsening) drama at Fukushima Daiichi Power Station have caused the Australian Foreign Minister to announce that all non-essential Australians should evacuate from Tokyo and the 8 affected prefectures. Embasssy staff have been told they may leave Japan if they wish. Things are continuing to spiral down... meanwhile the actual radiation levels observed in Tokyo are currently very low, and whilst there's ever present concern the brave Tokyoites are being strong and resilient.

I've included a Japanese-language stream from NHK below from UStream.


Stream videos at Ustream

We've now about 4 days to decide how to proceed with our trip to Japan. The biggest problem is that whilst Sapporo is quite safe now, transport is still currently passing through Tokyo.

Qantas Now Stops Over in Hong Kong Enroute to Japan

This afternoon there was a lot of rumor and mis-information going around (including some very disturbing stuff coming out about the recent Shizuoko earthquake of last night...) The worst thing is that you don't know which news source to believe - or which news sources are just too slow to bring the news out.

The other thing that happened is that we've heard on the ABC news that Qantas has stopped flying direct into/out of Narita airport - but instead having a stop-over in Hong Kong to change crews. At first we thought this meant that they were not flying into Narita at all. We haven't heard anything direct from Qantas as yet - but this may be that the change affects only flights up to the 19th so far.

What we don't know is what that means in terms of T-chan's forward flight to Sapporo (now scheduled for the 22nd March). Hopefully this will all calm down shortly.

Update - Still In Adelaide Watching Live NHK World

This evening T-chan, L-kun and I are home, safely, thinking how lucky we are - but mixed with sadness that T-chan will not be meeting her parents tomorrow. Hopefully this will only be a short delay whilst we all come to understand the nature of the problems facing Japan - whether it is big or small. 

Once again - here is a live feed from NHK World... from Ustream. It's horrible to watch some of the footage, and I try not to watch the graphic stuff (will I be any better off for watching people being consumed by the waves?)... still, the thing that makes me angry is watching the briefings from TEPCO where they can't come up with a straight answer, or worse still, where they voice their meaningless apologies. 

Free video streaming by Ustream

Update - The death toll mounts (around 2,500 confirmed with many more unidentified as yet). And yet still, there are survivors being found. Today a 75 year old woman and a man in his 20's. It would be nice to think that there will be more found, but as time goes on, and with a cold snap here, those chances are getting slimmer and slimmer. Radiation that is harmful to human health is detected - however, there is confusion as to how much and how far from the site.

I know it's wrong... but I'm sure that there were plenty of people wishing that the people found were someone else... someone's loved one, missing relative, lovers, parents, children, friends. There is no right or wrong to who survives; but we should be thankful for everyone that can be pulled alive from the rubble.

Last Thoughts Tonight....

Actually... watching the footage coming out of NHK World now, I am starting to get quite sick. What a horrible, horrible tragedy. Even though I know that these things all happened over the course of a few minutes on Friday afternoon, the continual release of footage makes it feel as if it's an unending catastrophe.

We need time to draw breath, and need time to grieve.

And I understand that Fukushima Reactor #2 has undergone at least partial meltdown, and radioactivity is being detected (apparently injection of seawater is not working sufficiently to cool the core down). What will happen? The language from the government to me is changing dramatically from one of a semi-controlled situation to one describing a situation that is rapidly going out of control.

It is like a dream where you are perpetually falling - and you never reach bottom.

Of course there will be a bottom, and things will improve - and we all have to have hope and confidence that things can be returned to normal, that life must go on, and that Japan's battered nation can be rebuilt stronger. We have to.

Let us all go to sleep thinking of life... and hope tomorrow brings the first of many better days.

A Third Reactor Emergency - A Quick Summary

News coming out now is that another reactor core in the same complex has triggered an emergency alert, with increasing temperatures raising concerns of another impending problem. The reactors in this case are Light Water Reactors, which use a thermal process - controlled by the presence of water. The earthquake on Friday caused the safety systems which control the flow of water to be rendered inactive, thus removing the coolant water regulation, and hence the increase of temperature to the point where the water begins to boil. When the water level drops, exposing the fuel to air, they melt (thus producing the "melt down" phenomenon). After a now incredibly high temperature disintegrating core interacts with whatever coolant remains... this can potentially cause a huge steam explosion that can eject large amounts of radioactive material into the environment.

That's the worst case scenario. The Japanese government has provided assurance that there is no real threat, however, there are already reports of three of the people working on the damaged reactor having been exposed to radioactive substances (related to the partial meltdown). The extent of this has not been identified, but is suggested as being of a low level. There is however a history with slow responses when it comes to nuclear accidents... with incidents in Tokaimura (in Inbaraki Prefecture) in 1997 and a significant incident in 1999. The current accident is of the same order of severity as the second incident - a level 4 (out of 7) emergency.

The current plan is to fill the reactor cores with sea-water (the only large quantity of water available) - though estimates are that this process will take up to 10 days, and will also effectively mean the reactor will need to be shut down permanently.

What seems a problem to me is the rate at which the now introduced seawater heats up, as it will be unlikely to be regulated in any significant way. Unless the heated seawater is purged with cooler water. This has the problem of where the now contaminated seawater will be stored (or released). There are some very tricky decisions to be made, but they have now essentially committed the reactor to a "rapid as possible" and permanent shutdown.

Despite the severity of the action, it is somewhat incongruous to me that the Australian foreign minister (Kevin Rudd) has apparently all but demanded a full briefing on the threat posed by the reactor from his Japanese counterpart. To put this into some context, whilst Australia has the largest single deposit of uranium in the world, we do not have nuclear power stations (and only one experimental "scientific and medical" reactor). The question of nuclear power has been a long divisive one here in Australia over many decades - but the tone used by Mr Rudd beggars belief in the context of the on-going tragedy. I do not want make my blog political at all, but Australia's response concentrating on the state of the reactors seems disproportionate to the very real threat that has been manifest in Japan due to the earthquake and tsunami.

The Japanese people certainly are experiencing calamity on a number of different scales - and whilst the quakes and the tsunami threat is for the moment subsiding, there remains a very real threat. Not least of all from the condition of the reactors.

Update on Japanese Earthquake... Anxiety Starting To Rise.

It's been a long night... and I haven't slept much (thanks to the worsening situation in Japan, and having made the mistake of having had some decongestant for a cold that left my brain all wired). Anyway, I'm also starting to get a little worried about T-chan's and L-kun's trip to Sapporo (2 more days to go)... and my own trip in 3 weeks time when we intended to spend over a week in Tokyo. The thing that makes me worried most of all is the realisation that an earthquake of this magnitude is not only likely to have large aftershocks, but more worrying it is also likely to generate other stresses that could lead to other big earthquakes (similar to what has happened in places like Christchurch just recently).

I've included a link below to a live streaming NHK World News for those looking for up to date news. As the horrible news of death continues, it is worth remembering that there are moments of life and miracles. I am hoping that we will also see that Japan's early warning system has saved many more people than could otherwise be expected.

Free video chat by Ustream

Update - The initial estimates on Minamisoma may be overestimated... or misplaced... the media is now talking about the town of Minami Sanriku - where there are some 10,000 people missing (over half the population of the town). The situation on the ground is still quite chaotic, and it is therefore difficult to get a good view of exactly what has occurred.

Further Problems at Fukushima Reactors

There has been an explosion at the Fukushima #1 reactor site. This is believed to have been caused by a hydrogen build-up due to a partial meltdown of the reactor core. This is likely to have only destroyed the outer building that surrounds the reactor core containment shell. Four people have been reported as injured - and whilst there have been nuclear fissile contaminants detected around the plant, the government are saying that no major radioactive leak has occurred.




Reports indicate that they have already started pumping seawater into the core to reduce the temperature. This action will almost certainly mean these reactors will not be re-started. This should however avert the risk of further meltdown. Whilst there will inevitably be lessons learned from this disaster, it raises some serious questions about both the design and the inherent vulnerability to power infrastructure in Japan. That is a discussion for another day however.

To make things worse, Fukushima prefecture has also just been hit by a magnitude 6 earthquake as an aftershock - in itself a serious earthquake. It is speculated that due to the extreme severity of this earthquake, the earth's crust has been highly activated and that many other large earthquakes are now likely, even well beyond the normal aftershocks.

The nuclear power plant problems are to some extent hiding the much larger problem of the extreme inundation of the miyagi and surrounding prefectures.

Situation in Japan - The Wait Begins

Whilst we know T-chan's parents are safe, communications with Sapporo seem to have been quite badly affected. Landlines are still out, and even contacting T-chan's mother by phone is disrupted except for texting. We're now waiting to until T-chan can get back to Sapporo. Edit - seems that NTT lines were working, but other providers were struggling with demand and infrastructure problems in Sapporo.

We know that Hakodate (southern Hokkaido) was hit by a 2m tsunami and has sustained some damage, but news is still filtering out slowly. Airlines are now warning of significant disruptions to flights into Tokyo - but we're still hopeful there will be little affect on T-chan and L-kun flying to Japan on Tuesday. On more serious news - there is the real prospect of massive loss of life in North-Eastern Japan, with entire cities (such as Minamisoma, with a population of some 70,000 people) and large numbers of towns being either completely inundated, or worse, destroyed completely. Edit - the extent of damage here is now unclear.

Two nuclear reactors in Fukushima prefecture, near the worst hit area, have caused atomic emergency warning (and evacuations to be undertaken) as control to the cooling to the reactors have been at least temporarily lost - at best this will result in the release of some radioactive steam into the atmosphere, but at worst the reactors will continue to increase in temperature... and some limited meltdown occur. This is important as it could be the make or break of modern nuclear reactors.

A Sad Day...Sendai Earthquake

Returning home from an interstate trip I came inside this evening to the news that Japan had suffered one of the worst Earthquakes on record - and in a tragedy that is still unfolding, the resultant tsunami threaten to widen the sorrow to many more places beyond Japanese shores.

View Larger Map

For those that don't know my wife's family live in Sapporo (in Hokkaido) to the north, but her brother (and soon-to-be-sister-in-law) live in Tokyo. Even though we knew that the earthquake was centred around Sendai (on the northeast cost of the main island of Honshu... a major city with a population of around 1 million people (the same size as my home city of Adelaide). We quickly heard from T-chan's parents, and then from her brother... all were well. However - it was definitely a very bad earthquake, even at those distances (about 550 km from Sapporo, and only 350 km from Tokyo) the effects were very bad. T-chan's parents were badly shaken and left feeling physically sick - as was T-chan's brother.

The damage is still not well understood - and with the resulting 7 - 10m high tsunami that followed... but given that there was only some 15 or so minutes warning before it hit Japan, you can well imagine the carnage, and the likely loss of life that will result from this disaster. After the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, I am sure we all hoped that we wouldn't see anything like this again - and we can only hope that this one dissipates it's energy before it hits other countries.

From NHK

Our hopes go out to all the people who have been affected by this quake, and in particular to our close friends in Saitama that we have yet to hear from. Our hopes also go out to the people that live in the danger zones around the Pacific...UPDATE: the latest news is that the evidence from Taiwan and Russia is that the tsunami may not have the same strength as the one in 2004.

This is also a sad day for another reason, that I might post about later - but not today.

Japan in the News: Death, Wives, Mammoths, The War, Whaling and the Whacky

Hi all... I thought I'd start a quick series of posts about how Japan is portrayed in the media...

Here's a few news stories from the ABC (Australia's government funded television/radio service) as well as the Australian (our premier newspaper). It's sometimes interesting to see how a country is portrayed in the outside world. And it's also interesting to look at how your own country views other countries. In particular, it seems to me that the stories that I've seen coming out of Japan (that are given air time here) are either related to murders, the war, whaling, reforms, or the quirky side of life (for example a Prime Minister wife's public scorn of her husband).

Generally speaking I would say that Australia has a relatively broad news service, and we are interested in what happens from around the world. But Japan to me seems to always fall into the category of the off-beat story... which is a shame, as there's so much more to see and hear.

I've included a snapshot of the last two weeks stories - with just the headlines and abstract (with links).


New hope Japan may axe death penalty
Original Story Source: ABC News.
By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy

Japan has appointed a new justice minister who is a vocal opponent of the death penalty, raising hopes among activists that he will push for the scrapping of capital punishment.

Scorn: Nobuko Kan (AFP: Yoshikazu Tsuno)

Japanese PM ridiculed by wife
Original Story Source: ABC News

By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy


Japan's first lady has caused a stir after revealing she would not marry her husband if she could live her life over again.














Woolly mammoth clone a possibility
Original Source Story: The Daily Telegraph 
The extinct woolly mammoth could be brought back to life within four years after a breakthrough in cloning.

Woolly mammoth model at the When Mammoths Roamed exhibition at the Australian Museum, Sydney. Picture: Tepper KatrinaSource: News Limited

Suburban Tokyo park may hide a terrible wartime secret
Original Story Source: The Australian
Richard Lloyd-Parry From: The Times, January 15, 20011
IF you knew nothing of its sinister history, you could pass by a thousand times without casting a second glance at Toyama Park.

Japan admits whale meat scam
Original Story Source: ABC News
By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy, staff
Japan's Fisheries Agency has reprimanded five officials for taking thousands of dollars worth of meat. (Getty Images: Koichi Kamoshida)


Only In Japan

Original Source Story: The Herald Sun

SEE some of the wackiest designs and inventions that hail from Japan...

-----------------------------------

In particular the whaling issue is a red-hot issue here in Australia. I can't tell you how many times people have asked me about whaling in Japan... and how many times I've been forced into having to defend my second home. Not because I'm a fan of whaling (I'm not), but because I don't believe that issues are always as clear cut as they seem on the news. Whaling in South Australia ceased around the 1850-1870's once whale numbers had dropped and after petroleum based products were found to be a better alternative to the whale fat-based products. Nowadays we have a very popular whale watching industry - which of course is completely at odds with the idea of whaling - both ethically and commercially.

Yet, for all of that, the issue of whaling seems to boil down to four things: the simple matter of it goes against our cultural values and hence should be stopped; the inherent wrongness of killing whales (as compared to other mammals); the depletion of the whale numbers (though to be honest, I wouldn't know what their numbers are, and I'm sure most people don't); and the apparent violation of national waters and international sanctuaries.

I'm all for reasoned debate about whaling, but it seems to me that the arguments rarely get past the first one. Currently Australia is seeking to take Japan to the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Yet, the issue of national sovereignty - especially when it comes to such things as international waters and resources - is a difficult one to determine.

And for the record - yes, I once ate whale at a sushi restaurant. It was ok, but nothing that I thought I'd ever need to eat again.