The following is part of a series of email updates about the effects of the earthquake in Japan. The emails originated from a colleague in Tokyo and provide an insiders perspective. These posting have been unedited and tell the story from one person's vantage point
April 4, 2011
North East Report
The status of the NE area remains bad across the board, still not enough food, fuel, clothing etc. reaching the right places.
Toll of dead (11,578) and missing (16,451) continues to climb every day and is now is excess of 30,000, with in excess of 150,000 still in temporary shelters in the worst affected regions.
A massive search operation to locate larger numbers of the missing commenced on Saturday 2nd April in tandem with the commencement of Spring tides that makes it easier to spot bodies when the tide ebbs. The 30kn exclusion zone around the problem reactor side is not included in search operations for the time being.
Much of the focus still on the nuclear reactor in Fukushima, refer “Nuclear Situation” below.
Tsunami Height
May have been much higher than originally thought:
Researchers: 30-meter tsunami in Ofunato
The latest research on the March 11 tsunami that slammed into Ofunato city in Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan shows that it was nearly 30 meters high.
A joint research team from Yokohama National University and University of Tokyo surveying the Ofunato city shoreline made the discovery.
They found fishing equipment scattered on the high cliff of the city's Ryori Bay and have determined the tsunami reached as high as 29.6 meters.
The research group says the great height of the tsunami was formed by the shape of the narrow bay. They will continue to survey traces of the tsunami to clarify the scale the tsunami.
Tokyo Report
In regard to getting back to normal, Tokyo continues to make quite good progress overall.
Major fiscal Year-End on Thursday 31st March appears to have passed without any lingering earthquake problems.
Food supplies are gradually returning to normal levels, currently estimated to be around 85% of “normal levels”, but there are still blank spaces on many store shelves for items still out of stock which are not being replenished or diverted North-east.
Business is also getting back to pre-quake “normal levels” with the exception of factory production in some areas, refer business perspective below.
Blackouts - Continue
Areas subject to blackouts have been divided into 5 regions each comprising approx. 4 sub-regions. Blackout schedule is posted on Tepco’s (power company) website in Japanese. These blackouts are also being cancelled on a fairly frequent basis as one and all make efforts to conserve electricity and thereby render them redundant.
These rolling blackouts interfere with factory production of a whole range of goods however, and cannot be considered positive for the economy, refer also “Business Perspective” below.
The area in which I live (near Tokyo Disneyland) was recognized as an “officially damaged area” 2 weeks ago, and is therefore exempted from any further blackouts, and has had a lot of repair work (roads, water-pipes, gas mains etc.) completed since that time. Residents of some areas still queuing up for daily supplies of drinking water however.
Drinking Water
The situation in regard to bottled drinking water supplies is no longer in panic mode, however the larger PET bottles of bottled mineral water are still reserved exclusively for families with young children. Smaller bottles of mineral water are still around and available to all however.
Radioactivity readings at all fresh water treatment plants in the Tokyo area have fallen back well below levels considered safe for infants less than 1 year old as anticipated earlier, this is due to the very short half-life of the isotope in question – 8 days.
Nuclear Situation
Power now connected to all reactors, attempts underway to restart back-up systems, and efforts continue to plug the current cause of most concern, the radiation leak into the ocean.
Overall progress is being made, but it is still frustratingly slow progress, therefore still far from resolved and vigilance is still required.
The big unknown surrounding the nuclear situation is what radioactive isotopes are being leaked/emitted and how dangerous they are respectively. Readings taken by the IAEA late last week raised concerns yet again due to the fact they detected Cesium 137 in some of their readings in a small village not far from the reactor where approx. 100 people are still in residence.
The following is from MIT’s “Nuclear Information Hub” website:
Yield
6.80%
6.30%
6.30%
6.10%
6.10%
5.80%
2.80%
2.30%
1.10%
0.70%
0.40%
0.40%
0.30%
0.20%
| Fission Product
cesium-133/134*
iodine-135 / xenon-135
zirconium-93
cesium-137
molybdenum-99 / technetium-99**
strontium-90
iodine-131
promethium-147
samarium-149
iodine-129
samarium-151
ruthenium-106
krypton-85
palladium-107
| Half-life
2 years
7 hours
1.5 million years
30 years
200,000 years
30 years
8 days
3 years
not radioactive
15 million years
90 years
1 year
11 years
7 million years
|
Building Nuclear Reactors in an Earthquake prone country
Japan has many Nuclear Power plants, so why hasn’t this happened before? Is the question on the minds of many.
Apparently this is not the first reactor to be damaged by an earthquake (and Tsunami in this case) in Japan, back in 2007 (when there was a big earthquake in Niigata) there was some damage to a plant on the other side of the country, refer “Kashiwaki Kariwa” location in the below diagram:
The “Tokyo Big-One” or not?
This is the other discussion going on in some sectors locally.
The general consensus at this point in time is “probably not” as this quake was centered much further North, and all aftershocks have been almost exclusively along the “Pacific Plate / Nth American Plate” boundary, also in the above diagram.
Some are expressing the concern this quake may have placed extra pressure on other fault lines closer to Tokyo, however others have countered this cannot be assumed with any degree of certainty yet.
Aftershocks and Seismic Data
Seems that I will be able to say once again that despite the fact the number of aftershocks is not in any real decline, the average severity does seem to have fallen somewhat. Caution is still required however as there have been 119 in total since my last report 6 days ago.
Business Perspective
- North-East Area – Economic Impact
Share of Japan GDP which the worst hit areas account for is being estimated to be around 6.0%, not all of which will be lost due to the quake and tsunami’s, however situation in regard to b) below is worsening.
- Factory Closings
Number of closings due to inability to secure key production parts/components is increasing. This is leading many to consider relocating production elsewhere for the time being at least.
This is due to the Just-in-time inventory system which keeps inventories of production components at low levels and will affect Japan’s GDP for the March and June quarters at least.
Despite several forecasts for only minor negative impact on GDP, this factor also warrants vigilance, as it could easily have a much larger impact if the “production recovery” assumptions in some of these forecasts prove too rosy.
- Economic Recession Likelihood is unchanged
For the current QTR, this is considered almost a certainty but only at marginally negative growth levels, for the next QTR it is also considered quite likely with the magnitude dependent on how quickly the problems associated with the JIT system in b) above can be remedied.
Subsequently the growth positive effects of rebuilding should gradually become more evident and serve as a base for subsequent rebounds in GDP.
- Financial Markets
Saw a program guest on CNBC over the weekend describe the (initial) foreign press coverage of the whole incident (Quake, Tsunami and Nuclear problem) as “an inverted pyramid of piffle” which I do agree with in relation to the initial coverage, i.e. the first 2 weeks or so, however there is growing evidence that the more recent coverage has been more in line with reality and the local coverage.
- March 31 Fiscal Year End
Has passed without any major lingering problems, and should be considered another sign that all is gradually getting back to normal.
A colleague and I drover to an area approx. 100km North of Tokyo (i.e. approx 140km from the Fukushima plant) to assist with some Year-End activities on Thursday evening, there was no sign of anything abnormal happening, apart from some businesses closing earlier to conserve electricity.
Stay or Flee? – The “Flygin” Discussion
This discussion degenerated into a spiteful affair between 4 or 5 individuals, so I doubt we are going to get any constructive conclusions from it at all.
However, for the record, here some personal recommendations from yours truly:
In the event anyone finds themselves caught up in an event of such magnitude:
- Make arrangements to get your family out of any affected area immediately
By this, I do not mean just get them out of the worst affected Tsunami areas, I mean get them out of anywhere that “business as usual” cannot be conducted from the next day (inclusive of many parts of Tokyo in this instance) to a safer location in-country, or overseas
This is because we all should anticipate some severe infrastructure damage to occur with an event this size and therefore it is probably not wise to keep your families close-by “for the sake of being close-by”, i.e. in this regard the nuclear power plant situation in Fukushima is nothing more then additional infrastructure damage.
- Attend to your work related responsibilities, if you have them.
By this I do not mean contact all your staff and merely ask if they are okay, give them the same opportunity to get their families out of the affected areas as well.
- Anticipate a food and water buying panic to occur immediately by people who are not well prepared for such an event (and even by some that are)
By this I mean don’t let such responses catch you by surprise and therefore plan ahead (refer next point)
- Prepare in advance, i.e. as much as you can in any case
By this, I do not mean have a few extra bottles of mineral water stored in the kitchen, I mean conduct a full risk analysis of what you will need to survive a few weeks without basic services and utilities. If you are not willing to do this, you are gambling with the lives of your families in the first place, also if you think conducting a risk analysis is a burden/nuisance of some sort, it is probably better if you do not venture into “such countries” in the second place as historical statistics dictate such events are going to occur at some stage.
The term “such countries” is not limited to just Japan, but would prominently include such countries (and locations) as Chile, New Zealand, Indonesia, Alaska, California and The Philippines etc. i.e. this list is not an exhaustive list, just the main locations around the Pacific Rim, the point is that the list is a bit longer than you would initially surmise.
