sanjo 2 Posted July 16, 2004 Author Share Posted July 16, 2004 Well I don't think the fact that far worse happens all the time really bothers most of my towns people right now. Thats got nothing to do with their lives. But just in case, I'll just go down there and tell them to shut their faces moaning because there's much bigger shit happening elsewhere. That'll tell them well and good. And yes, Wiggles-san, theres a large % of elderly in that area. Link to post Share on other sites
jared 0 Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 yeah toque ya basted - how could you do this to all those poor people. What did they do to you? The nerve of some people. Lets form a lynch mob and burn him before he can be the cause of more misfortune. Link to post Share on other sites
sanjo 2 Posted July 16, 2004 Author Share Posted July 16, 2004 The comment I was responding to there was actually DBs. Captain Stag - shit, you sure told me there didn't you. Dickhead. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 Just for the sake of some perspective, it's some pretty serious trouble that is going on there. There has been water in the streets and houses up to neck height, and this water also contains a good deal of sewage water. There's more rain forecast. People are going to be living with foul-smelling mud in their homes for months. The evacuation centers are full, and people are having to go around the flooded city trying to find places to stay, and are getting turned away. Emergency services are going house to house checking for old people so more of them don't die. The rice crop in the whole area is ruined, as is most other agricultural produce. Businesses won't recover for a long time. There are possibly other, more fitting subjects for mirth... Link to post Share on other sites
mattlucas 0 Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 Sanjo calm down. We all now know that you are in the centre of a disaster area. Sometimes it's best to step back and chuckle. Sometimes it's all you can do. It's called black humour and it works. Japan and this kind of thing - They have created a bad situation by containing many of the rivers. When you contain a river like many of them are you increase the speed by reducing the friction. Friction from rocks on the bottom will slow a river down. In many places the rocks have been removed and an artificial surface has been created as we all know and see everyday. The thinking originally was that by speeding up the water it will leave the area that much quicker. That is also what they did in LA (you know those flood control channels in the terminator movies and John Travolta's Grease musical) and there during flash floods water reaches very unatural speeds of 50 km/h. And then bad things happen. In a natural situation water only ever reaches speeds of 30 km/h and this is rare. It appears that in this situation the river found a weakness and expoited it. That is what rivers do. They are always looking for the easiest way whether it be a flood control channel or through a town. So then when this much water is dropped that quick the saturation level of the ground is quickly exceeded and overland flow occurs. That is why flooding occured here. Also I think and this could be completly wrong but Japan doesn't appear to have very much soil cover thus lessoning the amount of saturation and increasing the amount of overland flow. Japan is also special in that the hills are very steep. The only logical place to put a town thus is on the flat floodplains. They have tried to control it to the standards of the 1 in 20 or 1 in 100 year flood but who knows what the 1 in 101 year flood will hold. Most of the biggest cities in the world are built on floodplains. In Banglodesh (sp) a few years ago something like hundreds of thousands of people were killed when the river flooded its banks during the monsoon. It didn't even make the North American news. So somebody please rip that apart. I just barely passed my fluvial geomorphology course with like 55 percent and that was 2 or 3 year ago. Link to post Share on other sites
Yuki's Passion 1 Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 viv&kev, home, well, my parents are back in the South, with Bubba and Larry driving around in their Chevy pickups waving rebel flags with shotgun racks... Seen some nasty nasty tornados come through in my day. An F4 hit a quarter mile away and cleared a path for about 8-10K. It was like a child digging in sand with a shovel, ya know creating a channel in the sand, that same effect but houses, trees, cows, horses, corn, etc..., sorry no trailer parks. Scary. Ive been through tons of hurricanes, typhoons, mudslides, wicked storms, several strong earthquakes, and tornados. Nothing scares me more than tornados Sorry ta hijack the thread... Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 Hey Sanjo I dont think anyone was trying in any way to belittle what happened there. It is a disaster for sure. My first hope is that everyone gets into safer areas for now the second hope is for the rain front to move away. In all honesty you have take into account what we hear and see on TV. The first day you were hit it made the news but it didnt talk about people dying it only showed them doing stupid things. If I take a step back and think about it most of the people in the towns were more than likly shocked and things happened so damn fast that they could do nothing but ponder. As Ocean has mentioned this event is more than just a flood it is the start of a year or more of hard work to rebuild what was lost. Again Sanjo I doubt that any of us is trying to make fun at what has happened to any of you. Link to post Share on other sites
sanjo 2 Posted July 16, 2004 Author Share Posted July 16, 2004 Oh yes I see Toque. You are - indeed - hilarious. Well done. And all of us here are obviously not bright enough to understand this "black humour" concept. Or perhaps, finding Granny Takahashi dead a few doors down doesn't really fit into a black humour scenario. Link to post Share on other sites
mattlucas 0 Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 It is odd though about tornados but many Americans living in "Tornado Ally" have never even seen a tornado in their lives. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 Sanjo, I think you over reacted to what I said. My point was that this is a nasty fact of life, not that it was a meaningless fact of life. On this ball of mud we have very little say in what happens to us when it comes to day-to-day environment. Link to post Share on other sites
slow 0 Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 When I lived in England, I felt how people live peacefully and happily there. I don't know it is true or not but I felt no disaster in England. Japanese people, we have fears of volcano eruption, earthquake (Tsunami), typhoon (flood, landslide), avalanch every year. We have to survive in this enviroment. Japan is a wild country. Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 A good deal of flooding in the UK more recently... but basically, natural disasters a minimum. Man made disasters when one tries to have a good night out however...England's a wild country Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Quote: Originally posted by slow: Japanese people, we have fears of volcano eruption, earthquake (Tsunami), typhoon (flood, landslide), avalanch every year. We have to survive in this enviroment. Japan is a wild country. yes, so the brainwashing would have you believe. Slow, program your own mind or someone will program it for you. I dont doubt that Japan is more difficult that some other places. But it is what Japan does with this not so fantastic status that gets at me. Wake up, you live on the same Earth as the rest of us. besides, what percentage of Japanese people actually live in the environment. Environment means vending machines and ant colony apartment block. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 While the government encourages the population to accept questionable construction projects to prop up Japan, there's good reason for Japanese wariness about the range of potential disasters. If it's not fantastic amounts of devastation like the Hanshin earthquake, there are countless small landslides down inoccuous looking slopes that bury 2 or 3 people in their homes at a time. I was in Osaka for Hanshin, and from my office window I can see the recent remains of a big landslide. When we move house now, we look very carefully at where its situated, in 3 dimensions. I don't think that level of caution is generally required in England. Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Hows it up there today sanjo - seems like you got more heavy stuff going on today... Link to post Share on other sites
slow 0 Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 db, Sorry, my English is not so good. I meant "Nature"? or "Geography"? and not "Environment"... That is one of my impressions of Japan when I was in England. I know we live on the same earth and under the same sky. I just compared Japan with England. Ocean, you are very clever. I wasn't in Japan when we had Kobe earthquake. But I think it was traumatic disaster to people who were in Japan on that day. Now we know it will happen everywhere. And we know that typhoon kill some people every year. Link to post Share on other sites
BagOfCrisps 24 Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 That has been on the news here as well actually. Still not stopped by the looks of things. Sounds bad. Link to post Share on other sites
hamtaro 0 Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 I have friends in Tsubame right near that place, it sounds terrible. More strong rain as well last night. Link to post Share on other sites
Plucky 0 Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 Quote: Originally posted by Dear Britain: Quote: Originally posted by slow: Japanese people, we have fears of volcano eruption, earthquake (Tsunami), typhoon (flood, landslide), avalanch every year. We have to survive in this enviroment. Japan is a wild country. yes, so the brainwashing would have you believe. Slow, program your own mind or someone will program it for you. I dont doubt that Japan is more difficult that some other places. But it is what Japan does with this not so fantastic status that gets at me. Wake up, you live on the same Earth as the rest of us. besides, what percentage of Japanese people actually live in the environment. Environment means vending machines and ant colony apartment block. Damn, I actually agree with this guy for once. My background is in natural hazards and geomorpholoy. I've talked to many people here in Japan, and they are literally scared to death that a hill will fall down and kill them. It has to be one of the best marketing and propoganda campaigns ever. Are the Japanese dumb? Nope. Just subservient and believe what they're told. Toque explained it pretty well above. this country lays cement down on everything. They cement the creeks, the rivers, the rills - everything. It's not natural. You take away the natural process of infiltration, you have just screwed the proverbial donkey. 'But we have huge damns' they say. Japanese earth science is 50 years behind every other industrialized country. Here, they live with a concept of objectifying nature, but do nothing to protect it. It's a ruse by the government. Nice culture. On a completely different hand, I feel bad for those who were affected by the flood. It's never fun and something that is painful to go through. I've been through tornadoes myself. My family lives in Iowa. I'd take a damn flood anyday. At least you can predict what will happen... Link to post Share on other sites
slow 0 Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 Quote: Originally posted by Plucky: Toque explained it pretty well above. this country lays cement down on everything. They cement the creeks, the rivers, the rills - everything. It's not natural. You take away the natural process of infiltration, you have just screwed the proverbial donkey. 'But we have huge damns' they say. Japanese earth science is 50 years behind every other industrialized country. Here, they live with a concept of objectifying nature, but do nothing to protect it. It's a ruse by the government. Nice culture. [/QB] I think it was the way to develop Japan after the war. Some Japanese people realize now it was wrong way. But I don't know why so many Japanese people are atill so loyal to the government. We have been given money(ODA) to other asian countries to help them develop in a same wrong way. What a shame... This local severe rain must be caused by global warming... Link to post Share on other sites
Plucky 0 Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 Quote: Originally posted by slow: Quote: Originally posted by Plucky: Toque explained it pretty well above. this country lays cement down on everything. They cement the creeks, the rivers, the rills - everything. It's not natural. You take away the natural process of infiltration, you have just screwed the proverbial donkey. 'But we have huge damns' they say. Japanese earth science is 50 years behind every other industrialized country. Here, they live with a concept of objectifying nature, but do nothing to protect it. It's a ruse by the government. Nice culture. I think it was the way to develop Japan after the war. Some Japanese people realize now it was wrong way. But I don't know why so many Japanese people are atill so loyal to the government. We have been given money(ODA) to other asian countries to help them develop in a same wrong way. What a shame... This local severe rain must be caused by global warming... [/QB] After the war, the japan played catch up with the rest of the world. The US helped them bigtime. I hate to explain myself like this again. It's not the people, but the government. The people have to believe in and rely on the government. Catch 22 yo. It's like during the cold war. I didn't hate russian people......you dig? I was in Berlin a year after the wall came down. West Berliners didn't have any animosity towards there eastern sisters and brothers. You see where I'm going with this? Japan, unfortunately, is a first world country that still thinks like a second world country. Always trying to catch up no matter what they do. They really need to drop this pride and honor bullshit. The Japanese I know don't adhere to it. Collectively, it's ingrained and people just believe it because that's how they were brought up. I love the people here. I can't stand the country. if Japan was more of a national power, Ocean and DB would be ripping on them. Don't worry - I know the faults of the US also. The US was built on dissention. Unfortunately, Japan doesn't know the meaning of the word. Link to post Share on other sites
big-will 7 Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Did you see that bloke in the car yesterday (Fukui?). Link to post Share on other sites
happyhappy 0 Posted July 22, 2004 Share Posted July 22, 2004 I have a friend who is in Fukui and his house is shafted now. Hes having to live with another teacher at his school because his needs a lot of work done on it to be liveable again. Bit of a nightmare - made worse by the fact he has only recently arrived and can hardly speak any Japanese Link to post Share on other sites
oblivion 5 Posted July 22, 2004 Share Posted July 22, 2004 That image of the train line all broken up, I never thought rain could be so kowai. Link to post Share on other sites
Yuki's Passion 1 Posted July 23, 2004 Share Posted July 23, 2004 Sanjo - whats going on up there? Is the water receeding? Things improving somewhat? Link to post Share on other sites
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