Slashdot Mirror
Japan Marks 3rd Anniversary of Tsunami Disaster
AmiMoJo writes "Today Japan marks the third anniversary of the 11th of March 2011 disaster when the country was hit by a magnitude 9 earthquake huge tsunami and severe nuclear accident. More than 18,500 people were killed or went missing. Nearly 3,000 others died while evacuated from their homes, and over a quarter of a million people were still living in temporary housing as of February. Work to build new housing on higher ground is lagging behind schedule.
Three reactors melted down at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the quake and tsunami, but the exact cause of the accident is still unknown. How massive amounts of radioactive materials from the reactors were dispersed is also unclear. Today was also the day when hundreds of former residents announced that they were suing TEPCO, the plant operator, and the government for additional compensation." Although the nuclear accident was dwarfed by the other devastation, the effects of the meltdown will be felt for much longer. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published an article today on the reactors that didn't meltdown, and the NRC chair has some comments on the progress at Fukishima.
Three reactors melted down at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the quake and tsunami, but the exact cause of the accident is still unknown. How massive amounts of radioactive materials from the reactors were dispersed is also unclear. Today was also the day when hundreds of former residents announced that they were suing TEPCO, the plant operator, and the government for additional compensation." Although the nuclear accident was dwarfed by the other devastation, the effects of the meltdown will be felt for much longer. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published an article today on the reactors that didn't meltdown, and the NRC chair has some comments on the progress at Fukishima.
Although the nuclear accident was dwarfed by the other devastation,
Yet the nuclear accident is all people panic about, completely forgetting the actual tsunami.
The key paragraph:
Most people believe that Fukushima Daiichiâ(TM)s meltdowns were predominantly due to the earthquake and tsunami. The survival of Onagawa, however, suggests otherwise. Onagawa was only 123 kilometers away from the epicenterâ"60 kilometers closer than Fukushima Daiichiâ"and the difference in seismic intensity at the two plants was negligible. Furthermore, the tsunami was bigger at Onagawa, reaching a height of 14.3 meters, compared with 13.1 meters at Fukushima Daiichi. The difference in outcomes at the two plants reveals the root cause of Fukushima Daiichiâ(TM)s failures: the utilityâ(TM)s corporate âoesafety culture.â
A natural disaster is a tragedy. A man-made disaster due to corporate culture is a crime.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Why do you hate the Japanese? The A-bombs likely saved a million+ Japanese lives. Invasion or starving them out, would have cost much more.
No they weren't ready to surrender. That's pure bullshit.
Has there ever been any conclusive proof on this? I'm sure that's the thought process the US wanted everyone to think, as the US is the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon outside of testing. But the victors usually do get to write history, and I've never seen any kind of historical (or even statistical) consensus that dropping the bomb saved lives. Seems to me that the Truman administration -and any administrations following- would want the prevailing narrative to be "dropping the bombs saved lives." I have no doubt it saved allied lives, but just how many?
Doesn't this sound very familiar?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
"An unfortunate wave and harmless radiation that inconvenienced a small group of our citizens"
I can't say how accurate the sources are but this might provide some information: http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/C/...
The main points I see are the comments that even at the end of the war at most 1-3% of Japanese soldiers would surrender and the killed to wounded ratio of Japanese vs anyone else. Also note the low number civilian casualties among the Japanese relative to anyone else.
Study what you know nothing about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
"Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan; the number exceeded that of all American military casualties of the 65 years following the end of World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock."
That's right: we're STILL awarding Purple Heart medals manufactured for that invasion.
Conclusive proof? Probably not but it was a reasonable expectation. America was well aware of many of the atrocities that were going on during the 2nd Sino-Japanese war leading up to World War II. Japanese soldiers in the army were infused with an utterly bastardized form of bushido and were treated barbaricly by their superiors.
Hiroshima was very must a strategically justified target on military grounds. It was the headquarters of the Japanese 2nd General Army which was responsible for the defense of a significant portion of the Japanese homeland. The atomic bomb caused critical damage to that army. It wiped out the headquarters, most of the army's staff officers were killed by it (the commanding general was away when the bomb dropped), the logistics for that army were wiped out, and numerous formations were written off by the bomb's effect. In essence that bomb completely wrote off one of the two armies responsible for defending the Japanese mainland.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
I remember when this happened it was like 1am or so.. maybe a bit later and I was flipping through channels and I saw this weird looking flood type thing.. and a bunch of Japanese looking text.... it was the NHK channel
it was going for a very long time, perhaps an hour or more, before it appeared on your CNNs and and NBCs and such..
It was shocking and compelling footage from a helicopter of the tsunami rolling over the landscape..
it was an interesting way to come up on a news story... it was in a language I didnt understand, not on a "news" channel (this channel normally just had japanese language variety type programming) and I couldn't even quite tell what was happening at first.. but by the warnings on the screen, and the tone of the voices of the people talking you knew it was a huge event.. you could see that it was..
over the next few days that channel was what I watched almost exclusively.. I never understood a word of it.. but the scope of things just got worse and worse.. and that was something that seemed missing from the American coverage.... it never quite conveyed the violence, the horror and the magnitude.. ..it is kind of hard for CNN do when they need to cut away for Cheerios commercials
I wouldn't say that Japan started the conflict. They fired the first shot but the US pushed them into a corner where the war became inevitable. That push came after the Japanese invades south east Asia and French forces had surrended to them. The US them came out swinging demanding that Japan leave south east Asia and withdraw from China. The US had not previously demanded Japan withdraw from China when all the atrocities were going on. When Japan made a counteroffer of withdrawing from south east Asia and returning to the status before than invasion the US refused and at that point war became mostly inevitable because the US's demands would have caused Japan to lose a lot of face.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Trying to justify anything in a war, particularly one operating on a principle of "total war", is a fool's errand.
Im not sure anything, even the supposed lives it saved or the apparent necessity, could justify the indiscriminate bombing of a civilian population. Yes, that goes for the various firebombings. Claiming that they were potential combatants doesnt change that they werent actual combatants.
Bombing Japan may have been the lesser of two evils, but dont let anyone tell you that it wasnt one of the two.
Never forget that a lot of civilians were killed by those bombs.
Be really careful about trying to rationalize civilian deaths. Claim its necessary all you want, just be clear about the kind of company youre keeping when you let "the greater good" rationalize mass killings.
Read what you just wrote. You can't be serious.
After Japan invades China, it invades SE Asia. The USA then gives them no choice but to 'go to war'. WTF? They've been at war for a decade at that point.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Japan was close to surrender before the bombs were dropped. It's a well established historical fact. The situation was already dire, the Pacific fleet was mostly resting on the bottom, Russia was threatening to attack from the west, it was obvious that victory was impossible and defeat was only a matter of time. Even the military knew it, which is why they were resorting to ever more desperate tactics like suicide attacks.
There are plenty of letters written by those in positions of power at the time stating all this, it was very clear to them. The political will to do it was proving hard to muster, but it was building and it's doubtful that the bombs shorted the war by more than weeks or a few months at most. In particular the threat of being split in two like Germany if Russia attacked meant that surrender would actually have been preferable.
America had developed this terrible new weapon and realized that it was only a matter of time before others did too. They wanted to find out what the effects of a nuclear attack would be, especially on cities and human beings. Computer modelling and the like didn't exist, but here was an opportunity to try it out.
If the goal was simply to end the war swiftly the bombs could have been dropped on unpopulated or remote military only targets. They were not, they were dropped on civilian cities. I have yet to hear an explanation of why that was, other than to conduct tests. How do you explain it?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Hmm, Kokura, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Yokohama, and Niigata were put on a list of cities that were not to be bombed conventionally, so as to allow for a good analysis of the effects of atomic bombing, if, as and when.
So it's pretty safe to say that the populations of Yokohama, Kokura, and Niigata were saved as a result of the decision to use the bomb.
This ignoring that the Tokyo bombings killed more people than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I wasn't aware that when the Japanese invaded french indochina in 1940 that they had been at war with the US for a decade. Shit, context is hard.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Kokura's population wasn't saved by the decision to use the atomic bomb. It was the primary target for Fat Boy but due to cloud cover the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki instead.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
why do you hate them so much? A legitimate target for atomic bomb could have naval bases such as Yokosuka. but you prefer tens of thousands of incinerated civilians.
Hiroshima was the headquarters of the Japanese 2nd General Army which was responsible for the defense of Western Japan. The effect of the bomb was to write off the entire army as nearly its entire command staff was killed, it's logistics were thoroughly wrecked, and numerous combat units for that army were entirely written off by the bomb.
Additionally, it didn't matter if plenty of people in high positions believed the war was over and that surrender was the only option. You're ignoring the political climate that lead up to the conflict in the first place and other aspects of the Japanese country. One significant factor was while the IJN and civilian portions (including Emperor Hirohito) were convinced the war was over numerous power players in the IJA were not in agreement with that certainty and that is the critical problem that would have prevented surrended. The entirety of the actions by Japan leading up to WW2 were heavily influenced, caused, or directed by the IJA and Zaibatsu. So much that Emperor Hirohito and other civilian government officials were certain the only thing they could do was "ride the tiger" and try to influence it. If they did otherwise they were fearful of a military coup that would have usurped that far more passive Hirohito and placed his brother Chichibu (a staunch IJA supporter) as Emperor of Japan.
It took both bombs for the IJA power players to get the hint that they lost.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
What? Your post doesn't make a lot of sense and doesn't seem to disagree. Japan was not on the verge of surrender.
The fact that some Japanese people were in denial doesn't change the fact that they knew or should have known (we were telling them) that we had nuked Hiroshima. It took a second city being destroyed to get them to give up.
Claiming that we could have just nuked a rock in Tokyo bay is laughable, but is frequently repeated by the likes of the GGP.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
At war; not at war with the USA.
You knew that, but think being cute is better then being smart.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A while back I caught a local story about a company making tsunami survival pods that are being sold in Japan now. After that disaster, I guess it doesn't seem like such a far-fetched thing to be prepared for one of these if possible. It would be nice if the price could come down to the point that ordinary people could actually afford them. Unfortunately, there's just no way to run far enough with so little warning like they had back then.
http://mynorthwest.com/11/2297725/Mukilteos-tsunami-survival-capsules-are-selling-in-Japan
Here's hoping the people affected by this tragedy are starting to put their lives back together. I can't do much more than wish them well, unfortunately.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
It's a little thing called context, which you blatantly disregarded in your attempt to be pedantic. The entire post was phrased in the context of US-Japanese relations on how individual acts of Japanese aggression caused various responses by the US. Until December 7 (8), 1942 the Japan and US were not at a state of war. Being in a state of war with one country does not prevent you from going to war with a country you were previous not at war with.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
You want to ignore the context of the Japanese having invaded their neighbors prior to going to war with the USA but claim you are the one including context in your thinking?
I wouldn't take such an inconsistent position. It's your argument, so go for it.
Also 1942? You could learn history watching old Belushi movies.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Why do you hate the Japanese? The A-bombs likely saved a million+ Japanese lives. Invasion or starving them out, would have cost much more.
No they weren't ready to surrender. That's pure bullshit.
He didn't say he didn't hate them.
He did say he hates Koreans a lot more.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Still parading your ignorance, eh?
There were 26,000 allied casualties in Iwo Jima alone and 50,000 in Okinawa. 20x Iwo Jima or 10x Okinawa for the invasion of the main island of Honshu sounds, if anything, conservative.
Another guideline: in the battle of Berlin the allies suffered 260,000 casualties which too make 500,000 purple hearts seem like a rather low ball estimate.
Maybe what they should do is mark the high water mark and encourage people to not build below that point. Stones in the ground around the ocean front of the country might work. Then if there is ever another Tsunami then there won't be so much damage! Wait what? They have those already? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04...
Onagawa plant article is very insteresting.
It explain how a more stressed nuclear plant on the sea shore hadn't catastrophic consequences after the tsunami:
Safety culture impulsed by a man.
Onagawa was only 123 kilometers away from the epicenter—60 kilometers closer than Fukushima Daiichi—and the difference in seismic intensity at the two plants was negligible. Furthermore, the tsunami was bigger at Onagawa, reaching a height of 14.3 meters, compared with 13.1 meters at Fukushima Daiichi. The difference in outcomes at the two plants reveals the root cause of Fukushima Daiichi’s failures: the utility’s corporate “safety culture.”
[...]
Yanosuke Hirai, vice president of Tohoku Electric from 1960 to 1975—a time period that preceded the 1980 groundbreaking at Onagawa—was adamant about safety protocols and became a member of the Coastal Institution Research Association in 1963 because of his concern about the importance of protecting against natural disasters. With a senior employee in upper management advocating forcefully for safety, a strong safety culture formed within the company.
See what they did in Onagawa in the article: plant built on higher ground, five times the estimated average tsunami height, plus tsunami response aware teams.
Tepco did the oposite: "to make it easier to transport equipment and to save construction costs, in 1967 [they] removed 25 meters from the 35-meter natural seawall of the Daiichi plant site" !!!
In the meantime, the US had been supplying the Japanese with oil and iron, that they needed to support their war machine so they could continue to commit atrocities in China. Japan attacked the US because the US cut off that supply, not because of hostile diplomatic notes.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There is no conclusive proof of what the Japanese were going to do, but it doesn't look encouraging.
See "Downfall", by Richard Frank, for a good account of Japanese (lack of) decision-making and what the US knew. Japan asked Stalin to serve as a mediator, but never could come up with a proposal to pass on. The Liaison Council was deadlocked. Japanese strategy all along had been to make the US pay bitterly for every advance in order to discourage them, and fighting on the home islands was consistent with that policy.
Then the nukes were dropped. The Emperor at that time took unconstitutional action and called for surrender. The Council agreed, although people still worried about what some of them would do, particularly Anami, Minister of War and the most hard-line. He committed suicide that night without explaining himself.
The Emperor prepared a broadcast about the surrender, citing the nukes and other developments not necessarily to Japan's advantage (a definite understatement). In the night after the recording and before the intended broadcast, some Japanese attacked the Imperial Palace, hoping to do a coup d'etat including destroying the recording, in order not to surrender. See "Japan's Longest Day" for details.
So, given the defeat of Japan all over the Pacific and much of Asia, the utter devastation of the Japanese economy, and the nukes, it took Imperial action to cause the surrender, nobody was sure the top authorities would allow it, and there was an attempt to overthrow the government to avoid surrender. This leaves me very doubtful of Japanese surrender in any reasonable time under other circumstances.
We might also ask what would have happened in other places without a Japanese surrender. The Japanese had killed roughly 100K-200K per month in their campaigns, and three months of that would have killed more people than the nukes did. I'm rather annoyed at the complete lack of consideration of Chinese and Indochinese lives in this debate.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The Japanese were aware that the Hiroshima bomb was an atomic bomb, and what it could do. There had been a couple of Japanese nuclear programs (one Army, one Navy), and Japan did not lack good scientists. However, they concluded that refinement of U-235 was a very long process, and didn't expect the US to have another for a year. The Nagasaki bomb, which used plutonium instead of uranium, proved that the US could have many more bombs.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The following has a good summary of what lead up to the Pacific War but to summarize... the US embargo was not coupled with any reasonable demands that Japan take. The final embargos came after the Japanese invasion of French Indochina but the demands were over territory that the US had shown no significant previous interest in and had no strategic or economic interest in (China). The American demands to give up on their empire, coupled with the embargo, was telling Japan that they needed to submit to subservient economic dependence on the United States. No country would accept those demands because that's tantamount to giving up your sovereignty.
http://www.strategicstudiesins...
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
The two were only a short time apart and it took them time to evaluate what had happened and then build up the political will to agree to the surrender. It was never going to happen overnight.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC