3-11 Quake - 1 Year On - Pay your respects here

[Kinny Riddle]

Local time now is 14:46: exactly 1 year when the mega-quake, tsunami, nuke triple whammy struck and brought the land of all our light novels to its knees.

All I'll say is that I'm just so darn lucky that I chose to come over to this country on October and not on March.

Pay your respects here if you so wish.

[ainsoph9]

It is amazing that it has been one year already. I remember reading and watching the news come out on it as if it were yesterday.

In memorial, I plan on attending a movie screening documenting the earthquake this Wednesday night at 7pm. All proceeds will go to the victims. As I posted elsewhere, the movie will be shown worldwide in various locations. In the Los Angeles area, Yoshiki of X Japan will be giving a speech for the dedication of this movie.

As for those who are no longer with us, may they be remembered graciously.

As for those who are still with us, even despite their struggles and pain, may they find a new lease on life and the hope and happiness that comes with it.

As for those of us who live elsewhere in the world, may we respect and offer our hand to those in need in their trials and hardships.

[YoakeNoHikari]

東日本大震災で命を喪ってしまった人のために、お祈りいたします。その親類と友達のためにも、
大切な人を喪ってしまったその人のためにも、お祈りいたします。そして、
一人にしてしまった人の生きて行ける勇気を心から敬い、またその勇気を見せてくれた人を。

頑張った、 日本は。

[Cosmic Eagle]

May the innocent souls of the fallen and the living find peace

[Mystes]

I wish that the victims still alive could recover fast.

And that the dead ones can rest in peace.

Also, I really hope that the land could be decontamined quickly and that the nuclear aftereffects are minimized.

[Sander]

My condolences for those who were there when that tragedy happened and died.

For those who still alive I wish they could return to they normal life soon.

[shichinanatsu]

manly tears watching all those documentaries of destruction and eventual rebuilding.. to some extent, the social rehabilitation parallels that of WW2, and will affect the old, the labor force, and the kids who'd be either teens or well into adulthood when the exclusion zone is eventually reopened..

夜は必ず明く、それまでは...

[ainsoph9]

Just as a way to kind of put some things into perspective here,

The amount of energy given in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami was was more than 200,000 times the surface energy and was calculated by the USGS at 3.9×1022 joules, slightly less than the 2004 Indian Ocean quake. This is equivalent to 9,320 gigatons of TNT, or approximately 600 million times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb.

This is something I randomly found. However, I think that putting some numbers behind things sometimes can help us understand the tragedy of things - i.e., the earthquake.

[Mystes]

This is something I randomly found. However, I think that putting some numbers behind things sometimes can help us understand the tragedy of things - i.e., the earthquake.

Well, it's probably the greatest tragedy after the 2010 Haiti's.

There's still hope now, and I saw that the removal of thrash is quite going well.

[ainsoph9]

They are saying that it will take 10+ years to restore everything completely.

[shichinanatsu]

depending on how things turn out, 10 years might seem reasonable, forbidding any force majeure complications while the cleanup is underway, particularly with the reactor cores.

also, rad overexposure's effects do take time before onset, of special note being the consequences to the Fukushima 50, and if ever they be fathers to the next generation.

there's also the psych trauma to all the children and youths to consider..

[ainsoph9]

As you were saying about the effects of the radiation, sometimes it still shows generations down the line like at Chernobyl.

For these kinds of disasters, it is not uncommon to have people become traumatized for life. Not good.

[Mystes]

Anyone knows if the central has been shut down completely? I really hope it is.

[ainsoph9]

The central what? Reactor? From what I can tell, it seems like they are trying to get both back up and running again. If they do not, that is a lot of power that needs to be filled in. From an engineering standpoint, losing a single generator can be bad for the power grid stability. You can only imagine what it does to the grid to lose two whole plants.

[shichinanatsu]

there's also the problem of japan not having a unified power grid.. something along the lines of kanto, tohoku and hokkaido being supplied with 50Hz power and the rest (kansai, shikkoku, et al) having 60Hz.. i recall for the first few months after the quake that tokyo had rotating outages, or do they still have them?