Mar 13, 2011: Japan: earthquake, tsunami and aftermath
 

http://cellar.org/2011/tsuafter.jpg

Boston.com's Big Picture has an amazing collection of photos out of which it's impossible to pick one, so here's the first. Amazing and sad, all of it. As I watched the video of water coming in and taking everything with it, sometimes a fire would break out as a house or other building would be taken. And that's the most amazing thing, amongst all this water, that fire would still be a major concern somehow.

Thanks Cellar... without cable I was having a hard time finding reliable information about this. It's so massive that it's hard to wrap your head around. The photos help a lot more than statistics for me to get a grasp on it.

What keeps going thru my head is:

Where are they gonna dump all this crap? It' not like a few truck loads to the dump! Japan doesn't even have the space for a landfill this big.

Discussion:
If thru some miracle this whole place was cleaned up into a gorgeous garden like spot - what would be your opinion/thinking on rebuilding a home three hundred feet from the beach?

Maybe they will use the waste as landfill to reclaim/build up a few more square kilometres of land area from the sea. And then build on it. Until the next big earthquake and tsunami.

ETA: Japan is very used to destruction and rebuilding. Some temples are rebuilt every 20 years to keep the techniques alive. They are still regarded to be several hundred years old.

Check this nice before-after on MSNBC. It's very well done.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42064847...ws-asiapacific

Have you noticed we haven't heard the "L" word? No looting, yet. Wonder why? Decent, civilized people perhaps?

Or there's nothing left to loot...the stores that weren't destroyed are out of everything.

Don't forget Godzilla. And Mothra too. This quake is nothing compared to the destruction those two have caused.

There is almost no looting, because the Japanese are very civilised, and stealing is regarded as a very low act. In addition, police have local stations in every suburb, and know 98% of the people in their operating region .. so they know when outsiders or strangers appear, and they watch anyone carefully, with a known criminal history. Thus, criminality is very low in relation to many other "civilised" nations.

Excellent tsunami picture site here .. these pics were taken on the day of the tsunami, and one or two days afterwards .. http://totallycoolpix.com/2011/03/th...ami-aftermath/

I have no idea how the Japs will clean up the mess. One thing is for sure, it will take a long time. However, there will be a very large % of the wreckage recycled, as the Japs don't create much waste, they can't afford to, as they have nowhere available for landfills.
As you can see in the "before" pics on the MSNBC website, every square metre of available land is used .. for building on, or for farming.

On the other hand, this can blind them rather foolishly. Most of my female (white) friends have been left alone, but the white male I know who's been teaching English over there for years has been approached personally by the cops in every new place he's moved into, and every time there's a crime in his area. One cop explained that it was policy to check on the whereabouts of all foreigners when a crime was committed, because "Japanese people don't commit crime."

Yes, that must be annoying, but that's the way the Japanese police work. You can't deny the fact that their overall crime rate is low. The Jap cop was probably being a little too bolshy with his statement .. but basically, he's right.
If a crime is committed in Japan, there's a high likelihood it's a newcomer to the area. In addition, males are grossly over-represented in all crime, so males are the ones that immediate suspicion falls upon.

One thing I did notice, and I don't think I'm wrong. Did anyone else notice that the largest % of Japanese shown in the disaster areas, were relatively elderly people?
This would jell with the fact that the Japanese population is aging .. and that older folk commit far less crime than younger people .. thus the relative lack of looting.

This is a link to a 2-page article out today on behind-the-scenes
government activities during and after the tsunami.

As I recall the events, the US and international experts were saying that
things at the nuclear power plants were much worse than what
was being reported by the governmental authorities.
This article pretty much confirms that
... and what most of us have come to see from later news reports.

ABC News
By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press
3/9/12

Records Show Japan Gov't Knew Meltdown Risk Early

tw knew.

and said so :rolleyes: