Haneda Airport on Tokyo Bay
(Photos taken by EEE Reporter)Such History of Crises
The regime change was realized in September 2009 in Japan.
Whatever mistakes and negligence before it can be ascribed to the LDP, a major ruling party before the general election conducted in August 2009.
However, during the reign of the incumbent major ruling party DPJ, many warning tragedies have happened in the world. If the DPJ cabinet had taken enough notice on those natural and man-made disastrous incidents, they must have ordered TEPCO to reinforce anti-earthquake/tsunami facilities in the Fukushima NO.1 (Daiichi) Nuclear Power Plant.
Responsibility is more on the DPJ led by Prime Minister Mr. Naoto Kan than on the LDP which had been in power for half a century after WWII.
PART 4-1-5:
Northeast Japan Earthquake/Tsunami: 3/11, 2011
Christchurch of NZ Earthquake: 2/22, 2011
Big Floods in East Australia: December 2010 to January 2011
Chile Copper Mine Accident: 8/5, 2010
BP's Accident in the Gulf of Mexico: 4/20, 2010
Haiti Earthquake: 1/12, 2010
Sichuan China Earthquake: 5/12, 2008
Pakistan Earthquake: 10/8, 2005
Hurricane Katrina: 8/29, 2005
Sumatra Earthquake/Tsunami: 12/26, 2004
US East Coast Attack by Terror: 9/11, 2001
Kobe Earthquake: 1/17, 1995
Tokyo Electric Power Corporation and the Japanese Government are wrong in neglecting a great threat coming to the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants situated on the North Pacific Ocean and in the earthquake-prone zone.
All they had to do is spend $30,000 to reinforce facilities housing emergency power generators to activate pumps for circulating water and cooling nuclear fuel in the case that the normal water-circulation system was broken by an earthquake, a tsunami, or a typhoon of a magnitude beyond imagination or by an act of terror.
(Note: As the direct cause of the Fukushima Daiichi acident was 15-meter high tsunamis triggered by the M9.0 earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011; all they needed was 15-meter-high walls surrounding the Fukushima Diichi nuclear power plant, which would cost just tens of millions of dollars. With such high-walls, no tsunamis would destroy emergency power supplies.)
PART 4-1-4:
My idea on a new cooling system of a nuclear reactor is as follows:
The "New Cooling System" will not be accessed in normal condition. Its piping to the pressure vessel is usually closed.
But, when the circulation of water between the pressure vessel and the turbine building is halted for any emergency, the valves or the doors between the pipes to the New Cooling System and the pressure vessel will be opened.
Vapor in the pressure vessel is guided and taken to the upper part of the New Cooling System and water will be supplied from the System to the pressure vessel through the lower piping.
PART 4-1-3:
Paris, Berlin, London, and Washington DC and Beijing as well as Moscow are free from fear of a great earthquake. But, Tokyo can be hit at any time by a great natural disaster like the capital of Haiti Port-au-Prince or as Tokyo itself of 1923.
The 1923 Great Kanto earthquake struck the Kanto plain on the Japanese main island of Honshu at 11:58:44 am JST on September 1, 1923. Varied accounts hold that the duration of the earthquake was between 4 and 10 minutes. The KantÅ quake killed between 100,000 and 140,000 people, making it the deadliest earthquake ever to strike Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1923_Great_Kant%C5%8D_earthquake
http://www.kajima.co.jp/news/digest/sep_2003/tokushu/toku02.htm
The Japanese history in the first half of the 20th century changed greatly after this Great Kanto Earthquake Disaster.
At the time, as today, the U.S. sent great aid to the Empire of Japan. But, after this tragedy, the diplomatic courses of the two countries started to conflict over the Chinese market. Indeed, several years after the 1923 Great Disaster, the Great Depression started in America, leading to difficult 1930's worldwide.
So, Japan and the U.S. of today must not repeat the tragic scenario of 1930's following the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the 1929 Great Debacle of Wall Street.
PART 4-1-2:
The Japanese Self-Defense Army sent eight divisions and seven brigades to the earthquake/tsunami hit areas and the nuclear-threated areas; the total number of service men and women engaged is about 100,000.
So, some critics are afraid of the defense of Japan from aggressive Russia, North Korea, and China getting weak.
Yet, what the Self-Defense Forces have lost in this 3/11 tragedy is just 18 or so training planes as a tsunami attacked its airfield a few miles into the interior from the North Pacific Ocean.
PART 4-1-1:
The U.S. Major League Baseball players on their season-opening game expressed their sympathy to Japan and the Japanese people who suffered the 3/11 Great Earthquake and Tsunami.
Some Japanese journalists and reporters working in Washington DC were surprised to receive so many compassionate words and friendly greetings from American elites and ordinary people as well as their old friends in New York and so on.
It has really revealed hidden pro-Japanese sentiments in the American society which some anti-Japanese factions in the American political and economic domains cannot defeat.
Some US military platoon has helped a Japanese high school in the affected area clean up its schoolhouse and gymnasium.
Some US Navy ships are helping the Japanese Self-Defense Navy search for victims of the tsunami in every port of the affected area.
Especially, helpful was US military's activities to recover the Sendai Airport that was covered by tsunami waves on March 11, 2011. It is rather a mystery why the Japanese Government did not give priority to restoration of the Sendai Airport immediately after the disaster.
More than 13,000 U.S. military personnels have been mobilized for this aid operation on northeast Japan, including one aircraft-carrier fleet.
Their activities have been well reported and televised in Japan.
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The tsunami of March 11 reached as far as 16 kilometers inland at some place.
At average, it reached 4 to 5 kilometers; seawater still remains today in a paddy field in which some sea fish are swimming.
As most of the affected area had past experiences of big tsunamis since the late 19th century, they built the world largest breakwater before their port, long and tall walls around their village, and escape facilities here and there, conducting evacuation drills occasionally and teaching children the power of tsunami, all in vain.
So far it is estimated that 1,100 or so children, school boys and girls, and high school students lost their lives on March 11, 2011, among the 30,000 deaths and missing.
(No wonder that the sun was shining, the sea was shining, and the sky was shining as usual somewhere in the universe on March 11, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyzMy9pZmwc&feature=related)
Mar 4:1 And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.
Mar 4:2 And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,
Mar 4:3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: