Earthquake and tsunami in Japan
The terrible earthquake and tsunami last night in Japan recalls the fact that tsunami is a Japanese word:
The term “Tsunami” comes from the Japanese word for harbor (tsu) and wave (nami). The origins of the word are not surprising given that the majority of tsunamis occur within the Pacific Ocean and vicinity of Japan.
The term is said to have originated with fishermen when, upon returning to port, found the area surrounding the harbour devastated, even though they had not been aware of anything out of the ordinary while fishing in the open ocean.
Japan is perfectly positioned for such a thing. It has a lot of coast and a great many earthquakes, although last night’s seems to have been the strongest in Japanese history and (depending on the list) the sixth or seventh strongest worldwide. These days, in a country such as Japan with earthquake resistant buildings, as well as almost instantaneous worldwide communications and a massively updated warning system since the Asian-wide tsunami of 2005, it is possible that the death toll for even such a massive event will remain relatively low compared to the comparable earthquakes of history. But we don’t know yet; early statistics are always slow to come in such disasters.
For those of us who only watch, it’s a vivid reminder of just how helpless we all are in the face and force of overwhelming nature:
As the commentators in the video said, the flood moves surprisingly fast. And the tsunami wave moves even faster across the ocean—at about jet speed, 500 miles an hour—although by the time this one hit Hawaii, the force of the wave had not only been greatly diminished but warnings had been obeyed and the beaches long since evacuated.
[NOTE: Here’s a previous post I wrote about tsunamis, and disasters in general.
And here’s a pretty decent animation of how a tsunami works.]
[ADDENDUM: Unfortunately, there were some deaths on the US west coast after all.
FYI Japan is in an area called a subduction zone. This is where one geologic plate goes underneath another. In Japan’s case it’s the Pacific Plate going underneath the Asian(?) plate. This is also the general location of the lowest point on earth, the Marianas Trench for exactly the same reason.
When these plates move, earthquakes are the result.
And some people actually believe we can control – decisively – the frequency and severity of ALL such events. Because it follows, naturally, that if they blame everything on global warming, they must believe everything would be all better if we cured global warming. That’s the thrust of it, anyway.
But take out the latest nostrum (AGW) from that equation, and what you have is the utterly time-immemorial magical will to believe in the chief shamans who have the ineffable, mystic insight into the occult and threatening forces surrounding us mere humans, and who by the repetition of incantations and the wielding of talismans can fend off the pervading evils.
On the one hand, seeing things like tsunamis lets us understand how people can come to develop this Magical Mentality – when the option for all of human history has been either submit hopelessly or believe in occult powers, the choice seems not much of a choice at all.
On the other hand, we learn that despite all of the trappings of modern, sophisticated, analytical, un-superstitious and coolly empirical cogitating we engage in, we people don’t change all that much.
Still, it is deeply ironic that the majority of Jews and Christians are actually quite objectively realistic about these things – God works in mysterious ways, our task is charity and compassion (more or less), and controlling the vicissitudes of life itself is out of the question – while the blithely anti-religious AGW scientists and worshippers of same are still mucking around in the Magical Impulse of human psychology, and would thus, on their understanding at least, be properly described as intellectually far more primitive than the Judeo-Christian knuckle-draggers they so disparage.
Having lived through several major earthquakes here in Seattle, it’s easy to take this stuff seriously. During a recent beach trip, I was kinda laughing at myself for checking out the local Tsunami warning system and mentally planning the quickest route to high ground.
In hindsight I’m nothing but proud of my worries, and plan to be even more aware of my surroundings.
Japan will be rebuilding for a decade. We can only hope the shock to the world’s financial markets doesn’t suck us all under too far.
Kolnai,
That is a fascinating post, and I agree. It seems that the best we can do is to predict–you are correct that we reallyhaven’t changed anything geologically.
We seem to have had a better track record when it comes to biology/medicine There are many devastating diseases which we now have under control and even some (e.g., smallpox) which we’ve eradicated entirely. Thus our hubris allowing us to believe that we can control/effect anything.
Here is a seven-minute version of the video you linked. It just goes on and on and on. Note all the cars attempting to flee.
http://www.vgtv.no/#id=38263
I wonder how fast it was traveling on land? Was it possible for people to outrun it?
This has to rank as one of the worst natural disasters in history in terms of property and infrastructure damage. It will have worldwide economic repercussions.
Early reports seem to be that most of the deaths are from the water– a train missing, several ships missing, dock crews.
The great skill, power, and decency of the American military is about to be demonstrated yet again.
T –
Precisely. I was painting with a broad brush, but the basic idea is that incremental defense against nature’s wiles is one thing – indeed, one could analogize the developed world’s sophisticated building-code prepping for disaster with inoculation against certain viruses – while the idea of a kind of holistic mastering of nature in general is another.
The green movement is an irony-factory in this regard, and one of these ironies is that these seemingly Luddite, rather romantic, anti-enlightenment folks wind up, in some cunning of reason kind of way, advancing basically the same idea as the capital-R rationalists they oppose (but ally with tactically). So, they never just advocate for Luddism as a more fulfilling or felicific way of life, but always add that somehow our new organic harmony with Nature will cause the Earth Gods (Gaia, what have you) to return to a placid equilibrium with us interlopers.
The tacit syllogism is: Major Premise: Nature can be tamed; Minor Premise: Nature hates or responds unfavorably to industrial civilization; Conclusion: Nature responds favorably, in a holistic way, to our deliberate efforts to tame it.
The only difference from the Rationalist argument is that “taming” means, in the Green Syllogism, conquering nature by submitting to it. I often think of them as two sides of the same coin, one side “activist” (meaning they dream of conquering nature in the way folks like Comte and Godwin did) and the other side “passive” (meaning they dream of conquering nature sort of like Rousseau, or Buddha, perhaps).
Those aren’t sterling terms – in ordinary language, of course, there is nothing “passive” about Greens – but I think you get my meaning.
Fun stuff.
P.S. – Anyone catch John Podhoretz’s excellent insight that the Left is going to hijack this disaster in order to crush nuclear energy once and for all? I’ve been flipping through CNN and other channels, and they are definitely hyping up the “nuclear option,” as it were.
Never let a crisis go to waste!
Kolnai,
What always amazes me w/ regard to these “Luddite” greener types is that they will disavow modernisn, but I’m convinced they will turn away from the green life with their first necessary use of a chamber pot and lack of central hot water.
This is why Ed Begley Jr. is the exception rather than rule. I disagree with his approach but have great respect for him because he walks the walk. As for most other greeners, they superficially believe that you can have modern convenience with an 18th century lifestyle.
As for the nuclear option, I recently discovered thorium reactor technology. You should search them if you’re not already familiar. Radioactive thorium has a half-life of only several hundred years and it can’t be used to produce weapons grade nuclear material. My reading is that the govt moved away from this technology precisely because it wanted a byproduct that COULD become fissionable material.
That seven-minute video of rickl’s is the most disturbing footage I’ve seen all day. People in cars — and in at least one case on foot — frantically trying to flee the rising tide of debris, some of them failing before the viewer’s eyes — I found myself calling out loud to the hapless drivers, “No, no, turn right, don’t head that way! Go, go faster, don’t stop!”
Awful, in the older sense of the word as well as the more modern.
1. kolnai Says: …“taming” means, in the Green Syllogism, conquering nature by submitting to it.
Not to nitpick, but I’d express that as conquering nature by placating it.
2. kolnai Says: Anyone catch John Podhoretz’s excellent insight that the Left is going to hijack this disaster in order to crush nuclear energy once and for all?
Even better, IMHO, is one Omri Ceren’s follow-up to Podhoretz.
3. My thoughts are with the victims. I hope that the least horrific scenarios turn out to be correct.
4. At some point the Japanese response to the tsunami will be compared to the American response to Katrina.
The Left is spiraling out of control. Let them try to debunk nuclear power. Won’t matter to the French and the Japanese. The Japs are wonders with their nucs and will use this tragedy to design even safer plants.
For the first time in a long time, I feel eagerness–a sense that, for the most part, calamity is mitigated by preparedness, hard work rewarded, and it’s okay to say “thanks sweetheart” to the cute little bird at the fast food window.
T said : “We seem to have had a better track record when it comes to biology/medicine There are many devastating diseases which we now have under control and even some (e.g., smallpox) which we’ve eradicated entirely. Thus our hubris allowing us to believe that we can control/effect anything”
I think about how thru say modern water treatment facilities we generally avoid certain diseases that killed many in the past- but really what that does is allow us to live long enough that something else gets us instead. If in some previous time and place people only averaged 40 years of life due to bacteria and viruses very few might have died of cancer or heart disease- but push the average lifespan out with antibiotics and good sanitation and cancer and heart disease have time to kick in.
jon baker,
I don’t disagree. Then, we work to solve the problem of cancer and heart disease. The something else will “get us.” Then we’ll work to solve that.
Haven’t mentioned it yet, but my hopes and prayers, too, are with the Japanese people this day.
I experienced the 7.1 magnitude Loma Prieta about 9 miles from the epicenter. My personal memory of that is nothing by comparison to what the Japanese experienced today. Prayers for them.
One way to help, besides donations, is to plan a trip to Japan. I’ve know a few people who have been and they are effusive in their praise. One taught English there for a number of years. He was six foot four with curly hair and very blue eyes. He said in rural parts the Japanese people dropped whatever was in their hands and stared at him. I never asked him whether or not he was joking. I do know I wrote a paper on Japanese culture in college. The Chinese professor– what did he say now?–didn’t like my ideas, which lauded the Japanese (this was in the 80’s when the Japanese miracle and Peter Drucker were the rage) and wasn’t shy about telling me my ideas sucked. He gave me a D.
My heart goes out to the people of Japan….
Events like this should be a reminder to be humble. It should remind us how vain glorious it is to think we humans have any power to destroy life on earth. All of our knowledge and technology can not change our relationship to the greater forces that rule the planet.
We are dust that returns to dust, ashes that will return to ashes. We are mysterious and wonderful creatures but we are at the mercy of the natural cataclysms: earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes, tornados, volcanoes, floods, droughts, famines, plagues, and so forth.
Tracy Nelson says, “When it all comes down you got to go back to mother earth.”
Curtis,
Re: your friend in Japan. I have no doubt what you say is true. My dtr was in China for 6 mos and the rural Chinese held their children up to the triain compartment window to get a good look at her and her friends.
Curtis,
I’ve spent about 40 years practicing the Japanese arts of jujitsu and aikido. I’ve been to Japan and met many martial artists and masters. They are in some ways so strangely different than us. On the other hand they are just like us. While they highly value group cohesion, they also value individual excellence. They believe in hard work and discipline. They are utterly devoted to family. They honor their ancestors. They have lessons to teach us.
Westerners shouldn’t be fooled by the ‘group think’ of the Japanese. In their secret hearts they are fierce individualists. And, IMO they are the supreme nasty, don’t f&*k with me fighters. One on one they are ferocious. (I’ve had my butt kicked many times by Japanese martial artists, so I ought to know.)
It was incredible being stationed in Japan because, like Parker says, they’re so incredibly alien but so much alike.
I really wish more folks would get to understand the Japanese, and only partly because they’re a civilized, intelligent nation that is not based on Christianity. (I’m solidly sure that part of the issue with a lot of folks is they confuse US and EU culture with “human nature.”)
Foxfier,
“… they confuse US and EU culture with ‘human nature’.”
Ain’t that the truth! I’m a proud member of Western Civilization, but I’ve learned much from my 1/2 breed Shawnee grandmother and my contacts with the Japanese. Scratch hard enough and we all bleed the same color.
Here are some astounding photos of the earthquake and tsunami damage:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/pictures-earthquake-in-japan-20110311
One that particularly strikes me, as a sailor, is the photo of the tidal wave while it’s still out to sea, bearing down on the port town of Natori. (Yeah, I know, we’re not supposed to call it that anymore, but somehow it sounds more thunderous than the tinkling tone of “tsunami.”)
As you scroll down the photos, the sheer scale and breadth of the damage becomes appallingly clear: this wiped out large portions of a big region of northern Japan. Those poor people have lost everything.
RE: the Addendum about deaths in Crescent City, CA
One of the news channels had a expert on last night (Pacific Time) just after the quake and he mentioned that certain coastline areas have setups that amplify and resonate incoming waves. It appears that Crescent City is one of those areas, as it’s happened there before.
Quite soon, 19 March, the full Moon will be at the shortest distance from Earth (at perigee). This happens once in approximately 10 years and usually triggers major seismic events. The last time this happened within days from 2004 tsunami. Tidal waves from gravitational interaction of Moon, Sun and Earth are maximal at full Moon and new Moon, and at perigee they are especially strong. The same happens in Earth crust, so the stress forces at seismic faults lines are above usual. Brace for another major earthquake a week from now.
Soviet, you are quite right. This is not resonance, but fluid dynamics: when a long wave enters a harbor, it became restrained from the sides by coast line, and since the volume of the wave can not change, it grows in height. In long, narrowing gulfs its height can be multiplied by a factor of five, sometimes even more. As the name of the city suggests, this configuration of a coast line should enhance the tide.
Japan authorities ordered evacuation of 20-mile zone around Fukushima nuclear plant. From 4 reactors at the plant the release of radioactive vapour is under way, to prevent build up of pressure in reactor vessels. So they already have 4 Three Mile Island accidents on their hands and now struggle to prevent Chernobyl-like meltdown of the reactor core in one of the blocks.
And some people actually believe we can control – decisively – the frequency and severity of ALL such events.
Control earthquakes and tsunamis? Heck, we can’t even predict them yet. There does seem to be a correlation with proximity to the moon, as Sergey notes, but to predict the time, place, and strength of any earthquake/tsunami at all, let alone with precision, is still beyond the capability of our science.
Curtis, T, I had this same experience in Korea — both rural and urban — about 35 years ago. Everywhere I went, people would stare unapologetically, comment loudly to one another, and giggle. Adults and children would even crowd up close to touch — lifting and pulling my friend’s pale blond hair, poking at my (apparently unprecedented in Korea at that time) puffy down jacket to see if it would deflate, then laughing out loud in amazement when it didn’t. This was true even though there were hundreds of American GIs in the same area so that Westerners were hardly unknown.
On one occasion we climbed four flights of stairs to a fancy restaurant. Greeters on every landing in traditional Korean dress bowed respectfully to our faces and then poked us and giggled as soon as our backs were turned to climb the next flight. This was all perfectly good-natured and clearly not intended as rudeness — but it certainly took some doing on my part to master the Western impulse toward outrage at the violation of what we would consider personal space. It seemed that the social opprobrium we attach to staring and touching here in the West did not exist there.
I have no idea if this would still be true now — since then, Korea has undergone amazing development and Westernization – but at that time, it was clear we were in a culture that operated by entirely different rules and expectations than those we think of here as fundamental.
The photos and videos of this thing are surreal. Surely the death tolls we’re now hearing are nowhere near reality.
The plant that exploded yesterday was not of Japanese construction. It was built 40 years ago by General Electric, the same design as Three Mile Island. I also am sure that Japanese engineers are capable now to do much better. And they will.
Sergey-
from the lack of kaboom in the other plants, I’d say they did.
Turns out that the containment didn’t actually get breached, as was being reported.
I saw on Cavuto earlier today that some EU high official is already blaming this on global warming. Not that that’s a surprise.
LAG – like you, I was in the Bay Area (San Jose), during the Loma Prieda quake, and that relatively slight quake was horrifying enough. I remember the water in the pools of my neighbors tidal waving over the backyard fences, and my brother almost cracking his neck as he tried not to tumble down the stairs. The electricity was out for about a week, and no bookshelf was left standing. The glass on our sliding door in the living room shattered, and there were cracks forever after in our driveway.
That sucked. I can’t imagine how much an 8.9 plus tsunami sucks.
gs – your correction is correct: “placating” is the right word.
Incidentally, my girlfriend is Japanese – grew up in Tokyo – and she’s been trying to locate some of her friends from the northeast for the past 24 hours. Her parents and brother in Tokyo are fine, as is their house (though her father’s workplace apparently suffered damage), and apparently her grandparents down in Kanagawa Prefecture are fine.
Her father is telling her as we speak that the aftershocks are huge – like 6.1 on the Richter scale. I seem to remember being terrified after the Loma Prieda quake because we’d all been taught that the great San Francisco quake was in fact an aftershock. I wonder if it’s possible for another huge quake to hit… or do the geologists think that that danger has passed?
Fukushima nuclear reactor just blew…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMEV-_X5b_8&feature=youtu.be
The New Madrid fault in the midwestern U.S. had THREE 8.0+ quakes in 1811 and 1812. Of course, each fault has its unique individual characteristics, so I have no idea if that is possible with the fault off Japan.
Oh, and some think that New Madrid is about due again, by the way.
Here’s a map of the aftershocks near Japan. You can’t even see the original quake.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/10/140_35.php
I’ve been reading the comments at this Ace of Spades thread: http://minx.cc/?post=313275
There are over 700 comments, and some are by actual nuclear engineers like Vic and Sandy Salt. It’s worth taking some time to read them. It’s an antidote to the clueless sensationalism of the MSM reporters.
There is a newer thread up that says that the explosion destroyed the building surrounding the containment vessel, but the containment vessel itself has not been breached.
http://minx.cc/?post=313279
And here is a stunning collection of photos at the Daily Mail.
Artfldgr –
they’re attributing it to hydrogen and oxygen; still no breach in containment, reports NEI.org
UPDATE AS OF 12:30 P.M. EST, SATURDAY, MARCH 12:
The incident at Fukushima Daiichi has received a level 4 rating on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), lower than both the 1986 Chernobyl disaster (rated 7 on the 7-point scale) and the 1979 Three Mile Island accident (rated 5).
It lists two examples of level 4s, 1999 Japan and 1980 France.
Rickl-
the thing that keeps going through my head is this odd notion that the mess is going to utterly infuriate folks. I remember folks sweeping their sidewalks during typhoons, for crying out loud.