New Italian Earthquake Prediction

Another Empty Blog exclusive: Italian seismologists have just issued a new assessment of earthquake risks. You can't say you weren't warned now!

Among all the outrage (surrounding this, for anyone who slept through it), there are more nuanced views (expressed prior to the verdict) about whether the scientists' statements were negligently falsely confident rather than just being unfortunate. Irrespective of whether they could have been expected to predict the quake, "absolutely no risk" is an unfortunate choice of words.

One predictable outcome is that Italian seismologists (and presumably scientists in other fields) will be rather less willing to proffer risk-relevant advice in any sort of official capacity, at least in Italy. Hard to see this sort of trial catching on in Japan, where such risk management failures are seen as a cultural imperative.

Oh noes we're all going to die

Well, about 5,600 of us, in the next 4 years - or maybe 30. And considering that is a few thousand of of a population of about 30 million (depends how far out from central Tokyo you count) perhaps it's not actually that likely to hit me (or indeed any individual) personally. After all, close to half a million of us are going to die of something or other every year anyway, so an additional risk of well under 1% doesn't seem too much to get worked up over. But it would perhaps be a slightly less irrational reason to leave than the radiation paranoia...

Of course, if the earthquake hits the famous "Shibuya Eggman" nuclear power station, we might get another meltdown too!

Once more down to the beach dear friends

So we went off for another trip to Ishinomaki. I'll write more subsequently but the main purpose of this post is to test if this mouseover trick works. I know the pic below is far too big, I've made it a bit smaller but the writing is harder to see...

This is a place we went close to on the first trip, but without a good map it wasn't obvious what was going on. It is directly NE of Ishinomaki, at the head of Oppa Bay. This time, we travelled through Nagatsura (labelled on the mouseover map, lower centre) and over the bridge to the small village where we cleared up outside some houses beside the small shrine on the north tip of the small peninsula. There is no other access to this area, and they only re-established the bridge quite recently. The road ends at the shrine and the harbour further round the coast is completely cut off.



The Natagsura area was obviously a silted up river estuary, and will presumably silt up again. But following a metre of land subsidence it doesn't look like a great place to build a house right now!

Restraint order

Just before we left for the EGU, I heard that Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo, had called for "self-restraint" to show sympathy with the victims of the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami/meltdown disaster. I assumed that everyone would ignore the old buffoon who is continually making a fool of himself - he already said the tsunami was divine retribution for the Japanese being soft and self-indulgent, which would be idiotic enough even if it hadn't hit a relatively poor rural area rather than, say, central Tokyo. However he was comfortably re-elected recently - it would perhaps be a bit cruel to say that as an ageing surly grumpy xenophobe he is ideally suited to represent Tokyo, but only a little bit!

Anyway, back we came to Japan and found out that in fact most of the main sakura festivals have been cancelled. I even saw a report that the Tokyo Fireworks have been cancelled - these are scheduled for the middle of August! Mind you, my Japanese colleagues didn't seem to have heard this, it may be an error of the English-language press (and this article seems to contradict the story). The "restraint" has hit the tourism trade hard, and a particularly unfortunate consequence of Ishihara's campaign is the threat of a slump in sales in sake from Tohoku, which is one of the major production regions. In response to the slump in sales, Tohoku sake brewers have started a counter-campaign to get people to buy their products again. It would be a sad irony if these nth-generation family businesses, having survived war, recessions, earthquakes and tsunami, were put out of business by the mawkish sentimentality of people thinking that sitting at home being resolutely glum is somehow sharing the pain of the troubles up north, rather than merely adding to them. The mood has been a bit sombre than usual here, not surprisingly, and there is no reason why anyone should be forced into an insincere show of jollity, but conversely, the idea that we should all be coerced into "self-restraint" by order of the governor, or through fear of public criticism, is self-contradictory at best.

So, jules and I decided to have a small hanami party, and bought some Tohoku sake (Nihonshu, to give it its real name - sake is a generic term for all alcoholic drinks) to enjoy under the falling blossoms.



Plenty of people seem to agree with us, a famous old cherry tree was swarmed by visitors in Fukushima despite the cancellation of official festivities. I'm not really a huge fan of Nihonshu but I'm prepared to give it some serious consideration as part of my contribution to the regeneration of the region. Cheers!

Spoke too soon!

Neatly demonstrating the risks of a precipitous decision...no sooner did the British Embassy remove their travel advisory relating to Tokyo, but the situation took a serious turn for the worse:

Beer in short supply in Tokyo region due to quake, power outages

Rumour has it that the UK advice against travel to Japan will be reinstated forthwith, though once the news gets out, it might not be necessary.

However, Kamakura brewery is (presumably) unaffected, so I'm looking forward to returning and ploughing some money into the local economy.

Japan - now with added safety

Well, I grumbled at the Embassy (including by email) when they (inappropriately, IMO) advised against travel to Tokyo and advised residents to "consider leaving", but at least they have updated their advice reasonably promptly:

We are no longer advising against all but essential travel to Tokyo

And though they do not explicitly point it out, the sentence suggesting Tokyo residents "consider leaving the area" has been quietly dropped.

What's the difference between Tokyo and Bahrain?

The answer is...one of them is in a state of martial law with rioting on the streets which is described by the US State Department as having "experienced a breakdown in law and order", and the other has such a severe natto shortage that British citizens are advised to "consider leaving the area".

Compare the current FCO advice for Bahrain and Japan. People are advised to avoid all but essential travel to both of them, but residents are only advised to leave (oops, "consider leaving") one of them. Having acknowledged that there is no significant health risk from Fukushima (for the Tokyo area, remember) and even sneering at the French for their advice to leave which is "not based on science" the FCO still argue that the "potential disruptions" justify this warning, even though life here has now been basically back to normal for some time.

Incidentally, the natto shortage was explained to us today at work. Apparently there's some rumour that it protects against radiation. I'm not sure if that requires it to be eaten, or smeared on the body like sunscreen. I remember a similar run on natto a few years ago when it was supposed to help with dieting. Truly, a magic food.

Talking of magic food, I'm looking forward to a week in Vienna at the EGU meeting next week. We even have an extra day courtesy of Austrian Air who have redirected all their flights via Beijing to avoid the radiation "risk" of Japan and also shifted our flight day. If the "chew well before swallowing" Beijing air is really healthier than that at Narita, I'll eat my schnitzel. Well, I'll eat it anyway. I'm not complaining too much, the flight is annoying longer than it needs to be but we just got the last two tickets for the Philharmonic on Sunday morning.

Power cuts cut (for now)

Well, the power cuts have turned out to be rather less frequent than threatened. It seems that people have no problem turning off a few lights (including the wholly unnecessary ones on millions of automatic vending machines) when asked politely. All the weekend/holiday slots seem to be quite reliably cancelled, as have been the ones that are marked as "possible" (starred) on the calendar. We had a brief cut last night, but it was only a bit over an hour, not the expected 3h. It's like a sort of comfortable version of staying in a mountain hut for a few hours, and since we do that by choice regularly enough, we find little to complain about.

On the other hand, it is spring now, still a bit chilly but close to the biannual trough in power consumption. Summer promises to be grim, and even next summer might be difficult, according to this article. Even if the Earth Simulator comes on for a month or two soon, I wouldn't be surprised if it had to go off again over the summer. We've previously come close to power cuts in the summers anyway, just due to the limited capacity. I'm not so bothered about the computers but I find 28C+ very uncomfortable for working so further A/C restriction may get pretty unbearable. I'll be keeping my eyes open for travelling opportunities! It's not all bad news though, the Govt might actually consider changing the clocks and giving us more holiday.

I should also put in writing, jules' immediate suggestion was that all new builds should be required to include solar panelling on the roof. Solar power is a particularly well suited to Japan, with the peak electrical demand coinciding with the sunniest summer afternoons. Including solar panels at the outset, rather than as a secondary bolt-on kit, should also reduce costs and provide a helpful boost to the industry. Given the extraordinary Japanese rate of house-(re)building, this could make a significant contribution in the near term.

Context

Needs to be looked at full size (click on it). From xkcd.

Flights

Andy mentioned his flight back (on Friday) was about 75% full, so I went to check whether seats were freely available. Both BA and Virgin have seats available on all flights, you can only book at most 9 and 8 people via their respective websites so I can't say how many more seats than that they have. They aren't even expensive - BA in particular are unusually cheap, we paid almost three times as much for our trip last summer which we booked months in advance.

On the other hand, there are reportedly huge queues at immigration offices of people trying to get re-entry permits - you don't need one of these to come to and live in Japan, but without it you lose your visa on leaving the country even for a short trip. We just automatically get them along with our visa renewals anyway, there seems no reason not to for reasonably regular travellers. There have also been pictures of hordes (mostly Japanese, I assume) trying to get tickets at Narita. Presumably these people are going somewhere...

Tokyo, city of ghosts? Keep taking the tablets

No, we didn't buy an iPad, though we did visit the Mac Shrine in Ginza...the launch of the new model has been delayed in Japan. Yesterday we visited Tokyo for the first time since recent events. Partly, we just wanted to see if it really was as empty as this hyperventilating woman said in the Sun. And the answer?

Ginza Ghosts?

Akihabara Zombies?

It was a bit quiet, even for a Sunday afternoon on a holiday weekend. But we didn't have that much trouble finding some people :-) To be fair to the subject of that Sun article, it is quite possible that the whole story is a journalist's fabrication, as the British press are wont to do. There is plenty more silly stuff along similar lines, like the extraordinarily fortunate person who had a "very lucky escape" through being in a taxi in Tokyo when the earthquake hit, and getting out of the country a couple of days later. I'm glad to see he is getting roundly abused in the comments.

By the way, those bright green people in the top shot are not luminescent through eating spinach, but collecting for the tsunami victims. Remember them? They are still there, while the rest of the world flaps over the power plant.

One more excuse for our visit was that the UK Embassy was handing out stable iodine tablets, just in case we are advised to take them. I am sure the Japanese would hand them out too, but it is possible for foreigners to fall through cracks due to bureaucratic bloody-mindedness, and I was also interested to see how many people were around. In a typical display of British incompetence, the process was farcically inefficient, with two people who I presume to be doctors only managing to see about 250 of us in total over a 5h period. We had to wait in a room on the opposite side of the building where the pills were actually handed out, and one person came to ferry people from one room to the other in groups of 2 or 3 - the net result being that the doctors must have spent most of their time twiddling their thumbs. We first turned up about 2:30 when the queue was a mile long and not moving, so we went and did a couple of other things before returning later when things had quietened down and we only had to wait a further half an hour or so. (Jules said she thought she recognised someone from earlier.) If every person represents a family of 2 British on average, that means 500 were dealt with on that day (this article referred to 540 British Nationals, but may include other consulates and different days).

Apparently the Ambassador was on telly in the UK saying that most seemed to be staying, defiantly or otherwise, though I'm not sure how he could know really. Andy reported that his flight home was emptier than the one coming out (which itself was after the advice to not come). In contrast, the vast majority of the French seem to have left

St God's vs St Arbucks

St God's on the Bluff may be closed for the duration but St Arbucks is still providing succour to the faithful, serving coffee and cake as usual. Kamakura is actually reasonably busy again this morning, which is an encouraging sign.

For an alternative take on what missionaries do in time of need, see this article:

What do missionaries do when their world shakes and crumbles? They continue in mission as best they can.

Thats what I thought too, but what do I know. Jules says she is considering returning to her Methodist roots!

The Wesleyan Centre is where she spent the night of the earthquake, incidentally. We have offered to stop by this afternoon if we can be of any help but to be honest I expect another couple of bodies getting in the way is the last thing they need right now.

Business as usual

Since the Great Tohoku Earthquake (as it seems to be called) and its aftermath is still attracting some interest, I thought I'd give an update about how things have progressed since then down in deepest darkest Kamakura and Yokohama, which are on the south side of Tokyo itself (K is 50km SSW of T, Y is about half way between the two).

Perhaps the most important thing is the trains, which were pretty chaotic at the start of the week, but are basically running now at between 50-100% service on most lines (and mostly near the top end). We were a bit embarrassed on Monday morning, when we arrived at the station to find all the JR lines in the area were shut. There had been no hint of this on the English language JR train status page, but it turned out that this page was not being updated at all! We have since started using the Japanese language page which is much more detailed and reliable, but I didn't think to check it then. So we had to turn round, go home and get on the bike to get to work. We had several visitors in different locations and with different schedules, so this caused a bit of a headache but it all worked out ok in the end. At this point our supercomputers (not just the 5MW Earth Simulator but two lesser ones) were all switched off to save power - initially for a week, but we have just heard they are off for the rest of the month at least. Horrors, we will have to think by ourselves for a change! It may delay IPCC runs for a while, but I think these were well ahead of schedule anyway and wouldn't be surprised if we still beat most other countries, so long as the power comes back at some time.

The rolling power cuts were announced over the weekend (12-13th) but didn't seem to materialise immediately, as power consumption is substantially lower at weekends anyway. They have, however, happened during the week more or less as planned. The schedule is presented as a series of overlapping 3h40 time blocks, and the actual cut seems to run for the middle 3h of this. We have gas to cook with, and even high power efficient LED lights from our bicycle (made by Lumicycle) so it's no hardship. All we lose is the internet, which is probably no bad thing! An unofficial projection of the cuts can be found here, and a map of the different groups here. TEPCO doesn't seem to release the timetable info publicly more than a day ahead, though. RIGC has actually been exempted from the power cuts - perhaps a quid pro quo for switching off the Earth Simulator. We have also heard that our Saturday night cut is expected to be cancelled.

On Tuesday we got an email message originating from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism which requested that non-essential workers stay at home for the time being, mostly I think to avoid overloading the trains. Well, of course we are entirely non-essential being mere research scientists, but again with a visitor having just come all the way from the UK it seemed pretty essential that we make use of his trip. I've not seen any mention of this in the news, which is a bit odd if it really is official - there is far too much verbiage to wade though the Japanese language MLIT site thoroughly but nothing caugh my eye. It would certainly help to explain why Tokyo is a bit of a "ghost town". We heard the commuter trains were hugely packed at the start of the week thanks to the reduction in service, but they should be mostly ok now. We were not actually discouraged from turning up - I think JAMSTEC's position was really so people didn't feel pressurised into attending if they were worried or had other priorities. Some Japanese people with relatives in the western regions have used the opportunity to pay them a lengthy visit, and it's possible that some of the non-Japanese employees have left the country but I don't know of any who have gone for sure (I've been in touch with a few who have not gone). We do know of lots of other ex-pats who are now re-pats! (maybe they are ex-ex-pats, or ex²pats in the new acronym lingo that seems popular in scientific circles these days). It was certainly quiet last week and we didn't get a whole lot done but we did made good use of Andy's visit and avoided some of our local power cuts.

There is plenty of food in the shops, as I posted recently. Some shops have run out of things in the short-term - it's worth noting that Japanese supermarkets are really small, with only a handful of each item on display, so even a small mismatch between supply and demand can cause a sell-out. There is plenty of food in general, and even the hot items get restocked rapidly (eg see the comment on that post).

The UK Govt's Chief Scientific Advisor gave some very forthright advice that there was unequivocally no real risk from the Fukushima power plant, which also seems consistent with all the informed opinion I can find on the web. It was therefore disappointing that the Foreign Office said those living in Tokyo should "consider leaving the area". While not actually an instruction, it is entirely predictable that it would have been interpreted in this way by some. For example, the Mission to Seafarers used this as an excuse to withdraw it's Yokohama chaplain, who also happens to act as the Rector for the local English-speaking Anglican congregation in Yokohama Christ Church. If the good old CofE isn't prepared to offer support and leadership to people who are genuinely, if perhaps somewhat irrationally and excessively, worried and upset, it rather makes me wonder what they think they are for. It's not as if anyone is expecting them to do anything genuinely brave, like the TEPCO staff who are risking serious injury and sickness in trying to deal with the reactor. It's not supposed to just be tea and biscuits! We considered our position, and decided that any pre-emptive move would be a ridiculous over-reaction to what is only at worst a rather hypothetical and implausible risk, that we could deal with easily enough if it actually happened. Currently my biggest worry is that the UK Govt will strengthen its advice further, which could put us in a rather uncomfortable position. I actually wrote to a couple of people I know who may be in some sort of position to influence this, though I suspect they are too busy to even read my email.

While writing this post, an email arrived saying that from Tuesday 22nd, JAMSTEC is back to business as usual.

Fukushima plumes (hypothetical!)

I should probably start off this post with a bit of a health warning, as it is based on historical data (ERA analysis), ie a series of past March conditions rather than current/forecast winds. But Ignacio Pisso, who works in the Atmospheric Geochemical Cycle Research Team of our institute (undergoing a website reorganisation, sorry) and blogs here, has produced some pretty pictures which should give some indication of the way things might tend to go.

First, some pictures of the typical 24h trajectories, these are three consecutive March data sets, 2007, 8 and 9 (actually a chunk of 20 days in each case, judging from the titles on two plots):


And also a plot of impacts, which he describes as a histogram of particles from the March 2007 hindcast, taking into account residence time:

I think the message is that the vast majority of whatever release may occur, is very likely to end up not going far and predominantly out to sea anyway. Tokyo is not marked on the map (and the coastline is rather approximate) but it is basically at the top of the first sharp inlet at around (140E, 35N) as you head south and then west round the coast, with Kamakura bit further away to the SW. Perhaps Ignacio will be able to answer further questions - this is very much more his field of research than mine!

Comments from Sir John Beddington and Hilary Walker

These people are the UK Govt's Chief Scientific Advisor and deputy director for emergency preparedness at the Department of Health respectively, and I think their words deserve more prominence:

"Unequivocally, Tokyo will not be affected by the radiation fallout of explosions that have occurred or may occur at the Fukushima nuclear power stations."

And it's not as if they have any particular reasons to cover things up, an accusation that could plausibly be levelled at the Japanese government. Their comments are backed up by the USA (which due to the military presence has its own radiation monitors) and also Australia.

Thanks to Justin, here is the full transcript. The JT quote above is actually not quite taken verbatim from the conference but seems a fair paraphrase to me (search for "unequivocally" in the page).

The whole story

So here's the blow by blow account of our uniquely unique experiences (well, us and about 60m others, that is) of what it's like to be a couple of hundred km from a major disaster. No prizes for getting to the end of it, I'm sorry to say.

Jules and I had both been in Tsukuba for another workshop, but she had left promptly to go and visit a friend in Tokyo for the afternoon whereas I stayed for a leisurely lunch at my favourite Tsukuba restaurant, "TonQ", and had just started off, planning to leave Hugo and Niel at their respective hotels on my way home to Kamakura. We were just a few minutes outside Tsukuba when the earthquake struck. The first we knew was that the train started braking quite hard and announced that it was emergency braking. The train was swaying from side to side, so I initially wondered if there was a problem with the track, but the bouncing around got worse as we slowed and kept on after we stopped at which point the penny dropped. We had felt the 7.2 earthquake a couple of days before during the workshop, and had had a couple of large aftershocks in the night, so it wasn't too much out of the ordinary. I did wonder if the train was going to topple over sideways, and then I realised that the whole line was high up on stilts and that it might sting a bit if the whole shebang collapsed. But of course that was never on the cards really. We sat there for a while, and there were lots of aftershocks, which seemed a bit unusual, but we didn't really have any idea how big it was, though it was enough to shake clouds of pollen from the sugi trees (small scale re-enactment here). I assumed it was just another minor aftershock of the previous biggy, but exaggerated by our location. However I now think with hindsight the suspension of the train and viaduct probably made it less violent than for those on solid ground. We could hear some of the aftershocks coming towards us before they hit, which was a little eerie, and one of them was almost as big as the first one. The train staff were great with regular messages (not that they really conveyed much info, just that there had been an earthquake and please be patient, but compared to British Rail...) and they also came through the carriage to make sure we were all ok. After about an hour and a half of sitting there, we were evacuated out of the front of the train and walked along the track to the next station (about 1km), where we got out.


We could see the odd bit of damage - some small bolts pulled out of the concrete, but nothing too dramatic or structural. Thanks to Niel's phone, I sent jules and some others a quick email at 5:30 to say I was stuck (and got an email saying she was fine, and was slightly surprised to get emails from the UK enquiring about my safety...). The station was a windswept and desolate place with not much in the way of facilities, I had brief fantasies about a fleet of buses arriving to save the day but instead we were walked in convoy (by the train staff) in the rapidly fading light to the nearest evacuation centre, which was a primary school in the local village. There wasn't much info and I wasn't at all sure what was going on, but by now we had discovered it had been a massive distant earthquake and not just a modest local one.

At the school we sat around in a draughty room, someone brought some green tea and there was a TV which I looked briefly at, but I was more interested in my evening's prospects for food and bed than the news really. There was no food for us at the school, and there was talk of a local business hotel which I pricked up my ears at, but no-one was moving and I wasn't at all sure what was going on. So I asked the train staff directly, and they said they were still trying to check if the hotel could take us. We also worked out (thanks to Niel's phone yet again) that we were actually within walking distance (6km) of Tsukuba, so tried to phone the hotel we had just been staying at....but the lines were busy/down, even for land lines. At this point I finally realised that the lack of info was not due to my own linguistic limitations, but rather that there really was no info to be had! It was actually quite reassuring to find everyone else was in the same boat.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, jules had enjoyed a comfortable earthquake in a one year old building built to the highest earthquake standards. Apparently built on some sort of sliding mechanism, the building feels very sensitive to minor quakes, but in a biggish one, slides beautifully smoothly. Nothing at all slid around inside the building. Not even a book, or a cup... Her biggest personal challenge was trying to cope with the worry of her friends, who, being more nuts-and-berries than sciencey types, tend towards free outward expression of their plentiful emotions. In this relatively secure environment, jules recognised it as a similar slow feeling kind of quake to the one two days previously, suggesting it might have come from about the same place. However, now located further south in Tokyo, she guessed it was a bigger magnitude. Of course, this realisation just made the panic of her friends seem worse, as it was clear that they were all perfectly safe while others elsewhere were probably not. After the earthquake Widney performed spectacularly, and jules soon had information on the quake size and was replying to emails from family, to say she was fine, while I was surely not expected to be heard from for a while thanks to being on the train with no internet access. Mobile phone and land lines were close to useless, but people posted their status on Facebook and the like. The power of Facebook was now clear: one update - "not dead yet" - and you're done! Must sign up to that thing for next time. Jules being jules she had no clean knickers or toothbrush, but did have the power charger to keep Widney running all night and also a cable to keep everyone's iphones powered. Luckily there were no power-cuts. Everyone waited in the nice new building until all their group had met up or been accounted for (some had been en route), and then the six of them left for her friend Sarah's house (which was close by) around 6pm.

Back in the primary school in the middle of nowhere, when we realised that no-one present knew much more than we did and that the cavalry was probably not coming to our immediate rescue, we decided just to set off to Tsukuba on foot. We reasoned that a big town with many hotels and restaurants was probably a better bet than small village with nothing, plus I know people who work and live around there so we reasoned we might find some more support. It was hard work to convince the head honcho that us three gaijin should just head off by ourselves into the night. "It's dark! Dangerous! You'll get lost" etc etc but anyone who's lived in Japan for any length of time will be quite used to hearing that sort of stuff every time they fail to follow the set routine in the approved manner. It was about 6km pretty much straight along a main road, mostly lit (it was a clear moonlit night too) and with a decent pavement, so was not actually a serious challenge. It also felt much better doing something rather than just waiting around aimlessly. Apart from some bits of roof tiling lying around, there wasn't much sign of physical damage, so I don't think I really believe the JMA estimate that we had an upper 6 level on their scale (Tsukuba is somewhere towards the SW edge of the lowest red section below):



That rating is suppose to mean it is impossible to stand and many houses collapse, but there was certainly no sign of the latter. Lower 5 might have been more realistic. Most of the restaurants and shops on the road were shut, however. Those that were open seemed to have big queues outside.

We came into Tsukuba straight past TonQ on the way to the hotel, and were pleased to see it was open and doing a roaring trade. The hotel and immediate surroundings had suffered a power failure and lots of workshop attendees were camped out in the lobby and restaurant. Initially the hotel staff seemed pretty off-putting, they first asked me what room I had stayed in the previous night, before telling me they were full anyway?! Then they showed us a map of other hotels we could try. It was about 21:30 by now, and we were quite prepared to sleep on someone else's floor anyway, so we were not really tempted to head off randomly into the night again on the slender chance of finding empty rooms. We met Andy who did have a room and who said we could use his floor if necessary, so we went back to TonQ with him for our second hearty tonkatsu meal of the day before returning for the night. While waiting for a table at TonQ we did wander around and try a couple of hotels which were also full of refugees and suffering power failures, and I also made use of the wifi at a (closed) McD to let jules know what we were up to. So we were happy to return to Okura Frontier Hotel Tsukuba (where do they get these names from?) by which time the lobby was full of people lying around rolled up in bedding, rather like the inside of a yamagoya (eg). It seems that many people were not prepared to go up to their rooms as they were a bit freaked out by the aftershocks which were amplified by height. Even Andy said he preferred to stay downstairs. We were not so squeamish and shared his room between the three of us, which was pretty comfortable, at least for the lucky one who got the bed :-) We were on the 4th floor and had aftershocks about every 10 mins, so with that and the snoring I didn't actually get much sleep, but it was good to lie down for a few hours.

Back in Tokyo, jules was having the novel experience of helping to cook dinner for 7 people. She doesn't normally cook, but the horror of the non-stop disaster porn on the TV drove her into the kitchen. Fortunately, Sarah had a huge amount of food in, as her husband had recently visited a place called Costco, which are places like shops but they sell food in unusually large packages and can only be found in Japan by Americans. Soon they were all feasting on ham and stir-fry, bread, salad, rice and red wine. They also fed Mike, the stranded husband of a friend, who works nearby and was unable to get home as all the trains were stopped. Now it it clearer why it's important to stock generously for emergencies. It is not just for us, but for others. In an earthquake, we all swap families, and it is hard to know in advance how many visitors you will get. Two of Sarah's children were with other children's parents, as children in the schools were only allowed to travel walking distance to a home for the night. Mike's wife over on the other side of Tokyo was being Ma for a large number of children from a local school. After dinner the friends returned with food to the very new building that is also Sarah's workplace, which in a strange twist of fate contained some stranded UNHCR workers. As well as food, it was possible to provide sleeping space and bedding for them, since the anticipated guests in an apartment in Sarah's workplace were stranded at Narita Airport. jules didn't sleep very well due to aftershocks, interspersed by surprisingly frequent ambulance sirens. Only the next day did she learn from Sarah that the latter was usual, as a major hospital is located nearby!

In Tsukuba, Andy came upstairs at 6am the next day and told us that the power had come back up and the restaurant was operational! First stop was the internet for email and news, and Niel was by now being phoned up every few minutes by the BBC desperate for some on the spot reporting. I must admit we egged him on a bit. It got a bit much when the researcher asked Niel if he knew where his next meal was coming from and he said we were thinking of walking downstairs to the restaurant! I don't think that was live, more's the pity. Pancake breakfasts gave the day a rosier hue. We also found the conference wifi was accessible from outside the building, and started to investigate options for getting home.



We heard that some trains were starting to run again, but the details were sketchy, mostly coming from jules who was busily searching the internet for updates. The Japanese in the hotel lobby were glued to a TV of apocalyptic images but it didn't seem to be doing them much good so we amused ourselves by wandering round an eerily quiet Tsukuba centre. The station was of course closed, and there was only perhaps one long-distance bus service running with a huge queue of people waiting for it. There wasn't any major signs of damage, but the main shopping centres were closed (including our intended destination of Starbucks) and on closer inspection there were bits broken. Nothing really structural, just things like ceiling panels and broken glass, and tables with hastily abandoned meals.



One supermarket was open and doing a roaring trade, it had even run out of fresh baked goods.



But all the other shelves had plenty of food.

Around 12, we were very kindly given a lift in someone's car all the way to Toride station, which was as far north as the Joban line was operating. The station area was packed with lengthy queues, but we soon worked out that these were all people on their way out of Tokyo (having been stuck at work on Friday night) and were waiting to get buses and taxis home. We didn't have to wait long for a train towards Tokyo (Ueno station) which was not too full, but saw that the trains coming the other way were absolutely stuffed. At Ueno, I pointed Hugo off in the direction of his hotel (Asakusa, which was walking distance) and Niel and I continued south on the Keihin-Tohoku line. This was running very slow, so we changed to the Tokaido line at Shinagawa. On the platform, I used the local Narita Express mobile wifi hotspot to tell jules what was going on and to let her know it was safe to leave her sanctuary and come home.

After breakfast in Tokyo, onigiri (rice balls containing nasty surprises) were made and taken to the UNHCR for breakfast. Then jules discovered the power of Twitter! The trains were slowly starting up again, but the official websites were no use and the only reliable information was live updates from passengers on Twitter. So she sent information to me on which lines were running, as well as plotting workable courses home for all those staying with Sarah; they had all left by around 1pm. Then Sarah's children returned followed by her husband. Then my texts arrived saying I'd got to Shinagawa, and jules left the house just as the couple who had been stranded at Narita Airport arrived. jules' course home was fine. The trains ran fast, there just were not may of them. Finally we met in Ofuna station, and wandered back through peaceful Kamakura sharing adventures.

Kamakura was very quiet, so, to continue our newly inspired charity and generosity of spirit (don't worry I'm sure it won't last), on the way back from Starbucks the following morning (Sunday) we were moved to feed the poor hungry ducks and pigeons at Hachimangu - hungry because usually the tourists feed them, and today there are almost no tourists.



There is no sign of any visible impact in Kamakura. Lights and stock are a bit low in the supermarkets, but at least the comfortably-off people of Kamakura are panic-buying in style. Yes, those are bottles of Perrier!



Are there lessons to be learnt? Well, it is very rare that we are both away from home and in different places, and this made communication a little difficult. But it's not worth getting mobile phones for. In fact the internet was far more useful than telephones of either land or mobile variety, and kept working reliably throughout the event, though some pages (eg train companies) were hard to access and not very useful. The number of wifi spots make a passable alternative to a truly mobile connection - we can use mobilepoint in every McD and Becks cafe in the country, for example. And most importantly, don't panic! The communication and transport snarl-up probably caught up two orders of magnitude more people than those who were under any sort of real physical danger, so a lack of contact is nothing to worry about. The speed with which things returned to near-normality was amazing (only outside of the directly impacted area, of course - I don't mean to minimise the ongoing suffering). We found it very encouraging and impressive how quickly and smoothly everything happened, considering the scale of the problems.

More stupid hype

Fears and shortages in stricken Tokyo

Fears? Well, I suppose there must be some people who are scared. But the city is hardly stricken, it's not even getting any power cuts because it is far too important for that (the cuts are planned for the surrounding areas, but they didn't happen yesterday and in fact I've not heard of any happening anywhere yet). The trains are certainly a mess, and when everyone runs out to the shops to buy the same thing, of course the shelves get empty, but there are no real shortages.

Mildly inconvenienced

Niel (left) had a great interview on the Nolan show (BBC 5live). The phrase "post-apocalyptic" was used.

Hugo (right) suggested that "mildly inconvenienced" might be closer to the mark. Things always feel better after a hearty pancake breakfast.

Some trains running now, perhaps, though not quite the ones we want. Looks like we'll be home tonight somehow.

Woohoo! Surf's up!

Shouldn't joke really, it is probably not a good time to be in Chile, but the tsunami is unlikely to amount to much by the time it gets here in an hour or so (it's raining and cold here, I'm not going to the beach to look).

Coincidentally, we applied for jobs in Concepcion, right where the epicentre was, many years ago. Sent off the applications, heard nothing back, until a full year later when they asked if we were still interested! We didn't pursue it further though - I think by then we might have got our current jobs in Japan. Didn't expect this would save us from a major earthquake though!

Apocalpse then

We've recently had three big quakes and a typhoon, all in the space of less than a week. Fortunately they were all centred some way off the coast, and only managed some limited damage (quake 1, 2, 3 and typhoon). An expressway was partially collapsed by the second one, but it was repaired in 2 days! It obviously takes a lot more than a piddling earthquake to get between a Japanese salaryman and his annual Obon holiday.

It's just as well we don't have too many religious nutters round here (at least not vocal ones) or we'd be hearing how it was all the fault of sinners (random link).

Whoops, there's another one.