Tsunami warning, injuries in Japan quake

[Henk Coetzee]

Some would say karma at work...considering the inhumane ritual slaughter of dolphins by the Japanese, the whale hunting they still carry out, etc. etc.  I can understand that, but this must be a USA blog , calling the Japanese in a derogatory fashion, that is actually meant for the Chinese.

Never saw a blog pop up, calling out karma to all the (insert 121 known derogatory terms for US citizens here) when Hurricane Katrina hit them.

[Ian Smith]

Dear Mike,

I have been lurking on your site for a number of years now and have enjoyed the photos and the posts. Thank you. You have made many people around the world very happy. As perhaps the only ex-Oranjemunder living in Japan I guess it is time for me to come out of the woodwork and join the discussion about what is happening here.

At the beginning of this thread you raised the point of why nuclear plants are built in earthquake-prone zones. Since nobody has bothered to respond to this point, the reason may be obvious to all. However, allow me to put my spin on it using a perhaps inappropriate Oranjemund analogy. Why did apparently sane people leave the verdant glens (or grimy terraces) of Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland and many European countries and travel half way round the world to dig for shiny stones in a desert village, fenced in and shut off from almost all civic intercourse? The answer, of course, is that they did it for a better life, specifically to make more money than they could at home. It is reasonable to assume that they weighed the risks and the rewards, and that the latter won the argument. I believe Japan's decision to use nuclear energy has been made in a similar manner. As in most countries, the construction of nuclear power plants here has been accompanied by demonstrations and lawsuits, but as elsewhere the huge bribes paid to local communities where the plants are to be built always win the argument. The Japanese nuclear power industry has an international reputation for having superior safety nets in place for any natural disaster, which include annual typhoons and irregular volcanic eruptions. This reputation has in general been justified, although Tepco, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. that operates the Fukushima facility, has been caught lying to the people and government about problems at its plants. Last week's earthquakes and tsunami were unimaginable for almost everyone anywhere, just as nobody has imagined a tsunami sweeping across the Cape Flats or the Atlantis power plant, or half of Johannesburg sinking under its own weight into labyrinth created by the mines.  This tragedy is still unfolding, and we may get lucky, but we quickly pulled our daughter from Tokyo anyway. What appears to have happened is this: The reactors shut down automatically when the quake hit, as scheduled. The quake itself caused some damage to the plant, but none that resulted in a radiation leak. However, he tsunami that followed soon after destroyed all the backup generators and pumps, etc.; irony of ironies, there was no electricity at the electric power plant. This caused the reactors (four are facing meltdown; two others nearby seem at this point to under control) to heat up. They have been trying unsuccessfully to cool the reactors using military equipment and are today dumped 30 tons of water on the reactors by helicopter, a dangerous job, and probably too little too late. By the way, last week's quake was not the Big One that people here have been expecting. That is forecast to occur off the coast south of Tokyo near the Hamaoka plant on the map on this thread. The boffins say there is an 87 percent chance of it hitting in the next dozen years. That means it can hit tomorrow. (I live between the Sendai and Genkai plants in the south of the country.)

The review of new nuclear power plants is already underway worldwide but don't hold your breath that much will be learned from this "accident." Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't stop people from making bigger and better bombs. So Mike, any slowdown in Namibia's uranium exports will likely be short-lived. My take on this is that it is better to be a few cents poorer and leave the uranium and plutonium in the ground. Please do not read into the above that I in any way support nuclear power. The only thing nuclear that I am in favor of is the family. Also, I do not mean to equate the impulse to immigrate with nuclear disaster. It just seems to me that the analogy was apt for this site.

With regard to the "Some would say karma at work...considering the inhumane ritual slaughter of dolphins by the Japanese, the whale hunting they still carry out, etc. etc." post on another thread, the Japanese do not indulge in a ritual slaughter of dolphins. I have not seen the movie. However, the fishermen of one town in Japan about the size of Oranjemund kill the dolphins and then eat the meat. The dolphins are killed to protect fish supplies and for food. This does not make me happy either, but some perspective is necessary. Japanese people enjoy dolphin shows at aquariums (now isn't that humane pastime) and dolphin and whale watching around the world as much as anyone else, and spend millions doing it.  If you want ritual killing of dolphins and whales check out what the Faroe Islanders do to prove their manhood.

My apologies for the Pepe-like length of this post. Think of it as therapy for someone saddened and exhausted by the destruction of a country and people he loves. That's my shout.

Ian Smith
CDM: 1954 to 1969
Japan: 1978 till death do us part

[SandyB]

Thanks  for that input Ian ,,,

[Paul (Pepe) Freemantle]

Thanks Ian for the interesting post. My posts were what I got from News24.com and thought it was worth while sharing it with others.

I really feel for the Japanese and all living in Japan, my sincere condolences to all those that have lost loved ones in this disaster. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

[Henk Coetzee]

This is awesome stuff to get a perspective of someone living in japan, for a number of years. Obviously you have your ear to the ground there, just like we do in out home towns/communities, countries, and will know more than the average outsider.

Japan is not the only country to build a nuclear facility on or close to a fault line, believe it or not, the most active fault line in Southern Africa runs 8 km from Koeburg,  and is called the Milnerton Fault line. It has been active in the last 200 years, and a devastating earthquake took place were the Milnerton racecourse used to be in the turn of the 19th century.  ( I live 500 meters from the old Race Course, and never knew this myself until a couple of months ago) What was the thinking behind the placement of the Koeburg Nuclear facility?

Coming back to my statement about the ritual slaughter , let me back it up.

You have not see the Movie? Look for  the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, and its not a movie, its a factual documentary, were animals were harmed, and no trained actors were involved.

Watch the trailer here, if you can stomach it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gso-ySP20h4&feature=related


In the quiet harbour town of Taiji, Japan, an unpublicised annual ritual that has been around for ages gets underway. Between early September and March each year, the fishermen and local community engage in a tradition that goes back centuries, the mass slaughter of up to twenty thousand small whales and dolphins. The majority of the world is unaware this is happening. The cove is blocked off from public access. Press and cameras are not allowed inside and the local media does not cover the event.



During drive hunts, migrating pods of dolphins and other small whales are first panicked and confused by loud banging, then herded, by the hundreds, into shallow coves and butchered, one by one, by fishermen. Every year, some 20,000 small cetaceans of several species, some of which are endangered, including bottlenose dolphins, striped dolphins, spotted dolphins, Risso�s dolphins, short-finned pilot whales, white-sided dolphins and false killer whales, are killed or taken in the drives, sometimes illegally.

This cruel and inhumane practice is sanctioned and controlled by the Government of Japan, which claims that these animals compete with the fishermen and slaughtering them is a means of pest control, but no evidence for this claim exists. The dolphins are processed and used as pet food or fertilizer, and the government is encouraging the consumption of dolphin meat. In fact, the hunts would be economically unviable without the sale of live dolphins captured during the drives to dolphinariums in Asia and elsewhere.

There is abundant scientific evidence that drive hunts inflict incredible pain and suffering on highly intelligent, self-aware, and socially complex animals. The hunts have been universally condemned on both welfare and conservation grounds, but repeated requests to end them, from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and numerous other scientific and conservation organizations, have been ignored.

The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), the professional organization that represents over 1,200 zoos and aquariums around the world, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) in the United States, have also condemned these hunts. WAZA explicitly prohibits member organizations from procuring animals from drive hunts. Now, marine scientists, WAZA, and AZA have joined with other non-governmental organizations to bring an immediate end to drive hunting.

Motivation for the slaughter of whales and dolphins :

The Taiji whale and dolphin hunts continue because the fishermen receive immense profits. Whales and dolphins slaughtered for meat may reach as much as 9000 US dollars each at market. However, scouts from international aquariums and captive dolphin programs are now using the event to procure live dolphins, which trade at upwards of 100,000 US dollars each.

The local perspective, Taiji's reaction :

The position of the local fishermen, traders and government appears mixed and confused. Local government claims the slaughter is a cull, designed to reduce the population of small whales and dolphins, so reducing their negative impact on local fish stocks, whilst the fishermen and traders talk of tradition, citing western interference as ethnocentric ideas of acceptable sources of food, dolphin being a local delicacy. This position seems at odds with the fact the dolphin meat is traded as whale. Thereby, hiding its origin from the buying public, who are unaware that the meat is contaminated. Due to interaction with marine pollution, whale and dolphin meat contains high levels of Mercury and PCB's. This poses a real threat to the health and safety of those who consume the meat.

"The Japanese dolphin drive hunts are an abominable violation of any standard of animal welfare, and these hunts inflict measurable pain and suffering on animals that are intelligent, sentient, and socially complex," said Diana Reiss, Senior Research Scientist and Director of the New York Aquarium's Marine Mammal Research Program."The Japanese dolphin hunts are an assault on intelligent, sentient, and emotional beings with brains that should make us all stop and think" said Lori Marino, Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology at Emory University.




Not just Japan
The Danes barbaric right of passage in to manhood
The Faroe Islands, part of the Danish kingdom, have been practising whaling since 1580. Each year during the summer months, hunts called "grindadráp" in Faroese, take place. They are considered a right of passage into manhood on the islands. Small whales and dolphins are surround with a wide semicircle of boats and driven slowly into a bay or to the bottom of a fjord. They are then driven fully ashore or close enough to the shore that they can be secured and killed from land. The whales and dolphins that are not beached were often stabbed in the blubber with a sharp hook, called a gaff. Once ashore the whales and dolphins are killed, by cutting the dorsal area through to the spinal cord with a special whaling knife called a "grindaknívur".



Can we seriously say, as the Japanese, Norwegians and Icelanders do, that these animals are robust enough to be hunted again? They claim we sentimentalise these creatures.
After all, they say, we kill cows and pigs - what's the difference? Well, those are domestic animals. They are also slaughtered humanely. It is impossible to kill Dolphins in a trap or a whale humanely on the high seas.
It is also immoral, if you accept that these are sentient creatures - capable of grief, complex social lives and a language of their own. Perhaps, in years to come, we'll even learn how to interpret whale speak.
I'm not sure I want to be around if we do. I don't think I could bear to hear what they have to say.


Thanks for the wonderful insight Ian, I appreciate it, although I will never stand for the slaughter of Dolphins, etc. I cannot clearly judge, as I am not there to witness it, and to see the real impact it has on the local population, as you might gather from the show, foreigners are strictly forbidden in that area, and makes you wonder what they have to hide.

[Bertie Horak]

Great posts - thanks Ian and Henk.
Me for one wont be watching the movie - it's enough to be called a hyena hugger, just now I'm a barnacle stuck to a whale as well... just joking....
Just to know it's happening gives me the deepest sorrow, and pity on the animals (any animals), with growing disgust in "humanity" - .....humane - such an ugly word - much like saying grace at the table to give thanks for the food - not really thinking about it, just completing the same rhyme as yesterday...
And tradition? Please, any intelligent being (which we humans are supposed to be) should be able to see that "traditional practices" might actually be a bit barbaric and adjust/change accordingly without losing respect for their ancestors, still honoring them in a different way.
Sorry, wrong topic.... thanks anyway for great posts!

[Michael Alexander]

Just an observation, but those pics cannot be Japan, don't see any Asian folk there, save for a bunch of white Europeans.... just an observation....

Yes, Ian, Thanks for letting us have your comments, first hand......

[Henk Coetzee]

First pic is in the Cove, with Japanese fishermen, I did not want to post more, because they aint pretty.

You can view the pics here, and some videos as well.

http://www.japannewstoday.com/?p=919

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/new-video-reveals-dolphin-hunt-just-as-brutal-as-ever-20110119-19wpr.html

There is nothing in a culture that grants it instant respect and instant acceptance. If they commit atrocities and claim it's their culture then tough luck, but they need to change - there is no alternative.A code of basic ethics is universal for the species (it is, despite different manifestations of the same rules), and cultural inhibitions or rules have nothing to do with ethics. And when it comes to animals I believe  in a "gradation of suffering", meaning that the more the animal is capable of suffering the more it is immoral to kill it (for food only I mean, any other sort of killing is out of the question). It also comes down to sentience, and brain to body ratio.

And there is a good deal of evidence those people are murdering creatures who have strong family ties, a great deal of empathy, understand love and frienship, and can understand and despair because of what is done to them.

Now I have totally hijacked this forum, Sorry Michael, but there is some relevance here, being all Japanese and so forth.

[Michael Alexander]

Henk, The debate is good, So good, that I reckon, Mr. Molloy on the nightshift will be having a wee word or two to say.....   

How come , the pic at the top, only has European looking types clubbing the dolphins, are the Japanese booking in tourists for dolphin beating sessions?

Back to the debate, you can all shoot me down, but I am in favour of Nuclear Power, but surely one cannot build power reactors along a fault line and expect nothing is gonna happen? Sure I can built a nuclear station in the middle of the Namib desert , and it could get hit by an asteroid, but the chances of the Namibian reactor getting hit are far greater than the Japenese one getting whacked by a tsunami/earthquake......

Just my 2 cents,   

[Henk Coetzee]

First pic is the Japanese in the Cove, look at the links, and you will see the rest of the pics.

The second and 3rd picture is of the The Danes barbaric right of passage in to manhood, as the heading and the story above the 2 pics suggest.

I am also in favor of Nuclear power, the burning fossil fuels and coal powered stations are damaging our planet at an astonishing rate now, with global warming not being a myth no more.Location is od utmost importance, but the only drawback I see, is that only water can cool these power stations down, hence the reason them being build next to oceans, and bodies with huge amount of water.Koeburg could have gone up much further north, away from the Milnerton Fault line, and away from the risks of Tsunamis and Cape storms.

I would love to know why the built it were it is today.

[SandyB]

Read the article Bill  ..  read   or  is the long Monica satisfying nose  getting in the way of clear  reading ???   

[Michael Alexander]

Oi! Leave Monica and Bill's nose outta this....

I always thought, that Namibia was the perfect spot for nuclear power stations, huge barren coastlines along a cold Atlantic coastline, we are smack bang in the middle of the African plate, fault lines are miles away, we are one of the world's largest Uranium producers, heck! we could have a string of these plants along the coastline, generating enough power for the entire African continent.... think of the revenue that the country would generate, obviously the greens won't like the idea of the Namib being spoilt by these stations, but then they can always go live on Mars.... lekker barren there.....

Just my thoughts....

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

Although the DRC has 60 percent of Africa's hydroelectric potential, only 7 percent of the country's population has access to electricity. Lack of local demand has led the DRC to export to SINELAC, Angola, Burundi, the Congo, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In 2001, electricity production was 5.243 billion kWh, of which 3.839 billion kWh was consumed and 1.097 billion kWh was exported.

The DRC has the potential to produce 150,000 megawatts of power, approximately three times Africa's present consumption. The Congo river is the most magnificent wealth of the country. Second only to the Amazon river in terms of water volume, it stretches a distance of almost 4,300 kilometres. For electricity production as well as water, the potential of the Congo river remains largely unused.

The Inga Falls on the Congo river has a potential generating capacity that equals that of all Southern African countries put together. There are plans to raise the generation capacity of the Inga hydroelectric power station to 44,000 megawatts by 2010. The African Development Bank has agreed to supply funding of US$58 million towards the modernisation of Inga hydropower station.

The government has agreements with South Africa's Eskom to strengthen the Inga-Kolwezi and Inga-South Africa interconnections, as well as to construct a second power line that will supply power to Kinshasa. The Kinshasa city electricity distribution network will be managed by Eskom. A feasibility study looking at how to make use of this electrical potential by exporting it to Angola, Namibia, Egypt and South Africa is also being conducted.

The State-owned Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL), established in 1970, is responsible for electricity generation, transmission and distribution.

Other organisations generating electricity include SINELAC which was established by Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire to develop international electricity projects.

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/congo-rapids-to-power-africa-italy/story-e6frg6so-1111113171666

[Michael Alexander]

Stennie, Whilst I like the idea, the biggest drawback, is that the project would be situated smack bang in the middle of darkest Africa..... I would not want my country relying on another country to generate my power..... we all know how unstable African countries tend to be.......