Earthquake in Japan

[Anonymous]

Not really my area, but I think that I have a plausible explanation though:

The top layer of the road is pretty resilient due to the nature of the asphalt. But since many roads are made up from 2 slabs (due to construction techniques) there is a joint between these slabs in the middle.
When the earthquake struck then the most obvious failing point would be that joint, and the underlying material just followed the crack formed in the asphalt. Since the top layer keeps the underlying material (in this case sand, usually gravel) in place.

Another road:

I hope that any of this made any sense

 

[Hixee]

^Sounds like a pretty good explanation to me. I hadn't thought of it that way, so that seems to make sense!

 

[Nic]

I also wondered that, but had forgotten to ask. Well done Hoyer. And yes, that sounds like a sensible explanation.

 

[marc]

What is amazing is it took them 3 days to open that road and we in the UK are still waiting for pot holes to be fixed lol.

Good on them that is all I can say, the way they are getting on with life.

 

[rollermonkey]

Just wow.

My wife is in Japan with the baby at her parents house in Ibaraki right now.

They live about 60 - 65 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Damage to the house is relatively minor, as they are about 20 miles inland, and is confined to fallen roof tiles and some broken things inside the house.

The pokemon stuff in here was really disheartening, I expected better than that from this group.

 

[kimahri]

This is the internet. You didn't really expect anything better did you? Regardless what site you're on you're always going to get coments like that. We do care though, honest.

 

[rollermonkey]

Oh, and thank you for those links to the energy collective articles, they are much more consoling than the godawful hyper-sensationalism the "news" agencies are reporting.

I probably wouldn't be as sensitive about this if I wasn't stuck on a boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and our internet and e-mail hadn't crapped out for a week, immediately after the earthquake had hit.

 

[nealbie]

The pokemon stuff in here was really disheartening, I expected better than that from this group.

I find discovering such clearly black-humour being taken for more than it is quite disheartening tbh.

As awful as the human race IS, none if it is beyond compassion. Lighten-up. We DO care - something which should be taken as a given.

Disclaimer - It's called British humour, deal with it America!

Rinse. And. Repeat.

 

[Anonymous]

Oh, and thank you for those links to the energy collective articles, they are much more consoling than the godawful hyper-sensationalism the "news" agencies are reporting.

You might also wan to read: http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/20/w ... -in-tokyo/
And know how little danger there really is...

 

[tks]

The pokemon stuff in here was really disheartening, I expected better than that from this group.

 

[Hixee]

I just Stumbled across this page:
http://www.pbh2.com/astounding/the-japa ... in-videos/

Quite a good collection of videos (good being the wrong word, but you know what I mean). The one of the buildings swaying, the airport one and the one from the boat are quite amazing. You can year people's fear in the airport one, it's quite odd.

Still, thought I'd share.

 

[rollermonkey]

The pokemon stuff in here was really disheartening, I expected better than that from this group.

And "you" say us Americans are insensitive?

 

[tks]

Don't forget crass and obnoxious.

I don't think there is anyone in this topic who isn't shocked or moved by what has happened. We just have a different way of coping with things.

Americans go all patriotic, start weeping when they see the American flag and go bomb other countries. The British turn to black humour and just don't talk about the blindingly obvious horrifying truth.

 

[Dave]

Yesterday I was asked if I would donate money to the Japan Earthquake Charity (or something like that) and then had a debate in my head about why should we donate money to a G20 country? They have the 3rd biggest economy in the world. Would like to make it clear I'm not fully anti-charity, just this particular disaster made me question donating.

I'm sure our government will find £20m from somewhere and donate it.

 

[Smithy]

Come on guys, he's not some randomer who's arguing for the sake of it about the humour (of which there was none in here, Pokemon jokes, really?), he's actually been caught up in the disaster.

Fair enough, explain to him that's just our humour, but to be arsy about it is low.

And this is coming from me who has no barriers when it comes to tasteless jokes.

 

[Artichoke]

All I have to say is that I hope everything gets back to normal soon, and my prayers go out to the families who lost loved ones.

 

[KDGrizzly4Life]

It's going to take Japan YEARS to fully recover from this. Hurricane Katrina was nowhere near as powerful and the United States took an extremely long time to become business as usual.

 

[Artichoke]

A friend of mine thinks it wont take too long since it's "Japan" Which really doesn't make any sense.

 

[RCF]

Come on guys, he's not some randomer who's arguing for the sake of it about the humour (of which there was none in here, Pokemon jokes, really?), he's actually been caught up in the disaster.

Fair enough, explain to him that's just our humour, but to be arsy about it is low.

And this is coming from me who has no barriers when it comes to tasteless jokes.

This. Most of us Americans (here at least) have come to know how y'all are, but if he's directly involved, especially as it concerns his significant other and child, maybe you shouldn't be saying it how you were.

 

[Hixee]

It's going to take Japan YEARS to fully recover from this. Hurricane Katrina was nowhere near as powerful and the United States took an extremely long time to become business as usual.

Whilst I agree that this will take a long time for everything to be back to normal, don't forget this is Japan. They're highly efficient, already have most of the protocols in place and are extremely determined to get back to where they were before. I don't think the same can really be said about New Orleans...