Category: Society

Earthquake risk areas in Tokyo

Post author By ageekinjapan
Post date October 20, 2008
4 Comments on Earthquake risk areas in Tokyo

I friend send me a report made by the Tokyo Government that analyzes potential earthquake risk in Tokyo. At the end of the report the conclusion is this map where the orange-red areas are the riskiest ones and the green-blue ones the safest. I live in a blue zone 🙂

Jishin
It looks like Tokyo east area is pretty dangerous.

In order to create these colored map many factors were analyzed. For example, the composition of the soil is one of the most important factors of danger when a earthquake occurs. This is how it is explained in one picture in the Tokyo Government report:

Jishin

The soil composition is one of the most important factors when calculating earthquake disaster risk. For example, in the Kobe earthquake in 1995, the most affected area was full of old house built on top of soil composed mainly by clay and sand. Another of the most important factors is the risk of fire. Areas with many concentrated wood houses are very risky. When a big earthquake disaster happens most of the people die burned. The fire risk is explained in the report with these nice-funny drawings:

Jishin

Jishin
This is the cover of the Tokyo Government report about earthquake risk areas in Tokyo.

Society

Crisis, danger, opportunity

Post author By ageekinjapan
Post date October 9, 2008

The word crisis in Japanese (危機=kiki) has the kanjis 危=”danger” and 機=”opportunity” (This kanji has also other meanings). The Japanese are pretty good finding ways to find opportunities when things turn bad, the best example is how they resurrected after the war.

A more recent example has been Nomura that just bought the Lehman Brothers Asian and (some) European divisions. It was interesting to read in Japanese newspapers how the Nomura was celebrating their success after creating the biggest independent investment bank in the world. Something that was IMPOSSIBLE some months ago.

Crisis
危=”danger” y 機=”opportunity”.

After the US and Europe “initiated the crisis” tons of money have moved to Japan, because Japanese economy is considered low risk (no inflation and ridiculous interest rates). But this move of money is having many secondary effects. The Japanese yen is amazingly strong, some months ago you needed around 170 yen to buy 1 euro, now you only need 135 yen! This will affect a lot Japanese exports, and Japanese economy is based on exports! The Japanese prime minister Taro Aso announced that they will take some measures but even though this week has been crazy. Nikkei index broke the 10.000 level, Toyota shares fall 30% in some days, Nintendo has lost more than 50% in six months and Sony 20% in five days, and I could continue writing tons of companies.

Let’s see if the Japanese and the rest of the world can find the 機=”opportunity” in this dangerous=”危” crisis (危機=kiki). And yes I’m aware of this but I like it to be “opportunity” 🙂

Society

Security for the G8 summit

Post author By ageekinjapan
Post date July 7, 2008
4 Comments on Security for the G8 summit

These last days I’m noticing LOTS of extra security measures in Tokyo, even though the G8 summit is in Hokkaido (1.000 km away from Tokyo). I’ve seen many police, some streets with extra security controls, and even some areas in Shibuya and Shinjuku where traffic was cut for some reason.

Here there are two posters that can be seen in many places since last week.

sign terrorism