Monday, October 10, 2011

...and this was the best you could come up with?!

It will look something like this (grandma fire brigade to the lower left)
Just a little bit earlier I was watching tv and one of the news shows did a feature on what could possibly happen when the overdue huge kanto earthquake, aka "the big one" would hit Tokyo. Quite sensational in nature, it showed how the Tsunami would carry with it burning debris and ignite large parts of Tokyo city turning Tokyo into a burning inferno with huge loss of lives and property as a consequence.

Although sensational in tone, it doesn't necessarily rule out that they're not completely wrong, so I watched with particular interest when they turned to the question "so now that we know that this might be a result of the big earthquake, what can and should we do to minimize the damage?".

...what they did show was a unit of voluntary "firemen" made up of old ladies which apparently had been formed in one of the wards of Tokyo city. The sweet old ladies seemed to have considerable problems running in a straight line and managing the fire hose. But yeah, if this is the first and only countermeasure that Tokyo city has put in place to combat the threat of going up in smoke, I feel more, not less secure...

I have however done my calculations... As the Salaryman family lives a bit outside of central Tokyo and I spend approximately ~12 hours of the day at home and also have some travel around Japan and the globe, I should have a slightly less than ~50% risk of being in central Tokyo when the big one hits... With the grandma fire brigade being the best countermeasure put in place, maybe I should see if I can reduce the risk a few percentage more... 

5 comments:

Corinne said...

Oh dear Lord, tell me that Kansai has these such measures in place?!

Although Japanese Grandmas are pretty damn strong, they probably will survive us all now i think about it.

Chris said...

The Kanto one is like clockwork and it's late and it's usually very big. I've been expecting it.

It's going to be a disaster of biblical proportions. Most experts are waiting especially after it has been walking it's way down to Tokyo in a big way.

Saw a Discovery channel special where a U.C.L.A Scientist asked his son to delay his trip to Tokyo...half joking.

I recall one of my very first comments here being about your proximity to an expected huge event.

Stay safe.

Old ladies always look out for themselves anywayz ;)

Ἀντισθένης said...

It's fires (Kobe) and tsunami (Tohoku) that'll kill you. Not building collapse, for the most part. The can be avoided by sending in fire crews and the army quickly (unlike Kobe), not living along a coast (umm...) and never living on reclaimed land (gulp). Do not listen to authorities to stay put if the big one happens: get out of Dodge if it is a winter quake, as lots of idiots still have exploding kerosene stoves in their Showa era homes; get up a concrete building or a hill if you are anywhere near a coast.

aimlesswanderer said...

In that case, the premise for all the Godzilla movies is bogus, as the grandmas would just band together and take him out with a million handbag whacks.

On the Big One, umm, hope that it doesn't happen when you're anywhere near? Get a dingy in case of tsunami? Fortify the house and the surrounding wall? Move onto a hill?

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