The Only Japanese Earthquake Thread

[rubberneck]

Boy did this thread go sideways.

There's always one poster who thinks it's all about them or can't resist the urge to tell everyone how superior their worldview is to everyone else. The original poster asked a fairly straight forward question. It's too bad one person couldn't answer it honestly.

[K.L. Davis]

Boy did this thread go sideways.

And there is really no saving it.. so it was quarantined here and will be allowed to eat itself in entirety. If anyone wants one of their posts deleted from this thread, just edit it to say so...

[SuperiorDG]

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-571107?hpt=Mid

It looks like the shelves in Tokyo are being stripped. How far away from the disaster will this spread? Does this show us that if a disaster where to occur somewhere in the US, areas not directly effected could see scarcity of essentials.

It makes me wonder.

[Armati]

In an attempt to get this thread back on track...

I don't think the long term or global effect of this can completely be known yet.

Short term, we have already seen a few things. US stocks ticked up while Japanese stocks took a tumble. Good signs for the US economy? Maybe.

Oil took a bit of a dip because large sections of Japanese roads cannot be driven on. All of the affected areas will have very little in the way of real economic activity going on so there will be less demand for oil in Japan at least for the short term. Japan is one of the worlds largest oil importers. Of course for the US, lower oil prices will improve our economy.

As for preparedness, I think some lessons can already be learned. Japan culturally does not horde large quantities of anything. The are masters of saving space and do have large pantries, basements, sheds, and garages like we have in the US. There is not Japanese equivalent to a trip to Cosco or the Super WalMart. Your average US household most likely already has a few weeks worth of supplies on hand at any one time if they use their resources wisely. The Japanese do not shop this way or horde supplies this way. No Japanese household will ever have a 24 pack of TP and a case of tuna fish on hand. Japan is very sensitive to supply disruptions.

I think this is a very good learning point. Disaster can strike at any time, without warning, and the effects can be intense, wide spread, and profound. Plan accordingly.

[sixgun-symphony]

China will gain the most.

[B Cart]

It's hard to say exactly what the effects will be on the economies of the world. As for good things we can take from this, it has at least made me re-evaluate my emergency preparedness gear and tactics. Watching the videos of the destruction just reinforces how quickly things can turn very bad. I'm realizing that, if something like that were to ever happen here, we probably won't have the time or opportunity to get the essentials to survive. Looks like I need to stock up a little better on a few items!

[Czecher]

I did a search for "oildrum" and did not see any prior mention of this website so I offer it up now:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7638

I became addicted to this feed during the BP GOM spill and found the information there to be incredible. The site is primarily about the concept of peak oil but they cover many other aspects of world energy.

The threads are a little annoying in they run one topic every day or so and post a thousand replies in a mile long string. It can be hard to follow but you get used after a while. The primary topic is usually written by economists or SME's but they are pretty easy to understand.

Similar to this site, they have experts and newbies. I know where I belong on both forums so I try to keep quiet but I hope someone here can find some valuable info on this other source.

I have found that developing stories like this earthquake and the oilspill to hit that forum hours (even days) before you read it on the traditional news outlets. I also find the details to be far more in depth and accurate in my opinion.

This meltdown thing is literally making me lose sleep.

CZ

[ffhounddog]

It is hilarious how they are making such a big deal about people being contaminated. You can be extremely, head to toe, horribly contaminated and not have it pose a significant health risk. You just get scrubbed down with cold water and soap and problem solved... Ok, yeah you'll get an a little extra dose while you are contaminated, and potentially beta burns in extreme cases such as right after a bomb strike, but the deep tissue dose is going to be relatively small.

[Czecher]

You just get scrubbed down with cold water and soap and problem solved...

I guess that works as long as you can find the soap. The cold water should be plentiful. Seems like there are a lot of people digging around in debris covered fields of mud where their houses used to be. I wonder how many of them REALLY know what is going on around them without having internet or news like we do here.

Hopefully some are informed enough to travel away from the plant that just blew up...but which direction do you travel to avoid running into the next one?

Makes the bug-out concept a bit more complex.

Here is some news from the Japan papers. Looks like the number 2 plant is next to go. The last blast from #3 took out some equipment keeping the #2 alive. Sounds like things are not going well there.

Does anyone else predict that they will be dumping concrete from helicopters in the near future?

[Rmplstlskn]

All of the vendors of iOSAT, KI, KIO3 are SOLD OUT till who knows when...

Such an inexpensive prep item ($10 for 14 tablets of iOSAT) is now almost impossible to find...

The more pics I see, the more I think Japan will take YEARS to recover from this. The hardest hit areas maybe even a DECADE... But you can not replace the LIVES lost... Japan has lost some great people I'm sure.

Rmpl