Astonishing pictures : Japan's Tsunami/Earthquake recoverer after 3months

[Ichingcarpenter]

Makes the Katrina disaster response look weak in comparison













More at link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2001984/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-Pictures-recovery-3-months-later.html

[msongs]

1. amazing how that one house survived in pic 4. did they recycle any stuff I wonder? nt

[xchrom]

2. magnificent in it's terribleness. nt

[CanSocDem]

3. Good for them.

It makes a difference when 'serving the public interest' is more important than finding a 'PRIVATE interest' to enrich.

.

[Burma Jones]

4. This is one of the rare benefits of a Homogeneous Culture....n/t

[Zoeisright]

28. Bullshit. This is the benefit of people who know a strong government is a good thing.

Repukes throw around the "ohhh, but it's a homogeneous culture" shit all the time.

[Maru Kitteh]

29. Oh how I would love for you to explain that. Defy my doubts, please - and explain your comment?

[Octafish]

5. The US government's response to Katrina seems like an experiment in ethnic cleansing.

OTOH, the government of Japan said they'd do whatever it takes -- including printing more money -- to help people affected.

Thank you for the remarkable images, Ichingcarpenter. The response to the disasters is telling.

[Melissa G]

18. Exactly. I wonder if there are emails that might get leaked to prove the point.

I'm glad the Japanese government is doing a better job of clean up than the U.S. did with Katrina. I'm still worried about the fact that Japan has not expanded the evacuation zone around the reactors.


Here is a study about NO population in three periods, the last being post Katrina.
http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/katrina/Fussell.html

The Post-Katrina Population of New Orleans: Newcomers, Returnees, and Evacuees

While the Army Corps of Engineers and the employees of Jefferson and Orleans parishes drained the flooded city, the demand for laborers to clean up the soggy mess surged. Foreign-born Hispanic migrants were the first to respond to that demand, just as they have followed the construction boom throughout the New South. That is not surprising, since workers born in Mexico and Central America make up about 21 percent of the U.S. construction labor force. Although many New Orleanians were unprepared to see those unfamiliar faces and hear strange languages in their nearly empty city, the newcomer Latino migrants were the rapid-response labor force that was necessary to reconstruct New Orleans.<15>

Nevertheless, the migrants received a mixed reception. The federal government welcomed the labor force by suspending the Davis-Bacon Act mandating that federal contractors pay prevailing wages and by waiving sanctions against employers who hired undocumented workers, thereby letting market forces reign.<16> New Orleanians able to return home were pleased to find workers to clean out their moldy belongings, gut houses and other buildings, repair and replace roofs, and paint over the cryptic markings left on their doors by search-and-rescue crews. Displaced New Orleanians in the newly formed diaspora, many of them former renters, resented the speedy arrival of Hispanic workers while they waited to find out when they could return home or receive assistance or whether the city would devise a plan for rebuilding the most devastated neighborhoods. Such New Orleanians, many of them working-class blacks, understood that they would not be part of New Orleans’s reconstruction labor force, at least not unless they accepted the conditions—dangerous work without adequate protection, lack of housing, low wages—that migrants tolerated. New Orleans’s history with race and class shaped the experience of the flood and evacuation. Low-income black neighborhoods in low-lying areas suffered a disproportionate share of the floodwater, while wealthier, whiter neighborhoods on higher land stayed dry. Those disadvantages accumulated more rapidly for those who were already disadvantaged—mostly low-income blacks—creating more obstacles to their return.<17>

snip

The repopulation of the city has disproportionately drawn those with more resources. Resources in this case are defined by what you had before the storm—a home, job, savings, and insurance—and whether it survived. The return rate has been highest among the 34 percent of the city’s households deemed to have minor or no damage, while a much smaller percentage of the population from the 66 percent of households that experienced serious and severe damage returned. Those returning to homes in the damaged areas were those with the financial resources to rebuild. The largest federal source of rebuilding aid to low-income homeowners, the Road Home program, proved too little, too late for most. On the second anniversary of Katrina, the city of New Orleans is only 67.6 percent of its pre-Katrina size, with little promise of regaining its pre-storm numbers.<18>

The demographic composition of the city is difficult to pin down given the state of flux of the population. It is widely held that the city is “older, whiter, and more affluent” than before Katrina, since black and poor residents were more likely to have lived in devastated areas and in ruined rental property. Many thought residents with children were less likely to return because schools were so slow to open. Statistics produced since Katrina are subject to large margins of error, but they confirm those impressions. By summer 2006 New Orleans had gone from having a population that was two-thirds black and less than a third white, with small Asian and Hispanic minorities, to having nearly equal proportions of blacks and whites (47 percent and 42.7 percent respectively) and somewhat larger Asian (3.5 percent) and particularly Hispanic (9.6 percent) minorities. At the time of that survey, the city was less than half its pre-Katrina size, and a larger proportion of whites had returned than blacks. Furthermore, the proportion of Hispanics had grown, no doubt as a result of the reconstruction labor force. (See figure 4.)<19>

more... http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/katrina/Fussell.html

[Aerows]

25. I take exception to one statement here

"Such New Orleanians, many of them working-class blacks, understood that they would not be part of New Orleans’s reconstruction labor force, at least not unless they accepted the conditions—dangerous work without adequate protection, lack of housing, low wages—that migrants tolerated"

Uh, I was here. I had to get a tetanus shot. I worked in unsafe conditions. Why? Because I had to. I'm not an illegal immigrant - I live here. Lack of housing? Everyone I know had multiple people living with them with no air conditioning, no water and very little of any damn thing. Anyone that wasn't here and got to leave should thank their lucky stars they weren't here.

I'm sorry - I have NO sympathy for that statement. If you couldn't be bothered to pitch in and do it, I really don't want to hear about complaints against those who were and did.

[Melissa G]

26. I can see where you might take issue with her statement.

If you read the whole article that statement is a bit more in context. The author is explaining demographic shifts and the influx of Hispanics.

Personally, what I am pointing out with the reference is support for Octafish's assertion that there was intent on the part of The Bush Administration and their cronies to diminish the minority population in one of the the 4 most distinctive city/treasures of this country, New Orleans. I live in Austin, where many displaced folks from New Orleans resettled. New Orleans is one of our family's favorite places to visit. I truly grieve and am angry about the treatment of that great city and it's residents.

[RZM]

6. Amazing pics, though I can't say they are surprising

The surprising thing would be if the Japanese weren't kicking ass in the cleanup. Good for them. I hope as many people as possible who were affected can return to normal lives soon.

[Generic Other]

7. 7 down 8 up!

[Kurovski]

8. K&R. (nt)

[flor-de-jasmim]

9. Amazing! It's almost as if the "before" and "after" pix were switched.

[Left coast liberal]

10. The Japanese are an amazing people.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. The Japanese are impressive people.

I am in awe of them.

[crikkett]

12. Please don't compare the tsunami with the katrina response.

First of all, nobody was held forcibly, trapped in the disaster area for a week. The Japanese people didn't hold their goddamned fellow countrymen at gunpoint while they freaking starved and died of thirst, and didn't block fellow countrymen's attempts at rescue.

Thinking about it any further really pisses me off so I'll stop.

[intheflow]

31. It's an apt comparison in terms of debris clean-up.

I hit the Mississippi Coast - which took the direct hit from Hurricane Katrina - three months after the storm and there was still debris everywhere. Parts of New Orleans still haven't been cleaned up.

Meanwhile, our government may have forcibly held people against their will, but they lost over 20,000 people and experienced the China Syndrome. And STILL their clean-up efforts far excel ours during a comparable timeframe.

[davepc]

13. It's amazing what a workforce with heavy equipment can do

Meanwhile in Haiti people are still living in tent cities.

[PhiBetaCretin1]

14. Wow, where did they put everything?

I mean, where did they cart all that wreckage off to? one big landfill somewhere?
The pictures are amazing (interesting). I wish more Americans would see this photos and get a sense of the Japanese ability to focus activities on cleanup and recovery.

[rfranklin]

15. shows how inept we are dispite our delusions of grandeur...

We could be a much more powerful nation if we could develop a bit of insight and emotional maturity.

[kestrel91316]

17. They probably managed to recycle most of the debris. They are very

good at managing the scarce resources they DO have.

[Xithras]

27. Burned, buried, recycled.

Most of it is simply being trucked to sorting centers. Light debris like wood from homes, plastic, and that sort of thing is just being incinerated. Major recyclables like steel building frames and cars are being crushed, set aside for recycling, and are being transported out of the disaster areas as quickly as possible. Heavy debris like concrete and brick wreckage from homes and building is simply being broken down and dumped. Some of it may get mined and recycled for building materials later, but a lot of it will just become fill. The Japanese have a long history of dumping debris from disasters into the sea, where it is used for the foundation for new land. Flat ground is hard to find in Japan, and they rarely miss a chance to make more of it.

[tombstone blues]

16. Gosh, how cool! And not that long ago this horrific tragedy occurred.

Reminds me that everything can renew itself if given time:)

[toddwv]

19. It helps when you actually approach an issue as a nation

and not as a loosely associated collection of "individuals".

[leveymg]

20. Here's one place that will not recover for the foreseeable future, and has none:

[HCE SuiGeneris]

21. Our (world) government's responses to critical disasters becomes increasingly

ineffective. It speaks volumes about the inability of our current political systems to actually look out for the people's welfare.

A bit too much greed and corporate influence, methinks.

[Prometheus Bound]

22. In Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, only 7% has been cleared.

90,000 in shelters; most debris still uncleared 3 months on
The Yomiuri Shimbun

More than 90,000 people are still living in shelters three months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and only a fraction of the debris dumped by the ensuing tsunami has been removed, according to official figures.

.....The Environment Ministry estimated the disaster left 23.92 million tons of debris in these three prefectures. As of Friday, about 5.19 million tons--just 22 percent--had been moved to temporary storage spaces.

In Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, the city that had the most debris dumped on it by the tsunami, only 7 percent had been cleared, the ministry said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110611002692.htm

[Aerows]

23. My family and I were discussing Katrina vs. the tsunami at dinner tonight

We went through it from start to finish. It was bad, but this was absolutely horrific. The Fukushima nuclear situation makes bad even worse.

[progressoid]

24. k/r

[Odin2005]

30. WOW!