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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 184.144.166.85 (talk) at 01:36, 22 March 2011 (→‎Tidal flooding). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Please leave any naming issue sections under #Moves\naming

Lack of widespread looting or civil unrest

Notably absent in this 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami is the looting or civil unrest which occurred in the immediate aftermath of several recent natural disasters of the similar scale, such as 2010 earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, and 2005 Katrina hurricane/flooding in New Orleans. I think it should be mentioned somewhere in the article. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.244.38.71 (talk) 23:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two quotes added, but I don't know where to put them or how to title them. I bet someone else can fix this. Thanks for your thoughts, 70.244.38.71. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Might depend on your definition of 'looting'. On the scene Aussie TV reports showed people(presumably survivors) gathering cans and small 'kegs' of beer at one place and packets(cans?) of food at another. This is not 'looting' as per stealing electrical goods, jewelry, money or other valuables non-essential for survival which drink and food certainly are, and these were some of the worst hit areas. I believe that theft is looked on with far more disdain In Japan than in the 'west'. Japanese would simply be far less likely to take anything non-essential, and even then I think they would likely be extremely ashamed to have to do so to eat. Basically societal differences. Nb. Definition at Looting: "indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe or riot, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting." And at Wicktionary. This link and this one on the subject may be of interest. - 220.101 talk\Contribs 08:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, from what I've seen and know of Japanese society (so obviously a real reference would trump my anecdotal account), what you described would be their version of "looting." If it was more widely reported, a mention of some small-scale looting might be appropriate, but I haven't seen it reported like in the other places mentioned since it's not nearly as extreme as those cases. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 14:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) (Page Moved again while I was responding!) Can't claim to be expert, but maybe a long term interest in Japanese culture (w/o formal studies). Some discussion in the links I gave above referred to Cyclone Katrina, & we have heard what a 'cock-up'(wikt:cock-up) the response to that was. A person without food/water in a disaster event is, IMHO, perfectly justified (morally) in taking what they need, especially if it is just lying around and will likely just be scooped up and dumped during 'clean-up'. The 'legal'/law/Police view may be rather different of course. Indeed the people may have in fact been gathering any undamaged items to return them to their owners! (The reporters didn't speak to them so just my speculation/opinion) I can well imagine that if people had to take food, that they will eventually, if they can locate the former owners, insist on paying for what they took (probably with abject apologies for their 'shameful' behaviour!). I don't think we are likely to see any 'civil unrest' (though even Japanese are capable of it),[citation needed] unless the situation becomes dramatically worse.- 220.101 talk\Contribs 17:41, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I listened to a report on National Public Radio this afternoon which, among other things, noted that none of Japan's famous vending machines had been looted whatsoever. The citation I leave as an exercise to the reader. kencf0618 (talk) 01:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is not really that notable, as many of the vending machines contain an emergency mode that can be activated which in turn puts them in to free drink mode. It would be rather counterproductive to attempt to break one open when simply peeling back a sticker and pulling a lever will do. - Paul Mundt (talk) 04:46, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification. The NPR report made no mention of this emergency mode, but it certainly demonstrates the level of disaster preparation in Japan! kencf0618 (talk) 20:00, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to the user who has added the section, Response of Japanese citizens, citing lack of looting or civil unrest in the aftermath. I initially suggested including a mention of this notable non-event. But I'm unable to do it myself now that the article is restricted to editing by established registered users only.

Feel free to add this one more quote to the section. This is on-the-ground observation by several professional reporters who contributed to an Associated Press article, and presumably offers more credibility. "Four days on, there is little of the public anger and frustration that so often bursts forth in other countries. ... Amid the chaos, foreign journalists have remarked on the polite demeanor, the lack of anger, the little if any looting or profiteering that seems to characterize disasters elsewhere." -- Alabaster, Jay, and Olsen, Kelly (March 15, 2011). "Tsunami tests Japan's resilient spirit". Breitbart.com. Retrieved March 16, 2011. -- By PL 70.248.184.55 (talk) 05:30, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A Guardian report actually mentions some theft, break-ins and profiteering.
"After Japan's quake and tsunami, freezing weather threatens relief". The Guardian, 16 March 2011 retrieved, 17 March 2011- 220.101 talk\Contribs 18:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, there're some theft or break-ins. But they don't amount to widespread looting. I've changed the discussion section title without the word "absence", which does connotate zero amount. Also the once new article section, Response of Japanese citizens, was properly titled, and should be kept, though it need expansion and tremendous improvement. Don't know why it's been removed. Seems odd that the main article includes the responses of a wide variety of countries and institutions, but those of the victims/survivors themselves are excluded. Please explain. -- 70.244.34.140 (talk) 00:57, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See section 2011 T.e.a.t.(!) — Response of Japanese citizens. I believe that this entire section has been removed previously, and then reinstated. - 220.101 talk\Contribs 12:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Human beings disassembled"?

What on God's green earth is this supposed to mean, from the infobox? Fortunately, it was gone by the time I tried to edit it out. Human beings are not robots; they aren't "disassembled." Moncrief (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, some anon IP keeps trying to insert this - evidently they have a limited grasp of English. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:36, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At least people are watching the page, as almost every revert I've tried has resulted in a conflict with someone else already reverting! It looks like someone requested semi-protection for this page already, too, so that should hopefully fix the problem. I suppose, technically, the earthquake DID "disassemble" human beings...very technically. :) –flodded ☃ (gripe) 21:02, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be a problem with English comprehension. "Total damage" refers here quite obviously to environmental, structural, and non-human damage. The specific and ever-updated number of reported deaths and injuries is just below in the same infobox. Frustrating that the anon can't quite grasp this. Moncrief (talk) 21:04, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was assuming that the IP was foreign and that they had just used Google Translate or something, but they kept on reverting... BurtAlert (talk) 21:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The IP addresses appear to be in a US-based T-Mobile block, so it's more likely vandalism than someone who just has a poor grasp of English. (Well, perhaps the person has a poor grasp of English as well, even if it's his or her native language.) –flodded ☃ (gripe) 21:15, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Careful, apparently now human beings are being brutally disassembled! How does one request an IP range block? –flodded ☃ (gripe) 21:31, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose it is just possible the IP meant 'displaced' - though vandalism looks more likely. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to AGF, but with the sheer number of reverts along with it being a US-based block, etc, I can't see this being anything but vandalism. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 21:40, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The article has now been semi-protected. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:53, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, how does one add the appropriate lockbox icon to the page? It wasn't added when protecting, and I thought adding a protected template would accomplish that as well...but it doesn't. Someone please clue me in and/or add the proper semi-protected lockbox. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 22:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You mean this? {{pp-semi|small=yes}} ? Moondyne (talk) 23:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That would be it; added, thanks. :) –flodded ☃ (gripe) 23:55, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lovely, he hit the injured and missing template pages as well to update them to instead list the number of partially disassembled and possibly disassembled human beings. (The dead template is semi-protected, but I assume those would be "fully disassembled" if it could be edited by IP users.) Reverted, but anyone watching for vandalism might want to watch those as well since the edits were around for 15+ minutes before I noticed them included on the main page. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 00:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I made a request on WP:ANI to block the IP block that's been doing this. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 00:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What the hell is going on its now in the current event shoutbox. Is this hacking? 79.103.123.250 (talk) 01:22, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I just reverted that too. No "hacking," just an idiot vandalizing pages. Noted on the WP:ANI request that that was vandalized too. Vandal seems to really want to make sure people know that humans were disassembled! –flodded ☃ (gripe) 01:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the template. Is it possible to protect a template from IP and novice users? I've never heard of this kind of issue before. Thegreatdr (talk) 01:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree, they are part of the discussion and part of the history of this conversation. They are also part of why this user was blocked, specifically being linked to from WP:ANI to demonstrate this user's poor faith edits. They are not on the article, they're on the talk page, and should absolutely not be removed. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 01:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You can disagree all you want, but they're in the talk page history. Since it's a talk page, removing offensive content is no problemo. Thegreatdr (talk) 01:53, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the removal of the offensive content from the talk page; it was linked to from WP:ANI as noted and is part of why this vandal was banned. Does anyone else concur with restoring it? I won't change things either way unless someone speaks up. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 02:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can see the reasoning behind retaining it, but frankly there are more important issues, and why leave vandal-droppings about? If anyone is interested, they can look in the page history. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:11, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Admins blocked 208.54.87.0/24 for us for 55 hours. Hopefully that will solve the problem, and the vandal will get bored and give up... (One troll-like being was disassembled in this unnecessary discussion.) –flodded ☃ (gripe) 01:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not to give any validity to the weirdness of this vandal, but perhaps the "Casualities" section of the infobox might be better placed before the "Total damage" section. That order would correspond to the usual human conception of any disaster (loss of human life is more relevant and important than types of physical damage), and may prevent the kind of confusion evidenced here (assuming, which in all likelihood it is, this wasn't pure vandalism from the start). I'm not heavily invested in this idea.... it's just a thought. If the disaster infobox template is always set up a certain way (the way it is here), so be it. Moncrief (talk) 04:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That seems sensible enough - the template does seem to be rather badly laid out. I'd change the 'total damage' section to read 'physical damage' too. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, some of that stuff could use shuffling. "Total Disassemblies"...er, "Casualties", ought to either be moved right below or right above "Total Damage", and I agree that should be renamed too...maybe just to "Damage"? –flodded ☃ (gripe) 04:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Order and naming seem to be fixed in the template, btw (tried moving casualties up and previewing, and it still ends up last.) So I guess we'd have to fork a new one. That'd kinda go against keeping in line with previous earthquakes...but it still does seem wrong that peak acceleration and stuff like that are listed before casualties, based on what information people will want to know first and what's most important. Maybe changing the template isn't a horrible thing if needed. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 04:58, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The T-Mobile vandal struck the template this time {{2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami}}. I've given a level-3 vandal warning. 184.144.168.153 (talk) 13:15, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And apparently {{2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami casualties dead}} as well... (more "disassembled" crap) 184.144.168.153 (talk) 13:25, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Prophecy materials

Is there a wikipedia policy to only limit this to a scientific type article only? I added some predictions related materials. This is being heavily discussed by areas near Japan at the moment. User Flodded first marked it as vandalism. Then marked it a second time as non-scientific. Would it not be good to further expand on Japanese prophecies as well as materials from other cultures? Benjwong (talk) 06:44, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's policy is that of a neutral point of view, so one's belief or disbelief in such material should not come into account. I am not against having a short, focussed section on prophecies. AugustinMa (talk) 10:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem lies in finding WP:V & WP:RS. Kittybrewster ☎ 11:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ask enough fortune cookies/future tellers and somebody's vague prediction will become true. -Koppapa (talk) 11:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Profecies are really a problem. They are never able to fix, individual, time, location and name at the same time; mankind is always free. John Leary told an evacuation in East Asia. But the Pacific Ring of Fire has a cycle, with Sumatra 2004 and Chile 2010 were seems to be a chain reaction now. You can assume anything, arithmetics, profecy or even that profecy is arithmetics. I tend to assume that good profecy is just prognosis of a good engineer, but then, God's Spirit is a Good Engineer.
August 2, 2008: “My people, this massive evacuation of people will be from a natural disaster that will happen along the Asian Pacific Rim of fire. The many people in the vision left walking because the roads were too clogged with vehicles that were deadlocked. There will be a combination of earthquakes and volcanoes on the east coast of Asia that will trigger a fear of evacuations. Many will have their lives saved by this immediate leaving. The damage from this event will affect the economies in this area, and it is a sign for coming major earthquake events on the West coast of America on the eastern Pacific Rim along North America. When these events are finished, there will be some major changes in geography all around the Pacific Rim of fire. You have been seeing increasing activity in these areas as a forewarning of these events to come...” johnleary.com --Chris.urs-o (talk) 12:36, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Have you ever considered prophecies are purposely kept short and cryptic for various reasons, like escape persecutions, fear of punishment etc. Benjwong (talk) 17:06, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I do apologize for initially assuming vandalism rather than assuming good faith; it honestly seemed like vandalism to me. However, I still absolutely do not believe that this information belongs in this article. The very nature of these types of predictions makes them incompatible with scientific discussion. If there were wide media reports about some specific prophecy, that might be worthy of a mention (of the reports, that is), but in this case your prophecy is from some author in Hong Kong, not even Japan (I point that out to rebut your point about it being "heavily discussed"), and I haven't seen any media reports of Japanese people widely thinking some prophecy has come to pass or anything like that. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 19:57, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"The very nature of these types of predictions makes them incompatible with scientific discussion." Disagree: in fact, scientific is one and one is two, profecy is one and one is two, media hype "scientific discussion" is one and one isn't two :( --Chris.urs-o (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Prophecy is "one and one is whatever we interpret it to be that people might believe." Media hype can certainly be the same, which is why we try to be careful about using reliable sources, etc. For one, whether or not this is a prophecy, I do not think the provided source can be stated as reliable. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 20:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, we always end up in a discussion God exists/ God doesn't exist. About the source, the author in Hong Kon I don't know, johnleary.com I do know many years now. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 20:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think you guys are mistaken about the cultural part. Prophecies have no geographical or political boundaries. A french fortune teller can predict events outside of france for example. Vice versa a HK fortune teller can make all the worldwide predictions he/she chooses. And yes it is heavily discussed, just not in mainstream media reports. Benjwong (talk) 17:06, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that predictions should be included but it is notable that in 2007 Satake et al. [1] said that a repeat of the 869 earthquake and tsunami was 99% probable over the next 30 years. Mikenorton (talk) 00:05, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not a prophecy, so the rest of this section isn't even relevant... I agree that bit of research should be included, especially since we already have information about what scientists expected from the fault line, how the quake was similar to the 869 quake, etc. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 03:17, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'll close. Disagree: there are good predictions by probability, statics, kinetics etc.; there is good prophecy (Nostradamus [2]), there is "profecy" by good networking and inside information (Oracle of Delphi) and there is false prophecy corrupted by despotism. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 06:50, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whether there is false prophecy elsewhere is not relevant at all. When you edit an article with on basketball topic, do you actually worry that the other 40 million other people who can't play basketball. No. Obviously this prediction is correct because the earthquake event did occur. If wiki only accepts scientific analysis, that's fine. We can stop there. Benjwong (talk) 17:06, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seiche in Sognefjorden Norway

Two meter high waves in a Norwegian fjord. The fjord's natural frequency and the waves from this earthquake made standing waves called: seiche. Wondering if this is interesting information for this page? Reference (in Norwegian): VG with video and Sogn Avis Gryphonis (talk) 00:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would think this isn't relevant enough to include in the article, being a detail about a loosely-linked event happening elsewhere in the world, without casualties/deaths. Definitely belongs on the seiche page I'd say, and it's already there so that's good! –flodded ☃ (gripe) 03:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is a similiar seiche effect mentioned in the 2010 Chile earthquake article. --Matthiasb (talk) 10:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Missing and/or inaccurate information

Reposting what I said earlier, which seems to have been missed:

  • (1) Could we try and get an accurate value for the distance of the epicentre from the coastline? We have one value of 130 km from Sendai and another of 70 km, which might be referring to the area of coastline closest to the epicentre. It would be best if all references to distance from the coastline were referring to a named point on the coastline.
  • (2) The lead says the tsunami took "minutes" to reach the coast, but as far as I can make out this refers to the initial tsunami recordings, not the actual tsunami maximums that caused the damage. I think it would be more accurate to say the tsunami took around 30 minutes to reach the coast (please remember that a tsunami travels fast in deep ocean, but slows in coastal shallows), with other areas hit later (e.g. Sendai over an hour after the earthquake).
I find the article a little confusing about tsunami speed. Deep water tsunamis (ocean floor at earthquake location is 990 m below sea level, depth from Google Earth) can travel as fast as a jet, around 970 km/h[1] , then slow to 50 km/h in shallow water. Around Sendai, there is 25 km of relatively shallow (30 m) waters, but at Otsuchi and Kamaishi, the ocean floor remains deep until about 8 km out. This I think explains a lot of why it hit so much faster in places which were in fact further away from the epicentre, but it would be nice to see some additional information edited by an expert in tsunamis to help clarify speed and different hit times.--Tallard (talk) 09:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • (3) Finally, the fact that the earthquake lasted 5 minutes is still in the infobox but not the article (as far as I can see). This is a notable aspect of the earthquake and should be mentioned in the main text if a good reference for the duration can be found.
  • (4) There appears to be nothing yet on whether the tsunamis impacting Japan's coastline were negative or positive waves. From reading this and the video coverage, I would suspect most of the tsunamis in Japan were of the 'initial rise first' sort, but there may be aspects of the phase dynamics to all this that are difficult to put in the article right now if no sources have covered this yet. But it is something to look out for.

I would try and do this myself, but haven't had time yet. I'm hoping others can do this, as I think these are vital aspects of the article that shouldn't be neglected. Carcharoth (talk) 05:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, especially with point 1. I'm going to look for more references here; if the nearest point on Honshu was indeed 70km, I think we should be reporting that number primarily. It seems to me like the primary reason the 130km value came about is because of the original Sendai article title, so information was added in relevant to Sendai. I'll see if I can substantiate that 70km value elsewhere. Also, what is the Japanese media reporting as "location"? (E.g., are they reporting it in x kilometers from y location as we are at all?) As for point 2, I'm not sure how to clarify this properly. The tsunami DID arrive after minutes; like you said, it then took longer for the tsunami maximums to arrive and cause real damage. What time is generally reported? When the water starts receding (if it does), when the initial waves hit, or when the big waves hit? Point 3, earthquake duration, I believe we actually had a reference in the body saying 6 minutes which seems to be gone. The current source is simply "NBC Nightly News" with a date, I'd think at this point we could come up with a better reference and include it in the body. It made more sense to use news refs during the first few days of breaking news (I certainly inserted a bunch of NHK WORLD English live stream refs), but now a lot of that can be replaced with actual articles that the reader can click on... –flodded ☃ (gripe) 14:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Edited duration to 6 minutes and added it to the body as well with new refs; someone provided an updated reference that clearly describes it as being about 6 minutes long. Another thing that I think needs to be cleaned up along with the distance is just how we describe the quake (location, other included data like type and timezone, etc); the lede and the main both both describe it differently, and both have merits to how they describe it so neither one is simply better... I tried to clean that up slightly, but the bigger problem is how to describe the source point, e.g. Sendai, although if we end just replacing it it doesn't really matter... –flodded ☃ (gripe) 15:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good discussion. However, being new to WIKPEDIA, I wonder how anything will get changed after the good questions you ask. ONE MORE SUGGESTION: If you really want to get to the bottom of the question about "distance", one needs to distinguish between the distance of anything from the epicenter, which is the initiation point (zero length) of a rupture that exceeded 400 km in this case. The nearest points of the rupture plane to the coast all along the coast is another measure one may want to discuss, and finally what is the location of the tsunami source, an object of large dimensions (exceeding 100 km).Maxwyss (talk) 11:51, 20 March 2011 (UTC)MaxWyss[reply]

user:Ohconfucius has been deleting Wikinews links from the various subarticles, are we good with that? I noticed that the Nuclear timeline article no longer linked to wikinews next to the date at which the wikinews article related to, then saw that several other articles now no longer have Wikinews. Ohconfucius's edit comments have no indication that any such edit is taking place, only that some fixing of date formats is occurring, which is quite misleading. 65.95.15.189 (talk) 21:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be a very well established editor who does note some "date-related cleanup projects" on his/her user page, so I'd assume good faith... –flodded ☃ (gripe) 21:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
...though if they're not back shortly, we should probably put them back and contact that editor. Don't see why some sort of maintenance would remove them for more than a little while. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 01:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
On his talk page, he said they were not worthy of being on Wikipedia. That still doesn't explain why his edit comment did not indicate the removal. 65.95.15.189 (talk) 03:28, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is a direct breach of WP:SISTER. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 12:59, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but what's the breach? That isn't policy, just common sense. It wasn't right to remove the links for his reason given but I see nothing actionable in it per se unless it escalate(s/d) into an edit war. Anyway, best to keep this discussion confined to one page for easier following; suggest the thread at WP:ANI. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs • Editor review) 13:06, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry... actionable? Please link to the diff with my demand for 'action'. The guideline specifically encourages use of sister project links. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 13:08, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SISTER encourages the use of links where those links "are likely to be useful to our readers". Ohconfucius stated that "None of those second-hand 'news reports' adds anything that isn't already covered by the given article or sister articles. In general terms, the sources cited in our articles are more extensive and up to date than those in WN, and this case is no exception." This does not seem an unreasonable opinion.--Pontificalibus (talk) 13:15, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is aimed to be a starting point for people researching a given topic. One of the most fascinating ways to research any topic is to go through contemporary news reports and watch the story unfold - something an encyclopaedia, as a conprehensive overview, cannot give. The two projects closely complement each other. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 14:50, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The point of Wikinews is to be a news site. The point of Wikipedia is to be a historical record of events. The two are very different aims. Right now, as the events are happening, the two may seem redundant, and to an extent probably are. In the future, though, the WP article will (should) be written in the past tense, show the entire story from the perspective of the present day, basically be a very broad overview of these events. Meanwhile, the value of the Wikinews links increases over time, because they show the event as it was happening, a very different perspective than that offered by Wikipedia. As this topic in WP reaches maturity, rather than being a random collection of news stories, WP an WN articles end up complementing, rather than going against, each other. C628 (talk) 16:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with user:Ohconfucius on this, they don't add anything to the article. The rest is irrelevant. 86.159.92.13 (talk) 02:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would strongly urge you to review the talkpage of WP:SISTER, Blood Red Sandman. It discusses (and links to further discussions, with additional explanation) why that page isn't considered a Wikipedia guideline, and hasn't been since 2008. The inclusion of links to non-Wikipedia sites – whether part of WMF sister projects or not – provides an implicit endorsement of those links' quality and relevance to the topic at hand. Among other reasons, there are serious and legitimate concerns about linking to freely-editable content. (There's no double standard here; we don't consider Wikipedia articles reliable sources either.)
If you would like to make an argument for the content at Wikinews being a suitable external link containing additional information relevant to this topic in this particular instance, please do so. Assertions that such links must be included just because they're on a sister project, however, are insufficient. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have not made such an assertion, and have made an argument for inclusion already - above. If it is not a guideline, then why does it say it is? But, no matter. Wikinews is not "freely-editable" in any normal sense and hasn't been since ('07? '08? The latter, I think). Everything is factchecked, POV-checked, style-checked and copyright-checked before it goes out. This is enforced by use of FlaggedRevs. Further information on that's available at n:Wikinews:Reviewing articles; an important thing to note is that it's not a mere vandalism-control similar to Pending Changes. The historic value of snapshots in time is discussed above - "the value of the Wikinews links increases over time" is an excellant point. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 15:20, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

High load page

Well... 

Sorry, the servers are overloaded at the moment.
Too many users are trying to view this page. Please wait a while before you try to access this page again.
Error reading from pool counter server

65.95.12.220 (talk) 05:40, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been editing Wikipedia for five years, and this is the first time I've seen this notice. I hope the article bears up under scrutiny! kencf0618 (talk)
I haven't been able to access this page for about 8 hours now... Interestingly, you can still view the source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.120.61.145 (talk) 06:18, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another Edit request - Electricity section

The electricity section says: "Two of those reactors, the Fukushima Dai-ichi and Fukushima Dai-ni, were automatically taken offline"... But these are Reactor _complexes_, each with many reactors. I'd like to see the word "reactors" in the sentence fragment replaced with "reactor complexes". (Elsewhere in the article gets it right.)

And... missing in both the timeline article, and this article, is any mention of the 3 radioactive gas releases done at Fukushima Dai-ni, to prevent the kind of explosions that happened at Fukushima Dai-ichi . [2] 173.206.138.245 (talk) 07:49, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did the first edit. As for the second part, the press release talks about "preparation work" to release some radioactive gas at all four reactors at Fukushima Dai-ni (so was it 3 or 4?), but I can't tell if they JUST did preparation work or if it's a bad translation and they actually did release the gas. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 09:20, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for making the change about those two plants. (10 reactors, 7 operational at the time, all shut down automatically.) TEPCO reported that radiation readings at the plant gate did not increase measurably over background, and they reported it as a Level 3 incident. Both these are consistent with them actually releasing pressure. (As is the fact that the units did not explode.) I'll poke around for more definitive reporting on this.
According to http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/press-release-mar-132011impact-tepcoamp39s-facilities-due-miyagikenoki-earthquake-300pm http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031310-e.html , near the bottom, (past the much scarier info about Daichi), and referring to the preparations to release pressure, it says: "At present, we have decided to prepare implementing measures to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessel (partial discharge of air containing radioactive materials) in order to fully secure safety. These measures are considered to be implemented in Units 1, 2 and 3 and accordingly, we have reported and/or noticed the government agencies concerned." (You will need Chrome, IE, or cut'n'paste into notepad from firefox, to read the text, since it doesn't wrap properly.)173.206.138.245 (talk) 02:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, for some reason, the shutdowns at Onagawa and Tokai have disappeared from this section of the article. Tokai had one operational unit (#2), and one in process of being dismantled. Onagawa had 3 reactors, but only 2 were online at the time of the earthquake. These 3 (of 5) reactors were also shut down automatically. (Japan only has 53 reactors to begin with, so you can see why there's a big power impact.) You can see confirmation that the reactors at these plants are "in "cold shutdown", at: http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html , update at (15 March 2011, 14:10 UTC)173.206.138.245 (talk) 02:07, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This section also seems to imply that the 25% of TEPCO's energy production loss was all nuclear. This isn't quite accurate: They also lost a few non nuclear "thermal generating plants". In particular, they also lost: Hirono Thermal Power Station Units 2 and 4: shutdown due to earthquake Hitachinaka Thermal Power Station Unit 1: shutdown due to earthquake Kashima Thermal Power Station Units 2, 3, 5, 6: shutdown due to earthquake Ohi Thermal Power Station Unit 2: shutdown due to earthquake (Unit 3 resumed operation) Higashi-Ohgishima Thermal Power Station Unit 1: shutdown due to earthquake (plus LOTS of transmission equipment.)

See: http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/press-release-mar-132011impact-tepcoamp39s-facilities-due-miyagikenoki-earthquake-300pm http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031310-e.html and [3]173.206.138.245 (talk) 02:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maximum wave height

According to the NGDC/NOAA webpage on the tsunami [3] the maximum wave height was 13 m at Minima Sanriku. This page refers to an eyewitness account. The source is reliable but should we add this information based on this eyewitness account? Mikenorton (talk) 11:31, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can there be a new better section about emergency recovery efforts

Clearing roads is important. Were equipment operators mobilized to clear roads? Evacuation of flooded areas? Hotels mobilized? Crucial recovery efforts like basic road restoration effects everything, and the tsunami damaged areas should be mostly evacuated regardless of any nuclear situation.

Also note Japan has long history of tsunamis, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_tsunamis Some historical wave heights reached 25 and 30 meters, causing widespread damage and deaths. How could this tsunami history not have been addressed both in nuclear construction and general construction? Not even elevated evacuation areas. 172.162.57.215 (talk) 13:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC) BG[reply]

T-mobile vandalism

Does anyone know if we could have a bot monitor all the quake/tsunami/nuke articles specifically about this event, and auto revert anyone who inserts "disassembled" into these pages (or any T-Mobile user, if it is possible some legal edits might get caught)? (Or alternately, could it be possible to just block the T-Mobile ISP for a week?) 184.144.168.153 (talk) 13:55, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But what if we wanted to add something like "...and a wall was disassembled to check for damage?" I think the existing measures to ban The Disassembler are sufficient (e.g. 208.84.0.0/17 seems to be blocked for over 24 hours, which will hopefully block most of that user's IPs for the moment) rather than adding a word into a spambot dictionary or whatever. The pages have been reverted very quickly before the IPs end up banned. Most of my revert attempts of The Disassembler earlier failed due to other people beating me to it, which is a good thing. –flodded ☃ (gripe) 15:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image with locations of nuclear power plants

The image File:JAPAN EARTHQUAKE 20110311.png needs the following changes:

  • The timezone is incorrect – should be JST instead of PT
  • The date format is DD.MM.YYYY – for the English Wikipedia, should be MM/DD/YYYY or 11 March 2011 or 11 Mar. 2011
  • The magnitude is 9,0 – for the English Wikipedia, should be 9.0

The English Wikipedia version needs a separate file, perhaps named File:JAPAN EARTHQUAKE 20110311 EN.png, because File:JAPAN EARTHQUAKE 20110311.png is widely used in non-English Wikipedias where the date and magnitude format is correct (but the timezone still needs to be corrected).

Obankston (talk) 16:56, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tidal flooding

Shouldn't this article cover the subsidence of coastal areas, now rendering large zones lower than high-tide levels? 184.144.166.85 (talk) 06:25, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I read about this somewhere as well. Could you provide some examples of sources that cover this? Carcharoth (talk) 11:14, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
From Archive 3 there is this source which refers to 2 ft (60 cm) of subsidence of a 250 km long section of the coast. Mikenorton (talk) 21:47, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's also [4]. 184.144.166.85 (talk) 01:36, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request from Maxwyss, 20 March 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} I requested a change of this text before but it was not made, or made incorrectly. It is tiresome when I go to the trouble to help you, but you continue to carry statements that can be verified as wrong in any textbook. Please tell me: Why did you not use the replacement text I sent previously? I am seriously discouraged to help WIKIPEDIA. Do you require a mini-lecture, like the one below, each time someone discovers an error?

Now the wrong text reads: "One minute prior to the effects of the earthquake being felt in Tokyo, the Earthquake Early Warning system, which is connected to more than 1,000 seismometers in Japan, sent out warnings of an impending earthquake to millions."

ERROR 1: This is an inadmissible factual error. "warnings of an impending earthquake" means that the earthquake had not happened yet, at the time of the warning. That has not happened, That would be eq prediction. THIS TEXT MUST BE DELETED. Early warnings are issued after the earthquake rupture has started and they may reach the consumer, in lucky circumstances, before the strong shaking reaches him.

ERROR 2: This is an awkward, even distorted way to describe a technical aspect. The "Earthquake Early Warning system, which is connected" does not convey the true situation. The EEW is not "connected" to something. It is a system that consists of seismometers, communication lines, computers, and human quality control. PLEASE GET RID OF THIS MISLEADING WORDING.

Maxwyss (talk) 11:29, 20 March 2011 (UTC)MaxWyss[reply]


Maxwyss (talk) 11:29, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not done. The article correctly states that a warning was sent out before the earthquake waves had propagated as far as Tokyo, that is after the the earthquake was registered by seismometers nearer the epicenter, which triggered the warning. However, it probably could be reworded as "the Earthquake Early Warning system, which includes more than 1,000 seismometers in Japan, sent out warnings of the impending arrival of the seismic waves from the earthquake to millions". Mikenorton (talk) 12:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maxwyss, please understand that we operate on references here. The current information is based off a reference that's included in the article. I understand that you're in the field and all, and we appreciate the expertise, but we still need a better reference provided than simply your assertion that the information is incorrect. I do agree with the edit Mikenorton proposes since it'll make it more accurate and eliminate one of your concerns, so I went ahead and made it. (Though the old wording wasn't technically wrong, it IS connected to those seismometers, which are what allowed it to detect the initial earthquake waves.) –flodded ☃ (gripe) 14:14, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pacific plate moved west or east?

In the article under "Geophysical impact" it states following: "The Pacific plate itself may have moved eastwards by up to 20 m...." Shouldn't this read westwards instead of eastwards? My common sense tells me it should be westwards. The article used for reference for this statements also says westwards: "The Pacific plate has moved a maximum of 20m westwards, but the amount of movement will vary even within the fault," said Dr Musson. 85.221.32.242 (talk) 11:30, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you are very definitely right: The Pacific plate moved westward.Maxwyss (talk) 11:53, 20 March 2011 (UTC)MaxWyss[reply]

Impact on the global supply chain of manufacturing industries

We should cover all manufacturing sectors so that readers can learn the impact on the global supply chain of key components and materials exported from Japan to the rest of the world: Automotive components, electronic devices for smartphones, tablets, and computers, steel products, jet engines, to name only a few. Please add more information on this matter. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 16:47, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article Name has adversely affected Google search

It's been a few days since the name of the article was changed from 2011 Sendai... to 2011 Tohoku. When it was named Sendai... a Google search revealed the Wikipedia article in the first items. Now Googling for this article has become more difficult. I realise most of the people reading this talk page know how to search beyond the first items of Google search, but I'm thinking here of Wikipedia success in general. We are used to finding Wikipedia among first search results, and for this article to have have lost first page result status because of the name change I find undesirable. In previous naming conversations, priority was given to Japanese language name while no consideration was given to article "searchability". I'd be surprised if English language speakers ever really call this event by Tohoku, I suspect Sendai and/or Japan will remain the common name and that this article will always be "off" when internet users search for it. Isn't "searchability" a top priority for naming Wikipedia articles?--Tallard (talk) 17:27, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In short, no. Prioryman (talk) 18:23, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't think it's a good idea to try to tune our article titles to suit the whims of search engines. Wikipedia really isn't supposed to be a news service, and we probably shouldn't expect to be the top search result on every breaking news story. In any event, a Google search for japan earthquake still pulls up (appropriately, I think) List of earthquakes in Japan on the first page of hits. A search for japan earthquake 2011 returns this article as the very first web result. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:34, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/tsunami/. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ [author missing] (2011 [last update]). "TEPCO : Press Release | Plant Status of Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Station (as of 11pm March 12th)". tepco.co.jp. Retrieved March 19, 2011. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: year (link)
  3. ^ [author missing] (2011 [last update]). "TEPCO Loses One Quarter of Supply Capacity, Urges Restart of Thermal Power Generation - News - The Denki Shimbun (The Electric Daily News)". shimbun.denki.or.jp. Retrieved March 19, 2011. Hirono Thermal Power Station (3,800,000 kilowatts), Hitachi-Naka Thermal Power Station (1,000,000 kilowatts) seriously damaged, {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: year (link)
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