Major earthquake in Ishikawa & more – 4th Jan 2024

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 4th of January twenty twenty four. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

A major earthquake rippled through central Japan on Monday the 1st. It hit hardest in Ishikawa Prefecture with a magnitude of seven point six. Over seventy houses collapsed in the cities of Suzu and Wajima in Ishikawa. The quakes also caused mudslides that blocked major roads in both cities and a fire in Wajima that destroyed an additional 200 homes. Seventy-eight people died and many more are likely still trapped under collapsed buildings. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered the Self-Defense Force to help with rescue efforts, but it’s not easy thanks to continued aftershocks.

As of Thursday the 4th, 30,000 households still don’t have electricity, and the water supply is cut off for around 110,000 households. Many families are still sheltering at evacuation centers or lining up to receive drinking water.

Officials warned residents to be on the alert for aftershocks in the next several days.

The earthquakes also triggered tsunamis in areas along the coast of the Sea of Japan. The worst tsunami was in Wajima, where it reached a height of over a meter (or four feet). In Toyama, the tsunami was eighty centimeters (nearly three feet), and in Niigata, it was forty centimeters (that is just under one and a half feet). Weather officials also issued tsunami warnings for Yamagata, Fukui, and Hyogo.

In Ishikawa, the tsunamis flooded over a hundred hectares (a million square yards of land), which is roughly the size of 186 football fields. However, the government still doesn’t know the full extent of the damage.

Officials lifted the tsunami advisories by Wednesday the 3rd.

To make sure that people get the medicine they need, the health ministry issued a notice to prefectures to allow anyone affected by the quake to get their medicine even if they don’t have a prescription. This is meant for those who lost their prescriptions and can’t easily get to a hospital or clinic due to the damages from the earthquake or tsunami.

If someone doesn’t have a prescription, they can go to a pharmacy and the pharmacist will contact their doctor to get the details. If that is not possible, then the patient just needs to bring their medication record book or an old medicine packaging to make it clear that they need it for a stable, chronic illness.

In related news, tweets saying that the earthquake was artificial went viral on Tuesday the 2nd. Many people tweeted old videos and information to back up their so-called theories that nuclear testing might have been behind it.

The Meteorological Agency said on Monday the 1st that the Ishikawa earthquake was a normal, reverse fault quake. The science behind it is well-known and there was nothing to suggest it might have been artificial or man-made.

You’d think that would be enough disaster for one week, but on Tuesday the 2nd, Japan Airlines Flight five-one-six, flying from Hokkaido, crashed into a Japan Coast Guard plane shortly after landing at Haneda Airport. The collision destroyed the Coast Guard plane while Flight five-one-six caught on fire. Rescuers immediately jumped in to evacuate the nearly 400 passengers and extinguish the flames. The passengers and crew got off safely, though fourteen were injured.

However, the crash killed five of the six crew members aboard the Coast Guard plane, and the captain was severely injured.

The Transport Safety Board began investigating the crash on Wednesday the 3rd. So far, air traffic control and the Coast Guard are telling different stories. Air traffic control said that they cleared Flight five-one-six to land on runway C and told the Coast Guard plane to stay short of it. However, the surviving captain said that traffic control gave them permission to enter the runway.

The Safety Board released the transcript of the interaction. Air traffic control told the Coast Guard plane to wait at the holding point, and the Coast Guard pilot repeated the command.

The three pilots on Flight five-one-six said they did not see the Coast Guard plane. The airline is still investigating why they couldn’t see it.

The coast guard plane was loaded with emergency supplies for earthquake victims in Niigata.

Due to the collision, airlines had to cancel or reschedule over 230 flights from Haneda on Wednesday the 3rd and Thursday the 4th. Most domestic flights and one international flight were canceled. Central Japan Railway provided additional bullet train services on Wednesday the 3rd to help make up for the cancellations.

Airlines warned that their schedules may change again and said that passengers should stay tuned.

The international front has some grim headlines, as well. On Sunday the 31st, leader Kim Jong Un threatened retaliation in response to Japan, the US, and South Korea’s security cooperation. He said that he planned to buff up North Korea’s military with a missile development plan and also increase its navy’s combat capabilities. It’s not clear exactly what he meant, but he may have been referring to developing nuclear-powered submarines, like Russia and the US.

Kim said that he would strengthen ties with other countries that opposed the US and the West. He likely meant Russia and China, both of whom are North Korea’s allies.

Considering that, it was probably a good call by Japan’s foreign ministry to set up the Official Security Assistance, or OSA, last year to strengthen security in the Indo-Pacific region. Japan started OSA in light of North Korea’s military plans and China’s increased maritime activities.

At this point, Japan has made OSA deals with the Philippines, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Fiji, and will provide military equipment like radar, rescue boats, and drones. The ministry is also thinking of making agreements with Vietnam and Djibouti, a North African country strategically close to the Middle East. Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said that it’s important to strengthen international security since relations with other countries are getting very unstable.

In more international news, South Korea’s Supreme Court found on Thursday the 28th that two Japanese firms, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Hitachi Zosen, were guilty of forcing South Korean citizens into hard labor during Japan’s colonial rule of Korea from nineteen ten to nineteen forty five.

This is not the first time South Korea has filed such charges. In twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, courts ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel to pay for past forced labor. Japan appealed the ruling, arguing that they settled all such matters under a nineteen sixty five bilateral agreement. South Korea said that the deal didn't cover anything about individual compensation. Nevertheless, in March, the Korean government made a government-funded charity to compensate victims so that the companies wouldn't have to, likely to avoid souring international relations.

Japan’s foreign ministry called the rulings extremely regrettable and lodged a protest with the South Korean embassy in Tokyo.

The foreign ministry also protested another, unrelated matter. Namely, Korea’s naval drills near the Liancourt Rocks. This was the fourth timethese drills took place under Yoon Suk Yeol’s presidency.

The Liancourt Rocks are a small group of islets between Japan and Korea and are known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese. Both countries claim the islets as their own, but only South Korea has built anything on them. However, at this point, it’s only a few buildings, including a lighthouse and a helicopter pad, that have been there since two thousand and nine.

Japan claims that Korea is illegally occupying the islets, and the director-general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau told the South Korean Embassy that conducting naval drills there is unacceptable.

Aaand that's it for this week!

Happy New Year from the Rorshok family! These are our wishes for twenty twenty four: 1) that you tell your friends about us. 2)... Noup, that’s about it.

Remember you can help us financially with the link in the show notes.

Mata Ne!