Quakes disable devices to check volcanic activity on Mount Aso

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN ^ | 04/19/16 | ASAHI SHIMBUN

[winoneforthegipper]

Efforts to monitor a spike in Mount Aso's volcanic activity are in disarray after the recent earthquakes and aftershocks in Kumamoto Prefecture.

Power outages caused by the seismic jolts that began April 14 mean that monitoring devices on the mountain are unable to transmit data, leaving experts with few means to gather information on a possible impending volcanic eruption.

This grim situation came to light April 18 during a meeting of a task force to deal with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions set up under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

The Japan Meteorological Agency, Kyoto University, the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED) and other institutions, operate observation facilities on the mountain in northeastern Kumamoto Prefecture.

These facilities use equipment such as seismometers and inclinometers to gather data.

A task force official reported to the April 18 meeting that a staff member at Kyoto University’s Aso Volcanological Laboratory evacuated the facility because of earthquake damage.

[winoneforthegipper]

Japan's science structure always leaves me scratching my head.

[winoneforthegipper]

Kyoto U's Aso observatory clearly showing the effects of the quake.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"Ah so."

[smokingfrog]

Seems like you’d want to have a backup power source for such an occasion.

[winoneforthegipper]

Considering the fact that Aso’s been stirring for a year and that many questions exist as to the nature of these quakes. Yeah and the fact that ASO is a VEI-7 capable well one would think that multiple system failure would be planned for.

[C210N]

Ironic that Honda in Japan makes arguably the best, most reliable, quietest portable generators in the world.

[faucetman]

Quake monitors not quake proof?

New Orleans water pumps located BELOW water level.

Japan locating nuclear plants on the ocean without tsunami protection.

Japan locating nuclear plants on the ocean with no procedures or protections in case of a leak.

[smokingfrog]

I guess the backup could have been knocked out too.

[TXnMA]

As one who lived in Japan for three years, this article strikes me as a masterpiece of Japanese understatement.

Loss of power is the least of that observatory's problems. Even the fact that there are apparent soil-motion sensor sites in the field in the foreground -- whose data links to the observatory are most certainly severed -- is of little relative concern.

Earth-motion sensors are rather delicate, precision devices; I doubt that any or them are repairable -- much less functional -- after that magnitude of shock and displacement.

Worse, that entire structure is, apparently, several meters downhill from its previous position; I'm surprised not to see more cracks in those white walls. There are evident shifts in the vertical plane of the foundation.

At this point, that is not an "observatory"; it is a dangerous, condemned ruin.

Based on the condition of the access road in the background, it is questionable as to whether anything but small pieces of equipment can even be salvaged. In fact, even the vehicles left there may become "permanent fixtures"...

~~~~~~~~~~~

My respect for Japanese know-how is exceedingly high -- but, I can't help but wonder how a group of soil-motion scientists were so inept as to site their observatory in such an unstable location...

Earth-motion research in that region may be "out of business" for several years.

The entire situation is quite sad, actually.

[winoneforthegipper]

If you look back to the Diachii Disaster though there were more than extraordinary conditions present, well, the meltdown could have been avoided relatively easily given adequate forethought.

I find this news is alarmingly similar. Seems they love to roll the dice quite a bit.

But great observations and thanks for sharing them.

[TXnMA]

To me, one of the most glaring design errors of the Fukushima reactors was the storage of fuel rods in an elevated, concrete-shelled water pool -- several stories above ground. In a seismically-active country, that was a blatant invitation to cracked pools, with the resulting fuel rod exposure and loss of coolant that we all observed.

It would not have been that big a challenge to make that SFR storage a well, extending below ground, but filled to the reactor-top level to facilitate submerged horizontal transfer from reactor to storage. The same overhead crane system could have served both SFR storage designs.

~~~~~~~~

That was the same sort of fuzzy thinking as building an (obviously) earthquake-resistant observatory structure -- on a hill-slope liable to displace its foundations when an earthquake occurred...