English Blog - "The Earthquake Aspect"
The way by car from the airport to my new accommodation at Saitama Prefecture gave me first impressions of Japan: The elevated expressways. The German Autobahn is usually built on the ground floor.
Picture was taken from Landmark Tower at Yokohama
When we left the expressway at Toda City the car was shaking a little and I thought to experience my first earthquake - 40 minutes after arriving in Japan! At that moment I remembered the horrible pictures of the destroyed City of Kobe which I have seen on TV in January 1995. But the vibration I felt was just the usual movement of the expressway construction – built flexible to stand the earthquakes stress. Generally the Japanese risk and occurrence of frequent earthquakes causes a big difference between my home country and Japan in many aspects, also in wastewater treatment. In Germany, fortunately we don’t have to care about this so intensively and before my arrival I didn’t realize that this fact also causes many special considerations in wastewater sewerage and treatment facility design. But after some explanations of my colleagues at JS I understood much more about the problems of uplifted manholes and the technical possibilities to prevent damages and wastewater-related measures in case of such catastrophes. By the way, it took nearly 2 months until I experienced my first real earthquake in Japan – fortunately a harmless one. In January I got the chance to feel the great Kanto earth¬quake in a simulation room at Yokohama, which was quite impressive. But actually I never want to feel such an earthquake in reality!
Picture was taken from Landmark Tower at Yokohama
When we left the expressway at Toda City the car was shaking a little and I thought to experience my first earthquake - 40 minutes after arriving in Japan! At that moment I remembered the horrible pictures of the destroyed City of Kobe which I have seen on TV in January 1995. But the vibration I felt was just the usual movement of the expressway construction – built flexible to stand the earthquakes stress. Generally the Japanese risk and occurrence of frequent earthquakes causes a big difference between my home country and Japan in many aspects, also in wastewater treatment. In Germany, fortunately we don’t have to care about this so intensively and before my arrival I didn’t realize that this fact also causes many special considerations in wastewater sewerage and treatment facility design. But after some explanations of my colleagues at JS I understood much more about the problems of uplifted manholes and the technical possibilities to prevent damages and wastewater-related measures in case of such catastrophes. By the way, it took nearly 2 months until I experienced my first real earthquake in Japan – fortunately a harmless one. In January I got the chance to feel the great Kanto earth¬quake in a simulation room at Yokohama, which was quite impressive. But actually I never want to feel such an earthquake in reality!
BobHarris - 15. Feb, 09:04
