Japan falls out of love with skyscrapers

24 September 2011 Last updated at 13:23 GMT By Roland Buerk BBC News, Tokyo None of Japan's skyscrapers fell in the massive earthquake that hit the country in March, but they shook violently - and with experts saying a big quake under Tokyo is overdue, the city's love affair with the high-rise lifestyle may be coming to an end.

When Emiko Yamamoto opens her curtains in the morning, she is rewarded with a spectacular view, right across Tokyo.

From the 30th floor, she can see the high-rises and elevated expressways, the bullet train and even, on a clear day, the snow-capped cone of Mount Fuji, far in the distance.

It is the kind of outlook Tokyo dreams are made of, but Emiko cannot wait to leave.

Back in March, she was inside her apartment when the earthquake hit.

Tall buildings crowd Tokyo's skyline

The building swayed alarmingly, books came off shelves, furniture crashed around her and she thought she would die.

Then when she tried to get out, she found the lift was not working. It was a long, long walk down the stairs as the aftershocks rumbled through.

Now she and her husband are looking for a house. Another flat would do at a push, but nothing higher, they say, than the second floor.

People in Tokyo have always known their city is built on major fault lines. Periodically throughout history, it has been destroyed by earthquakes, only to be rebuilt.

So a big quake with its epicentre under the capital is a possibility at any moment. Seismologists say it is not a question of if, but when. The last was in 1923 so the next is, in fact, already well overdue.

Reality check

Until the big earthquake in March, it was something Tokyo residents seemed able to put largely to the back of their minds while they got on with their lives.

That is the only way to deal with an ever present threat about which little can be done.

The epicentre of that quake was well to the north, off Japan's coast, but it still gave Tokyo the most dramatic shake most people have ever experienced.

Engineer Jun Tagami from Kajima Corporation shows Roland Buerk the company's earthquake testing facility

Scientific opinion is that shifting strains in the Earth's crust make a big one under the capital more likely, not less.

So it has forced Tokyo residents to confront the uncomfortable reality.

These days, a great view is not the selling point it once was. Adverts and brochures for new apartment blocks now lay far more emphasis on earthquake-proofing - the elaborate foundations, the stocks of emergency meals, water and generators.

And the quality of the ground underneath. Reclaimed land - and there is a lot of it in Tokyo - is judged less safe, vulnerable to liquefaction.

Sales of high-rise apartments plummeted after the earthquake in March. Some renters, who were able to, have moved.

It has all got one of Japan's most successful property developers thinking.

Akira Mori has become a billionaire, the country's third richest man, by building some of its biggest towers.

The proportion of low-rise housing in Tokyo is set to increase in line with demand

Now, he says, the era of skyscrapers reaching ever higher is over. He is calling for a new vision of Tokyo with lower, wider buildings, designed to be refuges in times of crisis.

They would be equipped to be self-sufficient for a week or more, so their residents could stay put, while normality returns outside.

Mr Mori told me he never liked skyscrapers personally - he once tried living on the 20th floor but found it inconvenient getting down to street level, and anyway the sun blazed through the plate windows.

Now he sees a change in the psychology of the Japanese. For decades his fellow countrymen have wanted to live and work up high.

Not by chance, he says, were so many Japanese firms on the upper floors of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.

Not any more.

Fear factor

The irony is, of course, that during the earthquake back in March, not a single tower fell in Japan, even up in Sendai, the city nearest to the epicentre.

Yes, some walls were cracked and pavements were crumpled, but the buildings themselves remained standing throughout.

They swayed, though, even long after the tremors had stopped, as the forces of the Earth lurching about were distributed through the structure.

Being inside made people feel seasick, and then there was the fear too.

The lesson Japanese engineers have taken is that making buildings resilient is not enough.

The other day I went to a development centre run by one of Japan's biggest construction companies. Inside a massive concrete building, the size of a large church, a big table was mounted on machinery which could throw it in any direction, for testing structures.

They ran it through an exact simulation, taken from seismograph readings, of the quake back in March. It was quite an eye-opener.

During the real thing, everything around was moving together, there was nothing still to give context. Now I could see just how much the ground moved.

Japanese engineers have already developed foundations mounted on rubber to insulate entire buildings, and bracing to reinforce structures.

They are designed to sway, bending and flexing rather than snapping.

But the challenge now, they say, is to make towers that do not just withstand earthquakes, but to make the people inside believe they will too.

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Japan tsunami costs hit Lloyd's

21 September 2011 Last updated at 07:05 GMT The tsunami in Japan was one of the events that made the first half of 2011 the most expensive on record Lloyd's of London, the world's largest insurance market, says major catastrophes made the first half of 2011 the most expensive on record.

It saw claims totalling £6.7bn from disasters such as the Japanese tsunami, floods in Australia and the earthquake in New Zealand.

Lloyd's reported a loss of £697m for the six months to June, against a profit of £628m last year.

However, Lloyd's said the market was "well-capitalised".

'Tough times'

This year already ranks as the second most destructive on record for catastrophe losses after 2005, with the insurance industry as a whole absorbing $70bn in claims, according to Swiss Re, the world's second biggest reinsurer.

Despite this, Lloyd's reported it was in good shape financially, with record central assets of £2.47bn, up from £2.23bn last year.

It reported a return on its investments of £548m.

Lloyd's chief executive, Richard Ward, said: "These are tough times for the insurance industry, but we are well positioned to handle them."

He warned the rest of the year ahead was likely to be "challenging", thanks to the uncertain economic environment and the crisis in the eurozone.

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Killer typhoon brings new misery to Japan

TOKYO — Rescuers and search parties scoured central Japan on Monday as the death toll from the worst typhoon to hit the country in seven years climbed to 34, adding more misery to a nation still reeling from its catastrophic tsunami six months ago.

Typhoon Talas, which was later downgraded to a tropical storm, lashed coastal areas with destructive winds and record-setting rains over the weekend before moving offshore into the Sea of Japan. In addition to the 34 dead and 55 missing, thousands were stranded as the typhoon washed out bridges, railways and roads. Tens of thousands of households were still out of electricity and land telephone lines remained disrupted Monday night.

The scenes of destruction from the typhoon were another unwelcome reminder of Japan's vulnerability to the forces of nature as the country tries to recover from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Quick response pledged
In one of his first acts in office, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda — sworn in just one day before the storm made landfall — vowed the government would provide as much assistance as quickly as it could.

His predecessor, Naoto Kan, was forced out in large part because of public anger over the response to the tsunami, which left nearly 21,000 people dead or missing and touched off the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

"We will do everything we can to rescue people and search for the missing," Noda said.

The typhoon was believed to be the worst to hit Japan since 2004, when 98 people were killed or reported missing. It caused most of its damage on the Kii Peninsula in central Japan southwest of Tokyo and hundreds of miles from the country's tsunami-ravaged northeastern coast.

Hunting for survivors
The extent of damage from the typhoon was still emerging Monday.

Rescuers and reconnaissance teams spread out over the worst-hit areas to look for survivors or people stranded in flood zones, which though far smaller in scale were reminiscent of the debris-ridden, mud-caked wasteland created by the tsunami.

Television footage showed washed-out train bridges, whole neighborhoods inundated by swollen rivers and police using rope to pull frightened survivors out of homes awash in the murky waters.

The government's emergency headquarters put the death toll at 26 as of Monday morning. Evacuation advisories remained in place for about 100,000 people, although the storm itself was no longer over land.

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Most of the dead were in Wakayama prefecture (state), said local official Seiji Yamamoto. He said 17 were killed there and another 28 missing.

"There are so many roads out that it is hard to count them all," he said. "Hundreds of homes have been flooded."

Hundreds of thousands issued evacuation orders
Rains and wind were recorded across wide swaths of Japan's main island, but no significant damage was reported in the tsunami-ravaged northeast.

As the typhoon approached, evacuation orders or advisories were issued to 460,000 people. At least 3,600 people were still stranded by flooded rivers, landslides and collapsed bridges that were hampering rescue efforts, Kyodo News agency reported.

The center of the season's 12th typhoon crossed the southern island of Shikoku and the central part of the main island of Honshu overnight Saturday.

Talas has mostly moved at about 6 mph, roughly the speed of a bicycle, and its slow progress caused heavy and prolonged rainfall over Japan, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

Talas is a word from the Philippines that means "sharpness."

Reuters contributed to this report from The Associated Press.

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Japan nuke holdout resolved to stay

TOMIOKA, Japan — Vines creep across Tomioka's empty streets, its prim gardens overgrown with waist-high weeds and meadow flowers. Dead cows rot where they were left to starve in their pens. Chicken coops writhe with maggots, a sickening stench hanging in the air.

This once-thriving community of 16,000 people now has a population of one.

In this nuclear no-man's land poisoned by radiation from a disaster-battered power plant, rice farmer Naoto Matsumura refuses to leave despite government orders. He says he has thought about the possibility of getting cancer but prefers to stay — with a skinny dog named Aki his constant companion.

Nearly six months after Japan's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, the 53-year-old believes he is the only inhabitant left in this town sandwiched between the doomed Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station to the north and another sprawling nuclear plant to the south.

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"If I give up and leave, it's all over," he told The Associated Press. "It's my responsibility to stay. And it is my right to be here."

Matsumura is an anomaly in a country where defiance of the government is rare and social consensus counts above everything else. Yet, Matsumura's quiet civil disobedience speaks loudly of the dilemma facing the more than 100,000 silent "nuclear refugees" who were displaced by the March 11 disaster.

Story: Areas around Fukushima may remain off-limits for decades

Tokyo was quick to establish evacuation zones around the plant but has been slow to settle the refugees. A government order forbids them from going back to their homes in a half dozen towns around Fukushima Dai-ichi that were declared off-limits after the tsunami-stricken nuclear plant started spewing radioactivity.

"We are already being forgotten," said Matsumura, a leathery but clean-cut man with the sturdy build of a farmer. "The rest of the country has moved on. They don't want to think about us."

Tomioka's city hall has been moved to a safer city in Fukushima prefecture, where thousands of its residents live in makeshift shelters. Thousands more have scattered across the country.

The town itself is sealed behind police barriers, which hide the heart of the nuclear no-go zone, an area that is officially too dangerous for human habitation.

Officers are sent into Tomioka each day to search for burglars or violators of the keep-out order. By law, anyone caught inside the zone can be detained and fined.

But authorities mostly turn a blind eye to Matsumura, though he says he has been confronted by the police a few times. If there are other holdouts, they have escaped detection.

"Some people stayed behind, some stayed with me in my house," he said. "But the last one left a few weeks ago. He asked me to take care of his cats."

Tomioka official Tomio Midorikawa, who is in charge of the town's living and environment division, said the last resident was persuaded to leave in early August — the same time Matsumura claims his neighbor left. He was not aware of Matsumura.

Without electricity or running water, Matsumura fires up a pair of old generators each night and draws his water from a local well. He eats mostly canned foods, or fish that he catches himself in a nearby river. He said that once or twice a month, he makes his way to a city outside the zone in his mini pickup truck to stock up on supplies and gas.

He has taken it upon himself to tend to the town's abandoned cats and dogs, including the wolflike Aki.

"I've gone to Tokyo a couple of times to tell the politicians why I'm here," he said. "I tell them that it was an outrage how the cows were left to die, and how important it is for someone to tend to the family graves. They don't seem to hear me. They just tell me I shouldn't be here to begin with."

Story: Japan's prime minister Naoto Kan resigns amid public dismay

Matsumura said he did leave once, but the ensuing experience only strengthened his desire to return.

"I drove to a relative's house thinking I would stay there," he said. "But she wouldn't let me in the door, she was too afraid I was contaminated. Then I went to an evacuation center, but it was full. That was enough to convince me to come home."

The tsunami disaster left nearly 21,000 people dead or missing and touched off fires, explosions and meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The amount of radioactive cesium released into the environment since has been estimated to be equal to 168 Hiroshimas, making it the worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl.

No one — including Matsumura — is suggesting the exclusion zone be lifted altogether. The connection between radiation and cancer or other health problems is well established, and experts agree it could be decades until the nuclear zone is safe. Some point to the example of Chernobyl, which 25 years later is still mostly void of human life.

"The contaminants will be there for decades, centuries, millennia," said Timothy Mousseau, a biologist with the University of South Carolina who has studied Chernobyl for more than a decade and recently returned from a preliminary research trip to Fukushima.

Even so, local authorities are increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress toward resolving the nuclear Diaspora.

Tamotsu Baba, the mayor of Namie, a partially evacuated town near Tomioka, said in an interview it was reasonable at first for Tokyo to establish a geometric ring extending outward from the center of the plant. But he believes data collected since should be used to fine-tune the exclusion area to reflect the actual amounts of contamination.

"We have invested millions in developing a system to measure radiation," he said. "But it is like the whole thing is being decided by someone behind a desk with a 500 yen ($5) compass."

Further fanning the anger among the displaced, compensation from the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that runs the plant, has stalled in a bureaucratic labyrinth.

Before the crisis began, the average annual income in Tomioka was about 3.5 million yen ($35,000).

Matsumura said he has received about 1 million yen ($10,000) in compensation, far less than he would have earned from selling his rice and other produce. TEPCO, reeling financially from the accident, has put off a final decision on further compensation until the plant is stabilized. The money already handed out will be subtracted from the amount it eventually settles on.

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Officials say some restrictions may be lifted by the end of the year if the Fukushima reactors are brought to a stable shutdown.

Beyond that, the future remains a mystery.

"There are many tasks ahead before we will be able to return to our town, including decontamination and the rebuilding of our sewage system, roads and infrastructure," Tomioka Mayor Katsuya Endo said in a recent post on the town's website. "But we must maintain our hope, and gradually move forward."

Matsumura now likens himself to the Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender until decades after the end of World War II.

As a heavy rain began to fall, he walked down an overgrown mountain path to his rice paddy. He pulled up a plant by its roots, twisted it between his fingers then tossed it into an irrigation ditch with a resigned sigh.

There will be no cash crop this year. Or maybe ever again.

"It was strange being alone at first, but I am resolved to stay," he said. "I'm getting used to this life."

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Asian markets lower on Japan credit downgrade (AP)

BANGKOK – Asian stock markets gave up early gains Wednesday after Moody's Investors Service downgraded Japan's credit rating.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.2 percent to 8,714.58 after opening higher. South Korea's Kospi index dropped 1.1 percent to 1,756.81 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost 0.8 percent to 19,725.73.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index was 0.6 percent up at 4,197. Shares in mainland China and New Zealand were also higher.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Japan's government bond rating to Aa3 from Aa2 late Tuesday. The new rating is three notches below Moody's top Aaa rating.

The downgrade puts Moody's Japan rating in line with other major agencies. Both Standard & Poor's and Fitch rate Japan AA-, three notches below their top AAA ratings.

In May, Moody's warned it could downgrade Japan after the world's No. 3 economy slipped back into recession in the first quarter due to tumbling output and exports following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

In New York on Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 322 points, following modest gains Monday. Not even an earthquake on the U.S. East Coast on Tuesday afternoon could halt its advance. The Dow dipped about 60 points shortly after the quake hit but soon recovered and soared higher in the last two hours of trading.

Oil rose above $85 per barrel Tuesday following reports of better-than-expected manufacturing activity in China and Europe. Benchmark oil for September delivery was 21 cents higher at $85.65 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The contract rose $1.02 to settle at $85.44 per barrel on Tuesday in New York.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.4405 from $1.4423 in late trading Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose to 76.77 yen from 76.66 Japanese yen

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Japan trade surplus grows in July

18 August 2011 Last updated at 01:02 GMT Carmakers have been facing difficult times in global markets Japan's trade surplus has widened by more-than-expected in July, boosting optimism that the country's economy is continuing to recover.

The trade surplus was 72.5bn yen ($946m; £572m) in July.

However, the figures showed a bigger-than-forecast drop in exports, raising concerns about the strength of demand in key foreign markets.

Exports fell for a fifth straight month in July, down 3.3% from the same month a year earlier.

Analysts had expected exports to drop by a figure closer to 2.4% and said the discrepancy may be a sign that the strong yen was continuing to hurt Japan's manufacturers.

Naomi Fink, Japan strategist at Jeffries in Tokyo, said that while the export figures were not as good as hoped, there were still signs of recovery shining through.

She explained that Japanese firms have shown a bounce back, even if company profits and growth may not be as strong as in the boom years of 2000.

"There are a few more months of recovery to go," Ms Fink said.

Flip side Continue reading the main story

The strong yen that hurts the export side is also helping to keep the price of imports in check”

End Quote Naomi Fink Jefferies While the strong currency may be a headache for companies looking to sell products abroad, it is also helping cut the cost of imports.

The Ministry of Finance data for July showed imports increased by a less-than-forecast 9.9% from a year earlier.

"On the import side we have several factors at play," said Jeffries' Ms Fink.

Following the earthquake and tsunami, Japan has scaled back its nuclear power production and is now using more oil and liquefied natural gas, which are priced in US dollars on the international markets.

At the same time, the government has called on consumer and companies to use less power.

There is "a higher need for fossil fuels as the percentage of energy consumed. But we also have a lot of conservation activity, so its not a one-for-one", she explained.

"The strong yen that hurts the export side is also helping to keep the price of imports in check."

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Japan data shows further recovery

29 July 2011 Last updated at 02:15 GMT Japanese manufacturers have been working at reduced capacity after the earthquake and tsunami Japan's economy has continued to recover from the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, latest government data showed.

Factory output rose 3.9% in June from the previous month as supply chain concerns eased, while household spending increased by 0.8%.

Analysts said it showed the economy was recovering faster than expected.

The data comes a day after Japan reported a rise in retail sales for the first time since the 11 March quake.

"I thought we had to wait until the middle of next year for production to come back up to levels seen before the earthquake," said Seiji Adachi, of Deutsche Securities.

"But it now looks like manufacturing activities might go back to where they were as early as January-March next year," he added.

Strong forecast Continue reading the main story

The yen's strength, if sustained for a long time, could dampen production in the longer term by hurting corporate earnings and thus their capital expenditure”

End Quote Tatsushi Shikano Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Japanese manufacturers were hit hard by the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

Disruption to the country's supply chain saw some of the biggest manufacturers curb or suspend production.

However, as the infrastructure is restored, manufacturers are becoming increasingly optimistic.

According to a survey done by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, manufacturers expect output to rise 2.2% in July and 2% in August.

"Manufacturers' strong forecasts for July and August suggest the recovery in output remains on track," said Tatsushi Shikano, of Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

Overcoming challenges

The recovery in the supply chain and factory output has come despite the manufacturers facing various challenges, not least a shortage of electricity.

Japan has been facing a power shortage after the twin natural disasters damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and forced the closure of various other nuclear plants in the country.

There were concerns that the electricity shortage would hit production, especially during summer months, when demand for power is at its peak.

However, analysts said manufacturers were able to overcome this shortage by implementing changes to their working hours.

"Power problems are having less of an impact than previously thought, thanks to companies' efforts to avoid operating during peak power demand hours," said Mr Shikano.

Currency woes

While the manufacturers have been able to overcome these challenges to get their production back on track, other factors continue to remain a threat.

The biggest amongst them has been a strengthening Japanese currency.

The yen, a traditional haven, has been rising against the US dollar in wake of the ongoing debt issues in the US and Europe.

A strong currency does not bode well for Japanese manufacturers as it not only make their goods more expensive to foreign buyers, but also hurts the companies' profits when they repatriate their foreign earnings.

"The yen's strength, if sustained for a long time, could dampen production in the longer term by hurting corporate earnings and thus their capital expenditure," said Mr Shikano

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