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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Satellite falls off US west coast

24 September 2011 Last updated at 16:13 GMT By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News The BBC's Andy Moore says where debris came down is "a bit of a mystery"

Nasa says its six-tonne UARS satellite plunged to Earth over the Pacific Ocean, off the US west coast.

It appears likely the decommissioned craft came down between 03:23 and 05:09 GMT - with a best estimate of 04:16.

If correct, this means any debris that survived to the surface probably went into water and not on land.

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is the largest American space agency satellite to return uncontrolled into the atmosphere in about 30 years.

The fall to Earth was monitored by the Joint Space Operations Center (JSPOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Its best estimate for the timing of the re-entry would have seen UARS come in at a point well out into the North Pacific.

However, if UARS re-entered many minutes after 04:16, it is possible debris could have reached the American landmass.

There were some unconfirmed reports of glowing wreckage moving across the sky in western Canada, but Nasa said it had yet to receive credible evidence that this was so, less still that any debris items had been found.

"I've got no reports that I've seen that talk about people who think they might have recovered debris," Nick Johnson, Nasa's chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told reporters during a media teleconference.

"Obviously, we're going to continue to keep our eyes and ears open, and if we receive any reports like that we'll try to go verify."

Most of the 20-year-old satellite should simply have burnt up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, but modelling work indicated perhaps 500kg could have survived to the surface.

Calculations estimated this material would have been scattered over an 800km path. Nonetheless, with more than 70% of the Earth's surface covered by water, many experts had offered the view in recent weeks that an ocean grave was going to be the most probable outcome for UARS.

"Because we don't know where the re-entry point actually was, we don't know where the debris field might be. If the re-entry point was at the time that JSPOC has its best guess of 04:16 GMT then all that debris wound up in the Pacific Ocean," Nick Johnson reiterated.

UARS was deployed in 1991 from the space shuttle Discovery on a mission to study the Earth's upper atmosphere.

It contributed important new understanding on subjects such as the chemistry of the protective ozone layer and the cooling effect volcanoes can exert on the global climate.

Astrophotographer Thierry Legault's video of the falling UARS

In the past few days, Nasa had warned members of the public not to touch any pieces of the spacecraft that might survive the fall to land, urging them to contact local law enforcement authorities instead.

"I've seen some things that have re-entered and they tend to have sharp edges, so there's a little concern that they might hurt themselves if they try to pick them up," said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist from Nasa's Johnson Space Center.

Under the terms of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the US government retains ownership of the debris and could, if it so wished, seek to take possession of any items found on the ground.

With those ownership rights also comes absolute liability if a piece of UARS is found to have damage property or injured someone.

"There is something called international responsibility; they're internationally liable," explained Joanne Wheeler of law firm CMS Cameron McKenna, and an expert representative for the UK on the UN Subcommittee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

"The Americans have to retain jurisdiction and control, and that pretty much can be interpreted as ownership. So they own it up there, they own it if it comes down to Earth and they're liable if it crashes into something."

Tracking stations will typically witness the uncontrolled return of at least one piece of space debris every day; and on average, one intact defunct spacecraft or old rocket body will come back into the atmosphere every week.

Something the size of UARS is seen perhaps once a year. Much larger objects such as space station cargo ships return from orbit several times a year, but they are equipped with thrusters capable of guiding their dive into a remote part of the Southern Ocean.

UARS orbited the Earth between 57 degrees North and SouthNasa calculated some 26 components might survive the fall to EarthThe largest was a moveable instrument platform weighing almost 160kgIn total, about half a tonne could have made it all the way to the surfaceThe risk of any one of 7bn people being hit was 1 in 3,200, Nasa saysJonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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Belarusian rouble falls sharply

14 September 2011 Last updated at 15:13 GMT President Alexander Lukashenko's government is struggling to ease the country's financial woes The Belarusian currency has fallen sharply in value after the government allowed a limited flotation in its latest bid to ease the country's worsening financial crisis.

The currency weakened to 8,600 roubles against the dollar, compared with the official rate of 5,347.

It comes as the government aims to make the country's exports more competitive and gain more foreign currency.

It is the second time since May that the rouble has been allowed to devalue.

However, the official rate will remain in use for certain transactions, such as state-owned factories and other businesses needing to buy imported materials.

Loan request

The Belarusian economy has weakened sharply in recent years, worsened by a big increase in government spending in 2010 ahead of presidential elections.

President Alexander Lukashenko won the elections to secure a fourth term in office, but international monitors said the vote was rigged, and the US and Europe have imposed sanctions on the Belarus leadership.

The US has described Mr Lukashenko as "Europe's last dictator".

When the rouble was last devalued in May, it sparked a number of public protests.

It also helped fuel inflation of more than 40%, and many shops were emptied of goods as importers lacked hard currency to purchase foreign goods.

Belarus' trade deficit stood at $9.3bn (£5.6bn) last year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The IMF is now continuing to consider whether to grant the country's request for a $8bn emergency loan.

It has said that it will be dependent on Belarus carrying out a number of economic reforms including a privatisation programme.

However, the government has so far been reluctant to break up the predominantly state-run economy.

Belarus has been more successful in securing loans from a group of ex-Soviet nations, led by Russia. In June, it gained the first payment of a $3bn package.

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