Power and water supply services have been suspended in extensive areas while transportation networks have been severed. It can be said that the vulnerability of infrastructure to a natural disaster has been revealed.
A severe earthquake hit Hokkaido before dawn Thursday. Centered in the Iburi district in southwestern Hokkaido, the earthquake recorded 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Atsuma. In more than a few areas, the actual damage conditions have not been confirmed. It is imperative to assess the situation and carry out rescue operations urgently.
Secure emergency fuel
Many people have been killed or injured. Large-scale landslides occurred in various places near the quake's focus, leaving dozens of residents unaccounted for and many residential houses collapsed.
Big aftershocks have still occurred frequently. Vigilance is required for a week or two until they cease to occur.
Life-saving and rescue operations have been conducted by mobilizing more than 20,000 people from the Self-Defense Forces, police and fire stations and the Japan Coast Guard.
The government has established a disaster response office at the Prime Minister's Office's crisis management center. In cooperation with relevant local governments, the government is called on to make utmost efforts to restore civic life.
A serious matter of concern is that almost the entire area of Hokkaido was hit by power outages.
Blackouts occurred at more than 300 hospitals. While many medical institutions that are designated as disaster center hospitals coped with the power outage through in-house power generation, some hospitals have suspended the acceptance of outpatients. If the power outage becomes protracted, it will have an effect on such treatments as surgery and dialysis, thus threatening the lives of patients.
Securing fuel to generate emergency power is extremely important. It must be preferentially supplied to hospitals and other crucial organizations. Power utilities are urged to expedite the dispatch of power-supply vehicles.
Transportation networks have been paralyzed in extensive areas. Rail service on both Shinkansen bullet train lines and conventional lines was suspended. All flights were canceled at New Chitose Airport. Expressways and many ordinary roads remain closed to traffic.
People stood in long lines waiting to buy daily commodities at supermarkets and convenience stores. There is a concentration of manufacturers of automobiles and other products in the suburbs of Tomakomai city, near the center of the earthquake. Economic impacts resulting from suspension of their operations are a cause for concern.
At evacuation shelters and in their homes, many people were forced to spend the night without any power.
Residents are unable to watch TV, and mobile phone connections are patchy in some areas. Local governments will need to come up with clever ways to ensure that information necessary for daily living reaches people affected by the disaster.
The sudden shutdown of Tomato-Atsuma thermal power plant, which supplies about half the electricity demand in Hokkaido triggered wide-scale blackouts for many hours.
Energy mix imbalanced
All electricity-generating stations in the region to which Hokkaido Electric Power Co. provides power were temporarily shut down.
This was to prevent damage to power-generating facilities caused by a huge imbalance in electricity output and consumption that would trigger drastic fluctuations in the power frequency. This situation, in which the electricity supply to a very wide area was cut, was unavoidable in some respects.
Similarly, huge blackouts in the United States and Canada in 2003 also affected wide areas, including New York City.
HEPCO has restarted operations at some power stations in Hokkaido. It will resume the supply of electricity in stages to different regions.
HEPCO will receive 600,000 kilowatts of electricity from other utilities through a power transmission line linking the northern prefecture with Honshu. HEPCO says it expects to be able to secure a supply capacity of about 3 million kilowatts on Friday.
On Wednesday, electricity demand in Hokkaido peaked at 3.8 million kilowatts. The utility's capacity remains insufficient. If this earthquake had struck in winter, when power demand is higher due to the use of heaters, the situation would be even more severe.
Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko suggested, "It likely will take at least one week to restore [the power supply] for all of Hokkaido." The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry has called on people in areas where power has been restored to save power.
This problem arose from an overreliance on the Tomato-Atsuma thermal power plant for supplying electricity in Hokkaido.
HEPCO's Tomari nuclear power plant has been shut down since the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. If the three reactors at this plant resumed operating, HEPCO's supply capacity would exceed 2 million kilowatts. The current situation in which keeping nuclear reactors mothballed has led to neglect of a stable electricity supply should be squarely confronted.
Stay vigilant
This earthquake occurred when an inland fault slipped. This is a different mechanism from the gigantic earthquake observers anticipate could strike off Hokkaido's Pacific coast.
They say they did not expect that an earthquake as strong as Thursday's could happen in an area where no active faults had been found. The quake's focus was deep, at about 37 kilometers, which resulted in strong shaking being recorded over a wide area.
The powerful earthquake that jolted northern Osaka Prefecture in June also caught many people by surprise. Hokkaido's temblor once again brought home the fact that any area of Japan is at risk of being hit by an earthquake. Unflagging efforts are needed to strengthen preparations against disasters.
Bolstering the nation's earthquake monitoring network is essential. Once again, seismic intensity meters in many areas malfunctioned. That this quake registered a maximum 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale was confirmed about 12 hours after the temblor struck. It is important to thoroughly inspect seismic intensity meters.
No one in Japan should forget the reality that we live on an archipelago prone to disasters.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Sept. 7, 2018)
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
