Последние новости из Японии из уст радиоастрономов

[Игорь]

Friday, March 11, 2011 11:36 PM

Dear all,

East Japan was hit by huge earthquake today.
That was the largest earthquake in history.

In Tsukuba area, the situation is not so serious now. All our
colleagues are all right. A lot of afterquakes have followed now.
These afterquakes are also large.

Tsukuba 32-m antenna looks all right. But we need more detail check.
I'm not sure whether the other antennas (SINTOTU3, CHICHI10 and AIRA)
are OK or not, because of network communication trouble.

Now our institute's mail servers are down. I send this e-mail from my
private address. I added GSI colleagues private addresses in CC.

Tsukuba 32-m cannot implement this weekend intensives. I cannot refer
to IVS sessions in next week.

---
KURIHARA, Shinobu
VLBI Group, Space Geodesy Div.

[Игорь]

Freitag, 11. März 2011 23:45

Dear Colleagues,

It appeared no staffs at Kashima station (NICT) has been hart and no
serious problem has been found with the 34m antenna and other facilities.
However, the network connection to the site is still unavailable and it may
take a while to inspect the function of the antenna system.
 
Sincerely Yours,
Yasuhiro Koyama, NICT, Japan

[Игорь]

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 22:36:54

Dear colleagues,

Kawaguchi-san at NAO sent us a message this afternoon and
it seems all members at Mizusawa station are fine although
network and telephone are not still available.
Kawaguchi-san himself is staying in Tokyo and got information
from Mizusawa staff right after the earthquake.

Sincerely Yours,

Yasuhiro Koyama, NICT

[Игорь]

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:14:20

Dear colleagues,

We suffered a large earthquake on March 11, but there is
no serious damage and no one injured in Mizusawa VLBI Observatory.

   The AC power supply failed for a day.  It was recovered
aleady.  The mail and network system in our Ovservatory was
also recoverd.  Thus I can used this mail.  The power failer
might occure again on Monday around Tokyo because lack of
power supply is expected on week day.

   The 20m VLBI antenna has a trouble.  The aligment of
sector elevation gear slided.  We cannot move the antenna
at present.

   We were afriad to occure an earthquake of M7.5 in the
northen focal reagion of this Earthquake for a long time.
This M8.9-9.0 earthquake is extremely larger than we expected.

   Most human damage was caused by tsunami in this time.
At present, 2000-3000 people were killed or missing.
I'm very afraid that the number of missing people will
increase up to 10000.

   Most cities and towns in pacific coast area have seawalls
against tsunami.   The height of seawalls is 4-6m in most case.
Taro-town of Iware prefecture has a large seawall of 10m high,
but the town was destroyed.  The heights of seawall were designed
considering the tsumamis in 1896 (Sanriku Tsumami earthquake)
and in 1960 (Chile earthquake).  Unfortunately, the height of tsunami
in this time was higher than our expriences.

Best regards,

Yoshiaki Tamura
NAOJ Mizusawa VLBI Observatory

[Игорь]

 Sunday, March 13, 2011 9:28 PM


Dear Colleagues
 
All the staffs are safe and no one was hurt. The facilities at Mizusawa except the VERA antenna and the superconducting gravimeter are not seriously hurt. Electric power supply came back after 32 hours of stop. The antenna was in operation at the shock and stopped immediately. However, there are several evidences that elevation gear of the antenna moved horizontally and collided with the lower part. It is still unclear whether the antenna was distorted and how severelyit was hurt. We are awaiting for the inspection by the manufacturer. Anyway it will take some time for the antenna to become operational.
 
S. Manabe
Mizusawa VLBI Observatory
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan