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Century-old stone “tsunami stones” dot Japan's coastline (2015)
- atopal 1y agoReminds me of the hunger stones in Germany and neighboring countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_stone
- Mistletoe 1y agoI've always been fascinated by these because I love long term thinking. What current "tsunami stone" would you leave to future generations to prevent catastrophe?
- ttemPumpinRary 1y ago[dead]
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoI think the obvious answer in the modern world would not be a phsyical one, but some sort of measure of wealth inequality. At some point, if too few have too much it destroys a country from the inside out over the long run. It does far more damage than any tsunami ever could. I don't have a number or exact measure in mind, but that would be the warning I would leave to future generations.
- NilMostChill 1y agoDepends on how metaphorical and/or political you want to get. Arguably books could be considered warning waystones, but that's a stretch in this context. Physical monuments though, we have loads, lots of war memorials are/were intended as warning about the cost of war. Auschwitz-Birkenau being left as as it is could be considered another. If you want to get really close to similar intentions there are the long term nuclear waste warnings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warnin... A bit more esoteric (and less warningy) and you get the signals we send in to space intentionally as a time-capsule/marker for potential alien contact.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/102jg2f/everybody_works_but_the_vacant_lot/ https://www.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/102jg2f/everybody...
- lostlogin 1y agoWhat’s the counter argument to that sign?
- imchillyb 1y agoWith radiation half lives what they are, our society should be brainstorming how to segregate and mark nuclear waste storage areas. All areas that store radioactive waste. Without clear warnings and boundaries humanity is just waiting for a catastrophe. A tiny sign and words don’t count.
- sparrish 1y agoThey've already been working on that. https://www.ans.org/news/article-416/the-art-of-the-10000year-warning/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-416/the-art-of-the-10000yea...
- marcosdumay 1y agoAnd I can't find the on Youtube the music for the glowing cats proposal, but if somebody can, it's highly recommended.
- amateurCoder5 1y agoIs it this one? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=amn3kn0XPLQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=amn3kn0XPLQ
- marcosdumay 1y agoYeah, this one. Thanks.
- porphyra 1y ago1896 is pretty recent actually I thought they were like thousands of years old
- muyuu 1y agoOldest known stones date back to the early 1400s but there must have been older stones. Already those stones are mostly unreadable because of erosion and they are dated by secondary sources.
- mytailorisrich 1y agoYou can put warnings everytime there is a tsunami, which is "often" in Japan, but the issue is that a massive one like the 2011 earthquake and tsunami is a once in a millenium event so would indeed need to rely on very old warnings: "The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake occurred in exactly the same area as the 869 earthquake, fulfilling the earlier prediction and causing major flooding in the Sendai area. [1] Modern society is not good at this sort of very long term consideration and planning. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/869_J%C5%8Dgan_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/869_J%C5%8Dgan_earthquake
- anonu 1y agoReminds me of the forest inscriptions in the mountains of Lebanon which date from the time of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (~100 AD): Lebanese cedar wood was prized for shipbuilding and forests were decimated due to heavy logging. Nice to see that nature conservancy was alive and well, even 2000 years ago.
- josefritzishere 1y agoThis is a deeper dive on the stones and their locations. Please note that 317 stone tablets were built after the 2 tsunamis, 125 (40%) of them were washed away or destroyed by the 2011 tsunami. https://thefunambulist.net/magazine/cartography-power/incomplete-atlas-stones-cartography-tsunami-stones-japanese-shoreline-elise-misao-hunchuck https://thefunambulist.net/magazine/cartography-power/incomp...
- MarkusQ 1y agoThat suggests a possibly better strategy (though very long term): pepper the portion of the landscape believed to be safe with "it is safe to build here" monoliths, each as stable as a typical building, and over time only the ones that speak truly will remain. Would work for volcanoes and earthquakes as well.
- penneyd 1y agoThey just do the same thing with regular homes :)
- MarkusQ 1y agoSadly, that's at least partially true. But rebuilding on a sight where a home was destroyed eliminates the information value (that this site isn't safe from tsunami) and the coverage is far from uniform/regular (so you can't tell if there are no buildings in an area because it was previously undeveloped or is unsafe).
- lostlogin 1y ago‘How old are these buildings?’ would be wise to consider. This probably works for a variety of things and in many places.
- hinkley 1y agoJapan has a bad habit of considering buildings as disposable. Odd that a land with 1000 year old temples knocks down 40 year old houses with zero remorse, but that seems to be the case.
- willidiots 1y agoThe Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake of 1700 was dated using Japanese tsunami records: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996Natur.379..246S/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996Natur.379..246S/abstra...
- tobinc 1y agoCan't wait for round 2!
- teleforce 1y agoFun facts, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was built beyond the warning limit of the tsunami stones. If those people that setup the tsunami stones are still alive during the incident they will have a kahuna of "I told you" moment.
- bumbledraven 1y agoDo you have a citation for this? The most Gemini could say is: "While research has not identified a specific tsunami stone located at the Fukushima Daiichi site that was directly violated, the spirit of these ancient warnings was undeniably ignored." (https://aistudio.google.com/app/prompts?state=%7B%22ids%22:%5B%2211ZkugJGDR4EcWQtS_LEsZuLT7YxSVPgt%22%5D,%22action%22:%22open%22,%22userId%22:%22117721088013073520032%22,%22resourceKeys%22:%7B%7D%7D&usp=sharing https://aistudio.google.com/app/prompts?state=%7B%22ids%22:%...)
- mytailorisrich 1y agoI don't know if there are "Tsunami stones" in the area but the nuclear power plant is built at sea level [1] so would most probably be below them. The issue is the height of the seawalls that was not sufficient (and perhaps historical warnings, if any, were ignored): "The subsequent destructive tsunami with waves of up to 14 metres (46 ft) that over-topped the station, which had seawalls" [1] Edit: Regarding historical warnings: "The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake occurred in exactly the same area as the 869 earthquake, fulfilling the earlier prediction and causing major flooding in the Sendai area." [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/869_J%C5%8Dgan_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/869_J%C5%8Dgan_earthquake
- m4rtink 1y agoIIRC the issue was the emergency diesel generators being flooded, preventing them from powering the emergency cooling pumps, resulting in the meltdowns from residual heat in the reactor cores and spent fuel pools. Various construction changes could have prevented this from happening: - the whole power plan being built higher up or further inland -> this would likely be quite a bit more expensive due to land availability & cooling water management when not on sea level & next to the sea - the emergency generators being built higher up or protected from a tsunami by other means (watertight bunker ?) -> of course this requires the plan cooling systems & the necessary wiring itself working after surviving a massive earthquake & being flooded An inland power plant - while quite wasteful in an island country - would be protected from tsunamis & certainly doable. On the other hand, I do wonder how would high concrete cooling towers handle strong earthquakes ? A lot of small cooling towers might have ti be used, like in Palo Verde nuclear generating station in Arizona. Otherwise a bizzare case could still happen, with a meltdown possibly happening due to your cooling towers falling over & their cooling capacity being lost.
- xrayarx 1y agoFTA cites this article in the NYT, archive link: https://archive.is/20161221102801/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21stones.html https://archive.is/20161221102801/http://www.nytimes.com/201...
- NaOH 1y agoPrevious and related: Century-old stone "tsunami stones" dot Japan's coastline (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39892533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39892533 - April 2024 (142 comments) Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122825 - Aug 2015 (10 comments)
- rembal 1y agoI love how this article, just like a tsunami stone, surfaces on HN every few years. It just shows even shorter cycles of collective memories :)
- chollida1 1y agoor its just a new round of 10,000 who are learning about this for the first time, just like you once were https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- BuyMyBitcoins 1y agoIt’s almost as if these stories come in waves.
- deegles 1y agoI might have submitted it before already :)
- burnt-resistor 1y agoNeed those here in hill country in flash flood alley. Perhaps towers with an inscription and a windsock.