Japan tunnel disaster a wake-up call for other countries

Citing Britain as a country that doesn't look after its infrastructure is stupid, and Aleksandar Pavic, supposed "expert" has no idea what he is talking about. The road this article refers to, the M4, was discovered to be in needs of minor repairs after its annual check (all bridges in the UK are checked at least annually), and the reason it took 5 months is because it's a 6 lane road that due to its link to the airport simply cannot be closed, so the repairs were done in a phased manner.

This article stinks of an idiot trying to pull the wool over Japanese citizens eyes by making them think the whole world has infrastructure issues, when in fact while some other countries do have some problems, they're nothing compared to Japan's.

It's not about other countries. (As JT stated in another article post) Maintenance is often neglected because they are too busy building roads to no where. The exact cause of the cave in is due to spending time, money, time, and effort building roads to no where. The ministry can have money if they stop building roads to no where. They'll have enough work force if they take workers of useless projects like roads going to no where. Solution. Stop paying politicians large sums of pensions, stop using taxpayers money to pay TEPCO executives bonuses, pay civil servants the same pay as hard working salary worker, stop paying welfare to lazy bums who sit around the house all day and/or play pachinko all day, and . . . Well you get the idea.

Didn't take long for this to go from crisis to minor issue and someone else's problem

This article stinks of an idiot trying to pull the wool over Japanese citizens eyes by making them think the whole world has infrastructure issues, when in fact while some other countries do have some problems, they're nothing compared to Japan's.

This comment stinks of someone taking the issue personally. One of the first things I thought when this accident occurred would be the broader implications and costs for infrastructure nationwide and internationally.

Didn't take long for this to go from crisis to minor issue and someone else's problem

Please.

@ hereforever: Have you mentioned the waste of effort and time they put in roads going to no where?

That's nice ...... a wake-up call for other countries, whilst Japan sleeps.

The horrible realization = as much as Japan likes pouring concrete, it pours concrete badly.

They would have enough workforce if they didn't spend all their time and efforts on parking areas on highways.

Typical Japanese response to dropping the ball. Look out and not inwards. Why can't these fools critically call out their own institutions be it Toyota, SONY, Olympus, TEPCO, NPO, IJA, or the Government? National or individual shame is actually not having the gonads to stand up and call a spade a spade.

Many European countries and America have problems with aging infrastructures.

The panels which collapsed were welded together so when the bolts failed the overall weight was increased by the welding. Loose bolts have also been discovered in the second tunnel.

The difference, between Britain and Japan is that Britain isn't a major earthquake country.

This article stinks of an idiot trying to pull the wool over Japanese citizens eyes by making them think the whole world has infrastructure issues, when in fact while some other countries do have some problems, they're nothing compared to Japan's.

^^ This ^^

I'm no expert on civil engineering, but do other countries build tunnels in the same way, by suspending huge concrete panels overhead? If not, then maybe the premise of this article is flawed. The tunnels covered in the emergency inspections feature this design.

finding new cash is a tough task

It shouldn't be, not if you print your own fiat currency and don't have any inflation to worry about. The only thing "tough" are all the politicians who don't under modern monetary policy.

It's not exactly the lack of maintenance that is the issue here. The reason it was such a surprise that the tunnel collapsed is because the maintenance company filed a report that the tunnel was fine even though they later admitted the rooftop panels were too high for them to actually examine. Because everything was thought to be fine, no maintenance was done. If anyone had had an idea the panels were a danger, the government would have at least begun laying out a contract for some construction company to bid upon.

It's the same-old same-old that you see all of the time in Japan. Japanese society has got to start heavily penalizing those who feed false information into the system.

Probably best not to worry about other countries and instead focus on what you can accomplish.v

I'm no expert on civil engineering, but do other countries build tunnels in the same way, by suspending huge concrete panels overhead?

There was a fatal accident in Boston in 2006 where a 3-ton, 20 x 40 foot ceiling panel fell onto a car. More details here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig_ceiling_collapse

Hee, hee, hee and three cheers for the Japanese press-cum-government spokesmanship. As is usual, let's not look for those responsible for the deaths in Japan in a specific incident, but instead attempt to spread the blame internationally because other accidents have happened. By the way, although I'm not an Aussie, I'd like to point out that wildfires, like earthquakes and tsunamis, are not caused by second rate workmanship.

Must be something to do with the earth quakes. i believe they may be a cause in these infrastructures falling

America has these problems as well and they are worse. The bridges are falling apart as people drive over them! It is a common story in Oklahoma for cars to get hit by falling concrete from old bridges.

<http://www.bts.gov/programs/geographic_information_services/maps/structurally_deficient_bridges_on_the_national_highway_system/

So it is a much bigger problem than Japan. Oh Okies say they feel 3 point earthquakes.

@wipeout

The scale of the Japanese incident was way, way in excess of the Boston incident. In Boston, it was a single panel: in Japan 270 panels. That so many fell at once would seem to indicate a structural/design problem.

"...a wake-up call to developed nations..."

It sort of fits the picture of this third world country, that they actually believe in civilised countries, as in Europe, structures like tunnels are not regularly checked automatically...

But of course the japanese people have better, more important things to do, like hunting whales.

America has these problems as well and they are worse

Ah, America is the culprit,once again. If America's tunnel collapse accidents are "worse" then they would kill in excess of nine people in a single go, as what happened in Yamanashi. Can you cite any highway tunnel accidents in America in recent years with death tolls above nine ("worse")?

Thinks about it and how about that bridge collapsing into the Mississippi? 13 dead with 145 injured and it was a main link in the I 35 interstate. Then there was the Schoharie Creek Bridge which killed 10 in 1987 on an Amtrak train. The Tennessee Hatchie River Bridge failed in 1990 killing 8. Then there was the big dig tunnel killing i and injuring 1. My point is this happens all over the world and not just in Japan.

My point is this happens all over the world and not just in Japan.

Who cares? We're talking about tunnels in Japan.

The scale of the Japanese incident was way, way in excess of the Boston incident. In Boston, it was a single panel: in Japan 270 panels. That so many fell at once would seem to indicate a structural/design problem.

You're right it was a single panel. I'll also take this opportunity to say that the size I quoted (from the link I posted) is almost certainly wrong - though there's no reason to assume the weight is incorrect.

You might be stretching the point though to say so glibly that the Japanese incident was way in excess of the American one. Once they ran the checks in Boston, they found that there were numerous problems both with the construction work and with the company responsible for it.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/05/modern_continen_2.html

The collapse of a single panel showed that there were problems elsewhere.

By the way, I did not originally seek to make a comparison of the scale of these two incidents. Your question was simply this: "Do other countries build tunnels in the same way, by suspending huge concrete panels overhead?"

And the answer to that was, yes. Sometimes with fatal results.