SwissToni comments

This is a dreadful series of crimes and a life sentence is totally appropriate. He should be made to work and he should be made to understand the full impact of the damage that he’s done. There are also some cultural lessons the country can learn from these and similar crimes.

More importantly I sincerely hope the girls can get the immediate and longer term support they’ll need to get their lives back to some semblance of normality.

If businesses find deeper pockets to dip into, they will, and for as long as they can. On the flip side it’s important to pay well enough for your people to be able to afford to live well. When times change, as they surely will, there will be a greater reliance on the local market.

Ali Azuuri, by their very nature, sewers are only installed in populated areas. Think it through fella.

factchecker: I'd go gay for that much per month

Sounds like a lot of money but the woman will have been absolutely wrecked in order to bring that much home. I think you might regret changing lanes if you’d been as busy as her.

Let alone being an unregistered recruiter, if the woman was in any way vulnerable, Mr Jeong is a sex trafficker.

What a real shame. If the cab’s gone down the pipe it looks like he was washed even further. Maybe he can be found later using cctv? The hole is 40 metres wide now, they have to secure the surrounding properties.

Too easy to say the rescue efforts weren’t enough. It was a very risky situation, the emergency services really tried, they can’t be expected to die in the process.

Failure to acknowledge the Scottish delicacy will be held in contempt by our highland brothers.

The Nissan board will have to swallow their pride at some point or risk losing it all. Lack of commitment to the Renault partnership that saved them 25 years ago has seen them recommit to stagnation and likely oblivion.

It’s likely the sewage pipe or other water source has been leaking for some time and created the sinkhole. It’s rare but not unknown, even with regular cctv inspection of the pipes. There’s little that can be achieved until the unstable ground is cleared. It maybe that the only safe way to stabilise the ground is to divert the flow of water to new pipe work and fill the hole with concrete and grout. It’s a big hole and might even need piling. It’s tragic for the truck driver but the hole has got so big the authorities must be looking to secure the surrounding properties now.

Desert Tortoise, nice to see comments from someone reviewing the site and using their head. My experience doesn’t come from helicopter rescue but rather from risk assessing groundworks and deep excavations. The guys on site have done exactly what you have and identified the difficulties involved in lifting as well as the poor soil condition.

BeerDeliveryGuy: I meant before the landslide buried the cabin, and the driver was still responding to phone calls.

Understood. I’m sure the need for alacrity is on the minds of the people on the ground assessing and managing the risks. One of biggest issues hampering rescue attempts has been the unstable ground. The great noise and vibration, aside from the downwash, could well have hastened the burial of the truck cab.

Maybe so, but the truck cab is covered so there’s no lifting the driver out without touching the ground. The helicopter would have to maintain super accurate positioning and if it were to be brought down by the cables there would be a much greater tragedy.

Too many cables around the sinkhole to allow any descent from a helicopter. They’ve opened the hole up from the side to stabilise the muck, that’s the safest way in. Even if uninjured in the fall it’s very unlikely that a 70 year old can survive beyond three days without water. It’s a tragic situation.

Seems certain it’s become recovery of a body. The authorities now have time to further open up the sink hole and bank the sides, to allow safe access to the truck. Lifting trench boxes in line is an option but there’s an awful lot of cables over the sinkhole making it very difficult.

Jeremiah, the thinking is the other way around, that these building block materials may have been deposited on the Earth from space.

Awful thing to have to put a value on a human life and ¥43 million doesn’t seem like an awful lot of money either. Many territories use loss of income as the test for compensation. Some of those territories consider children essentially worthless compensation-wise, so in some respects this award is quite progressive. But it can’t repair broken hearts.

If the money is ringfenced for improvements to infrastructure, its a reasonable trade.

Where does this naive concept come from that there is never any disagreement in the scientific community?

Theres tons of disagreement in the scientific community, this is why there is peer review. Results are tested until they become concensus. As there’s no new consensus on the value of masks and vaccination there’s no reason to doubt their efficacy. Anybody can can challenge that, but they must provide evidence. Suspicion isn’t enough.

Might not be necessary, but I would suggest occasionally socialising with your workmates is desirable. Don’t have to go every time, don’t have to drink alcohol, but getting to know your colleagues helps you make friends or helps you figure out who is not going to be any good to you.

Ok, the building’s quirky, it’s novel, there’s some value in that. Don’t think this is a lesson for the rest of the world though. It’s not efficient, it’s not built using sustainable materials, it’s not cost effective and quirky doesn’t necessarily translate to good looking. This is just this architects wet dream and it took way too long to materialise.

Jaywalking is illegal. If it’s becoming antagonistic, maybe it’s time for the local police to visit occasionally and enforce the law.

I think there’s a case for some over night public transport in large cities. I used to use the night busses in London quite a bit. These run more extensively now and I understand 50% of the riders are people travelling to and from work.

There are two responses to this situation. Plant more rice. Import more rice. If the shortage is genuinely down to increased tourism, the money to fund the extra has already been paid into the economy.

affected by strong demand for Japanese cuisine amid a boom in inbound tourism.

So tourists want to eat as well? Monsters!

Michael CorleoneToday  05:43 pm JST

the employer has a duty of care to not allow lone-working...

Not so, but the employer does have to have a safe lone working procedure. If the woman knew her killer, it’s possible she may have circumvented the security arrangements.

Doesn’t seem a worthwhile crime for a few tens of thousands of yen.

Fair point, well made.

Is wood renewable if you’re chucking it off into space?

How am I supposed to get home from the station after a bender?

Good one. You’ll have to take the pony.

CigarLUV88Today  06:07 pm JST

I’ve worked in Japanese construction and it’s definitely not a safe workplace. There was hardly ever a quality assurance individual checking on us.

That’s because construction in Japan is managed by technically good written processes but with parlous oversight.

iron manOct. 27  11:54 am JST

A proper safety lanyard connected to an independent fixing point, eg a hook welded to the vessel would have saved them, in those circumstances, secured helmets/ goggles would have avoided bruised heads. Tragic, wait until we hear if the scaff had been inspected & signed off and if any 3rd party force at G.L. caused any effect. No blame to the workers please (strings of construction pro letters after me name).

Fall arrest is a last resort safety system that comes with its own set of hazards and is way down the hierarchy of risk control when working at height.

You would not fix your lanyard system to the ship when working from a fixed platform, if the vessel moved for any reason, the workers would be plucked from the scaffold. If the vessel is in dry dock, it is supported immobile and scaffold ties might be secured to the ship. The only time outside of putting it up a worker may be attached to a working platform is if that platform were mobile like a cherry picker, cradle or similar. On a fixed and stable platform a fall arrest is unnecessary.

Hardhats are for protection from falling objects and eyewear from flying objects. Irrelevant to this accident.

The scaffold came down with those men on it, this is certain, and someone is responsible. The relevant accident investigation questions are: Was the scaffold put up safely? Was it inspected, signed off and handed over properly? Were any adjustments made, and was it inspected and signed off again afterward? Was it inspected before use on the day? Were the workers using it safely? Was there any interference with the scaffold while in use by the workers overhead?