Where’s your Beacon been? Living, page 8-9
The
Meet Terry and Vernia
BEACON
Vol. 112, Issue 20
Living, page 7 Thursday March 24, 2011
THE UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER
www.upbeacon.net
Employee’s car crashes into tree outside UP
For full story, see page 5
Photo Courtesy of Christina Nelson
Tsunami ripples over UP community UP students from Japan reflect on the recent devastation
Photo courtesy of photobucket.com
Japan. It was just crazy.” While Maika could not call her family, she was able to connect with them via email. Her family is safe. Maika’s grandparents live in Sendai, in northern Japan. A couple days after the earthquake, her family heard news of her
For timeline, continue to page 2
Radiation levels reach dangerous levels at the Fukushima power plant. People within 20 miles of the reactor are advised to stay indoors.
See Japan, page 3
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A second explosion occurs at Fukushima nuclear power station. 1.4 million Japanese are without running water. More than half a million have been evacuated. USGS upgrades the magnitude of the main quake to 9.0.
family is OK. I made contact on March 13.” Senior Maika Canada, from Tokyo, was on her way to Boston, Mass. when she heard about the earthquake. During a layover in Phoenix, Ariz., Maika checked her Twitter account on her phone. “I was shocked,” she said. “I had no idea what was going on in
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230,000 people are evacuated from places near the crippled nuclear reactors. Millions of residents are without any power or water due to energy rationing. •
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The cooling systems fail in Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and an explosion happens in the building housing a reactor in the plant. The force of the quake moved Japan’s main island, Honshu, by 8 feet. •
“Even though the factory was not close to the residential area, we felt scared,” Yuuki, whose family is safe, said. Satomi Fukumoto – another former UP student from Saitama, Japan, near Tokyo – was also at home when the earthquake hit. Like Yuuki, the earthquake was the biggest Satomi has ever experienced.
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With everything that has been happening in Japan, it is getting hard to keep all the facts straight. Here is a quick list of the things you need to know.
Seiji Oyama, junior
An 8.9 magnitude earthquake strikes off of Japan’s northeast coast. A 33-foot tsunami hits the northeast coast.
Timeline of events
“President Obama said he’ll do his best to save Japanese peoples’ lives. I feel happy in my heart.”
“I was so scared,” Satomi said in an email. “When I saw the live broadcast of the tsunami (engulfing) the towns near the sea, I just couldn’t believe what was going on.” Some UP students from Japan were in the U.S. when the earthquake hit. Junior Seiji Oyama – also from Saitama – received a text message from a friend asking if his family was OK. However, initially, Seiji did not know what the friend was talking about. “I went to the news on the Internet, and I was really surprised – oh my gosh,” Seiji said. “I watched YouTube. (There were) horrible scenes – tsunami engulfed the rice field.” Seiji was unable to make contact with his family for almost two days. “I tried to make contact with my family, but I couldn’t,” Seiji said. “I got really upset… But my
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Yuuki Ohashi – a former UP student from Chiba, Japan, near Tokyo – knew that when the earthquake hit off the coast of northern Japan on March 11, it was different from every other earthquake she has experienced. Yuuki, who was at home, could not even stand up straight. For the UP students who are from Japan, the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and its aftermath have hit close to home. About an hour after the earthquake hit, Yuuki began cleaning up her home when she felt the ground shaking again. However, it felt and sounded different than any earthquake she had been through. “My family went outside again,” Yuuki said in an email. “Then we found dark and red sky
covered by smoke.” LPG tanks caught on fire at the Chiba refinery when the earthquake hit. The fire raged for 10 days. It was extinguished Monday.
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Hannah Gray News Editor gray12@up.edu
-Rosemary Peters
Friday, March 11
Saturday, March 12
Sunday, March 13
Monday, March 14
Tuesday, March 15
NEWS
March 24, 2011
On On Campus Campus
Disaster preparedness at UP? Rosemary Peters Editor-in-Chief peters12@up.edu Portland is due to have a massive earthquake. According to scientists, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which lies about 75 miles off the Oregon coast, has a fault which produces a major quake about every 250 to 500 years. Currently, we are about 311 years out from when the last one occurred. According to Public Safety’s Environmental Health and Safety Officer Jeff Rook, the shaker that will send the ground under Portland quaking is expected to be on par with the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Japan earlier this month. “Disaster is going to be inevitable,” Rook said. “With the one that strikes here, and not if but when, survival is optional.” In order to make sure the UP community is prepared for earthquakes, Rook started working with CCERT, the Community Campus Emergency Response Team. CCERT trains students, faculty and staff not only from UP but Portland Community
Saturday, Hawaii Club is hosting its 35th annual Lu’au, “Ke Ea o Hawaii,” in the Chiles Center. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., and dinner is at 6 p.m. Pre-sale tickets are the following: first 200 students are free, faculty and staff are $10, general admission is $20, senior citizens (55+) are $15, children (5-12) and groups of 10 or more are $12 per person and children under four are free. Tickets can be purchased Friday at The Bauccio Commons from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., at the Pilot House from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. or in the UP Bookstore with a sales associate. Ticket prices will increase at the door. CORRECTION In the March 10 issue, the photo for “No strings (or ropes) attached” on page 16 was submitted by Sebastian Berisford. The photo at the top of page 14 was submitted by Victoria Clark. The Beacon regrets the errors. Accuracy in The Beacon
Q: What causes earthquakes? A: The two-word answer is plate tectonics, which is motion between lithospheric plates. On their boundaries, forces build up and get released. This particular plate boundary that released its stored energy on March 11 was the boundary where the Pacific Plate dives beneath Japan. The plates are converging, moving towards each other, and the Pacific Plate bends down and dives down into the Japan trench. That’s a line of deep ocean floor, off the east coast of Japan, and the Pacific plate is a slab which is about 100 kilometers thick, and it dives down into the deeper mantle below Japan. Q: What causes tsunamis? A: To produce a tsunami, an earthquake has to move ocean water. Most tsunamis are produced by great, shallow earthquakes. And when we mean shallow, we mean 10 kilometers. This particular earthquake
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A new fire erupts at the Fukushima plant and radiation levels increase at the plant’s entrance. A 6.0-magnitude aftershock hits Japan causing buildings in Tokyo to sway.
The Beacon strives to be fair and accurate. The newspaper corrects any significant errors of fact brought to the attention of the editors. If you think an error has been made, contact us at beacon@up.edu. Corrections will be printed above.
Q & A
Environmental science Professor Robert Butler discusses earthquakes and tsunamis actually initiated at about 24 kilometers depth, and then it ruptured a big patch of the plate boundary. It changed the shape of the ocean floor, and produced a big mound of ocean water. Q: What does “9.0” mean? A: There a bunch of different magnitude scales for earthquakes. The most effective scale to use is a moment magnitude scale. That actually uses information such as the displacement, the opposite sides of the fault – how far did one side of the fault move with respect to the other side of the fault – and it also uses the area of the fault that got moved. Q: Explain the risk and what possible scenarios could occur in the Portland area and at UP. A: The Pacific Northwest has three kinds of earthquakes. One kind is what would be considered to be a deep earthquake. Another kind is crustal earthquakes. These are on faults, where the North American crust is broken. There is large crustal
fault called the Portland Hills Fault. It’s immediately across the Willamette River from UP. We know the fault is capable of certainly having magnitude 6.0 earthquakes, maybe even magnitude 7.0 earthquakes. But we don’t know very well, at least, when the last earthquake occurred on that fault. That means it makes it difficult to assess the risk which is posed by that crustal fault. There is another fault called the East Bank Fault which is basically mapped to go along parallel to the East Bank of the Willamette River, and it runs under the UP campus. That fault is really hard to evaluate. We know it’s there, but we don’t have a very good idea about what risk it does or does not pose. The third kind of earthquake is what people around here in the Pacific Northwest region call “The Big One.” This is a great earthquake occurring on the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
We know the last one of these great Cascadia earthquakes, which was probably a magnitude 9, occurred on Feb. 26, 1700 at about 9 p.m. That one is parallel to this great earthquake that just occurred in Japan. It’s the same kind of plate boundary. The 1700 earthquake produced a tsunami which kind of did the mirror image of what the Japan earthquake did – that is, the Cascadia 1700 earthquake created a tsunami that arrived in Japan and caused damage. - Butler will present “March 11, 2011 Magnitude 9.0 Earthquake and Tsunami in Northern Japan: Comparisons with Past and Future Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Cascadia” today at 4:30 p.m. in Buckley Center, room 163. -Hannah Gray Engineers check the cooling and other systems at reactor number two at the Fukushima plant.
HAWAII CLUB LU’AU
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Friday night, the Bluffoons are having an Improvisational Comedy Show at the Mago Hunt Recital Hall at 7:30. Tickets are $2 per person, or $3 for two people.
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BLUFFOONS IMPROV SHOW
gallon of water per person per day,” Rook said. He said the kits should also include at least a week’s worth of food that doesn’t take much effort to prepare, such as Power Bars. A full list of supplies to include in a kit can be found on Public Safety’s website at http:// www.up.edu/showimage/show. aspx?file=7037. “How many more times before it actually happens do we need to see examples before we get prepared?” Rook said. The next CCERT class is coming up this summer. Students can contact Rook at rook@ up.edu if they want to take the class.
Engineers connect an electricity cable to a reactor at the Fukushima complex. Abnormal levels of radiation are detected in milk and spinach from areas near the plant. Radioactive iodine is reportedly found in tap water in Tokyo.
Friday and Saturday night, “Country Strong” will play in the Buckley Center Auditorium at 10 p.m.
Jeff Rook
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‘COUNTRY STRONG’
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Tonight, Mr. Corrado will be held in the Buckley Center Auditorium from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Mr. Corrado is a man pageant fundraiser for Holy Cross Charities. The event is free.
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MR. CORRADO
the water bottle ban that was implemented last year. The Bauccio Commons has three days worth of food that could sustain up to 3,000 people. “We have at least that much product on campus during the academic calendar,” Kirk Mustain, the general manager of Bon Appétit, said in an email. “Obviously we would amend the style of service and offerings but I feel confident that we would be able to take care of the university community.” Back-up generators are in Franz Hall, Shiley Hall and Public Safety that can run for a week or two at full capacity. “In an emergency situation we wouldn’t be running them at full capacity,” Rook said. According to Rook, secondary items would not be powered up to make the generators last longer. The school also has an agreement with Belfor Property Restoration so UP could receive a back-up generator for the Chiles Center within 24 to 48 hours of an emergency. Finally, Rook encourages everyone to make a 72-hour kit for his or her place of residence. “Each kit should have one
Engineers get a power line to the Fukushima plant. Fire trucks bring overheating reactors and fuel storage tanks under control. The crisis level is raised from four to five on the seven point international scale of gravity for atomic accidents.
Tonight, LXG will host the Manquisition, a satirical mock trial of prominent men on campus, in the Terrace room in The Bauccio Commons at 6 p.m.
College and Portland State University as well. According to Rook, 75 to 80 percent of people who respond in an emergency situation are volunteers. The purpose of the CCERT program is to make sure the University of Portland has some prepared volunteers. “It’s disaster medicine,” Rook said. “It’s learning how to take a cardboard box, strip it down and use it for splinting.” On April 1, CCERT will have a four-hour field experience day where members will utilize their training to size up a fake emergency situation and extricate victims from the emergency. They will also practice search and rescue as well as triage skills. “There are one to two Public Safety officers to a total student body of over 3,000 plus faculty and staff,” Rook said. “You are in a situation where you are completely overwhelmed. We want to make sure our campus members are better prepared.” UP has also taken steps to prepare for a disaster. According to Rook, UP has a small stock of Koldkist water bottles on campus, despite
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MANQUISITION
Chinook helicopters and fire engines dump water on nuclear complex to cool overheating reactor.
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Continued from page 1
Wednesday, March 16
Thursday, March 17
Friday, March 18
Saturday, March 19
Sunday, March 20
Q & A
Q: What happened in Japan to cause the nuclear crisis the country is experiencing? A: The reactors did well in the earthquake, but it was the tsunami that got it. It looks like the water may have flooded the pumps and controls. The plant was probably experiencing hardware issues. Also, it is not just water that entered the plant – it is ocean bed, topsoil, mud and seawater. That is not good for electronics and seawater is highly conductive and corrosive. Q: Concerns have been raised in the media about trace
The Beacon — www.upbeacon.net !
NEWS
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Physics Professor Mark Utlaut answers your questions about nuclear power amounts of nuclear radiation from Japan hitting the West Coast. Could this happen? If so, what would the ramifications be? A: In general, radiation is something to be concerned about. It is radioactivity. If it interacts with biological material it can cause genetic problems. Any time there is an explosion, stuff goes up and then falls back down and stays residually around the explosion. To get here from there by wind is problematic because of the way currents go., though they run south of us. Places
in California would be more affected. Q: Are there steps people can take to protect themselves from radiation if there ever is a nuclear radiation emergency? A: People can take iodine, but we naturally get iodine from living near the ocean. People in Kansas who don’t live near the ocean put iodine in their salt. However, if you take too much, there are problems that way. Basically the government would help if there was a real problem – they want you to pay taxes after all.
Q: The decommissioned Trojan Nuclear power plant is about 40 miles outside of Portland. All the uranium from the power plant still sits in bins on the property. Are there any health risks that could pose? A: We are upriver from the Trojan Nuclear power plant. Even if there is an earthquake, nothing would probably happen. Q: Could Hanford, a power plant in central Washington with an active reactor, be an issue? A: Maybe. We’re down river
from Hanford, and Hanford is a colossal nightmare. They’ve buried stuff for years. I don’t know how water gets to Columbia there. They don’t know what it is doing to the water. -Rosemary Peters
UP senior fundraises for Japan relief Danielle Castro is selling t-shirts, proceeds will go to the Red Cross
Rosemary Peters Editor-in-Chief peters12@up.edu Senior Danielle Castro has strong ties to Japan, so when she heard about the 9.0 magnitude earthquake on March 11, she was concerned. “I have family in Okinawa,” Castro said. “Everybody on my mom’s side is from Okinawa.” However, Castro’s family is OK. “They had enough time to evacuate,” Castro said. The epicenter of the earthquake was closer to the northeastern coast of Japan, and the tsunami didn’t affect Okinawa as badly as places such as Sendai, more than 1,100 miles northeast of where Castro’s family lives. According to CNN, 9,487 people had been confirmed dead and 15,617 officially listed as missing – a total of 25,104 – as of 9 p.m. (AEDT) yesterday as a result of the quake and tsunami. About 387,000 evacuees – including those affected by the damaged nuclear plants – are staying in around 2,200 shelters with limited food, water and other supplies, according to the Kyodo News Agency.
Shortly after hearing about the crisis, Castro visited the website threadless.com where she entered a t-shirt design contest. For every t-shirt sold during the course of the contest, 25 percent of the proceeds went to the Red Cross to be donated to Japan. After crunching the numbers, Castro realized if she took her shirt design and sold the shirts on her own, she could raise more money. “I wanted to raise more money than what was going to be coming off of this competition,” Castro said. Castro approached UP’s Marketing Department with her idea and Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Communication Laurie Kelley responded. “Danielle came to the marketing office and talked with my colleague John Furey about this idea she had for the t-shirt competition with threadless,” Kelley said in an email. “I loved her design and knew she would be successful in trying to sell them to raise money for the Red Cross.” In the end, Kelley connected Castro with UP alumnus Mike Thompson. “UP alum Mike Thompson of
Taylor Made T-Shirts printed the shirts at an extremely low cost so that more proceeds could go to the Red Cross,” Castro said in an email. When designing her shirt, Castro incorporated symbolism into every figure that appears on the white cotton tee. “Rays of sunlight from a Japanese sunrise come over the father and his child, revealing shadows of a Samurai spirit,” Castro wrote on her website. “This design acknowledges the history of Japan and what Samurai embody: honor, endurance, tradition, and hope. In the sun, you’ll see the seismograph drawing of the 9.0 earthquake to acknowledge the tragedy, but the father and son walk on.” Castro said the money raised will go straight to Japan. “Japan has been an ally,” Castro said. “With Hurricane Katrina, they sent over about $13 million and the government also gave money to the Red Cross.” Castro sold over 100 shirts with the International Club at Espresso UP yesterday. While selling shirts last night, Castro and the International Club set up a booth for students to fold purple origami paper cranes.
Photo Courtesy of exclaimorange.com
Senior Danielle Castro’s t-shirt design. T-shirts are $10, and all of the proceeds go to the Red Cross. Their goal is to fold 1,000 cranes she said. because it is a sign of well wishes Shirts can be purchased for in Japanese culture. In order to $10. Castro is selling the shirts to reach 1,000 cranes, they will have people who contact her via email students fold at other events. at castro11@up.edu. She is also “Just keep the people of Japan selling them on her website. in your thoughts and prayers,”
JAPAN: Japanese students reflect on situation
Monday, March 21
support that Japan is receiving. “The American Navy came to Japan – I really appreciate that,” Seiji said. “President Obama said he’ll do his best to save Japanese peoples’ lives. I feel happy in my heart.” - Rosemary Peters and Ona Golonka contributed to this story.
Tuesday, March 22
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Japanese residents start hoarding bottled water after testing shows radioactive matter in tap water is at levels unsafe for infants. Officials evacuated some workers from the Fukushima plant as a black plume of smoke billowed above a reactor. Japanese government expands food restrictions after the health ministry said tests detected radioactive material at levels exceeding legal limits. CNN reports 9,487 people had been confirmed dead and 15,617 officially listed as missing – a total of 25,104. About 387,000 evacuees are staying at 2,200 shelters, according to the Kyodo News Agency.
big earthquake, since there are still many aftershocks. Regardless, she is hopeful. “I appreciate those people who work for saving Japan,” Satomi said. “I really hope these efforts will bring bright future in Japan soon. I want to do what I can do as much as possible.” Seiji is also happy about the
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according to Satomi and Yuuki. Even though Japan is in the midst of a natural disaster, students are hopeful about Japan’s recovery. “People are helping each other,” Yuuki said. “I saw lots of cooperation and warm behavior during this difficult time.” Satomi worries about another
Plant operator of Tokyo Electric Power Co. said high levels of radioactive substances were found in seawater near the plant. American schoolteacher, 24-year-old Taylor Anderson who had been missing, is found dead.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) declares “no immediate health risk” for shortterm exposure to food contaminated by radiation in Japan. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory commission reports the U.S. is safe from harmful levels of radioactive releases from Japan.
grandparents. “I guess it was about two days later, they heard from my grandparents,” Maika said. “They are doing OK.” During the natural disaster, Japanese people were asked to conserve electricity. Satomi, Yuuki, Seiji’s family and Maika’s
family are all trying to save electricity. “Some days ago, every family was asked to save the electricity because the nuclear plant was stopped by the earthquake,” Seiji said. “My family also tried to save electricity.” The area has had scheduled blackouts since March 14,
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Continued from page 1
Wednesday, March 23
A more in depth timeline can be found at: http:// www.swedishwire. com/component/ content/ article/34:globalnews/9027:japandisaster-timelineday-by-day