The scale of the possible tsunami trumps all previous notions of the risks facing the town. Deadly tsunamis have been rare here; the last few waves to reach Kuroshio, including one in 1946, did little damage.

Town officials are not entirely blind to the risks of sitting on a shoreline facing one of the world’s most active seismic rupture zones. Two years ago, they built a tsunami tower for residents to flee to, but it is only about 40 feet above sea level.

And after the tsunami last year, Kuroshio decided to modify plans for a new town hall, moving it farther up into the foothills. But even the new town hall would be just 72 feet above sea level.

We’ve been preaching the value of preparedness, but these projections seem to leave little alternative than relocation of settlements, which is not realistic.

In contrast, some bureaucrat in Japan accepted a harebrained proposal to build a wall to stop tsunamis. That collapsed in the tsunami that came with the Great Tohoku Earthquake. Now another wall is being built. I guess when you are spending other people’s money, it okay to repeat mistakes.

After three decades and nearly $1.6 billion, work on Kamaishi’s great tsunami breakwater was completed three years ago. A mile long, 207 feet deep and jutting nearly 20 feet above the water, the quake-resistant structure made it into the Guinness World Records last year and rekindled fading hopes of revival in this rusting former steel town.

But when a giant tsunami hit Japan’s northeast on March 11, the breakwater largely crumpled under the first 30-foot-high wave, leaving Kamaishi defenseless. Waves deflected from the breakwater are also strongly suspected of having contributed to the 60-foot waves that engulfed communities north of it.

Report.

Here is our contribution to the analysis of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and the ensuing local tsunami and teletsunami. It has been published in multiple places. The excerpt below is from Asian Sentinel.

The earthquake occurred at 14:46 Japan Standard Time near the Pacific coast of Japan’s Honshu Island. The first tsunami warning was issued just six minutes later, at 14:50 by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), an extraordinary achievement which suggests a direct link between the signals from the sensors and the public warning system, excluding human decision making in the middle.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued its first warning in 14 minutes back in 2004. Given the many weak links in the warning chains back then, the warning didn’t reach all of the countries, with devastating results. Some 230,000 people died in 14 countries. In the current tsunami, the warning center produced the alarm within nine minutes.

The additional resources poured into tsunami detection have paid off. At the warning center in Hawai’i, a qualified geophysicist looks at the data from the sensors before issuing the warning. Thus the process cannot take less than nine minutes. But the 2011 tsunami experience may tip the scales in favor of the automated Japanese approach.

More concretely, we are working on a media note summarizing lessons from our post 2004 tsunami research, which was on risk reduction, not on relief and recovery. Here below is a excerpt from the note. The full text is Pacific tsunami revised.

Japan is a country that knows how to deal with earthquakes and with tsunamis. Its buildings are constructed to code; its people are trained on how to respond from when they are in school. It is also a wealthy developed country and one that has a high population density. Therefore, the original hypothesis was that loss of life will be much less than in the case of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami while property losses will be much larger. First reports indicate that the early warning systems worked and the years of training citizens to respond appropriately yielded results. Yet the losses of life in Sendai, the city most affected by the local tsunami, indicate that more can be done in early warning and in disaster-resilient land-use planning and building construction.

In relation to the teletsunami that threatened the littoral countries of the Pacific Ocean, the risk-reduction measures appear to have worked, at least in the developed economies. The microstates of the Pacific islands have significant similarities with the Sri Lankan coastal communities that were studied as part of the HazInfo project. Whether or not the early warnings went through effectively to the last mile in those countries and whether those communities were prepared to respond appropriately remains to be seen.

The New York Times quotes experts on the same lines:

Initial reports from Ofunato on Friday suggested that hundreds of homes had been swept away; the death toll was not yet known. But Matthew Francis of URS Corporation and a member of the civil engineering society’s tsunami subcommittee, said that education may have been the critical factor.

“For a trained population, a matter of 5 or 10 minutes is all you may need to get to high ground,” Mr. Francis said.

That would be in contrast to the much less experienced Southeast Asians, many of whom died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami because they lingered near the coast. Reports in the Japanese news media indicate that people originally listed as missing in remote areas have been turning up in schools and community centers, suggesting that tsunami education and evacuation drills were indeed effective.

Economic events and market trends are notoriously unpredictable. In the early 1980s, the Japanese high-technology assault on the American computer and semiconductor industry seemed scary. “What are our kids supposed to do?” asked Walter F. Mondale, the former vice president, speaking to a group of electrical workers. “Sweep up around the Japanese computers?” It captured the economic pessimism of the time, even if it serves as a laugh line today because, after all, how often do you see a Japanese computer?

Full story, focusing on US fears about China is here.

The government is expected shortly to unveil a scheme to loop the country with fibre-optic lines that will support internet access at up to 100 megabytes a second, ten times the speed of the technology being replaced. Mr Son argues that to guarantee fair access to this network—and thus the most efficient use of it—it should be run by an infrastructure firm hived off from NTT, owned jointly by all the telecoms operators. Instead, the government is likely to let NTT continue to run the network, but erect “Chinese walls” between those operations and the business of selling telephony and internet access. The communications ministry is uneasy with Mr Son’s plan because it eliminates incentives to build alternative infrastructure—although in practice, the chances of any other operator building a fibre-optic network to compete with NTT’s seem slim.

75% of passenger transport is via public transport and of that 93% by bus and 7% by train. Roughly 5500 SLCTB and 18000 private buses. The fare is regulated by National Transport Commission (NTC). They also have timetables which are n0t implemented.

Shortest distance (~2KM) LKR 6:00.

Longest distance 260 KM – LKR 655.00.

Most of the BOP uses bus transport. 36% of the BOP use mobile and fixed phones.

SLTB buses use both ticket books and manual ticket machines to issue tickets to commuters

Private buses primarily use digital ticketing machines that prints out tickets. Can store data, process memory. Can even tell you how may people have to get off at the next bus stop.  The one in use now is also lighter in weight.

These are mainly used in the Western Province and on a few inter provincial buses.  Manual ticket machines are used in other areas.

Issues with the current ticketting system:

Money lost in Transit. Bus conductors and Drivers take the money, or tickets are not issued, or passengers do not buy the tickets. CTB estimates a 15% loss of revenue and private bus owners 25%.

Chanuka: How is the estimates done?

RS: through Load share.

HdS: Bus owners want to reduce leakage.  They wold like to issue a e-bus tickets. So the solution is either a card system or a mobile. So from the suply side there is a need but what about the demand side?

A  simple survey was done at the Fort railway station. Not a Sample survey but to get an idea. 2/3: 1/3 male: female. There maybe selection bias as it is a starting point.

What is the real cost of a ticket? Do the passengers receive the balance after getting a ticket? only 5% said that they always get there balance. Most people carry exact change. And only 50% of the people receive a bus ticket. Ticket checkers are used both in public and private sector. Some private companies have their own people to check for tickets.

So because of these issues, there is a need.

Possible benefits of e-tickets:

For Bus operators

• reduce leakage
• Offer loyalty plans etc.

For Commuters

• Cost only actual fare
• Can better schedule travel; save on transport expenditure

State [local government]

• Tax collection
• Target subsidies

What are the options?

Contactless smart cards: Oyster, ez link. Delhi is running a pilot, minimum reload INR 25.

Mobile phones: either through SMS or Near field Communication (NFC) merging mobile phones with a contactless smart card (Innovation).

NFC mobile phones: Nokia introduced the first in 2005 (3220). Break through innovation is instead of a NFC  phone, what about an NFC SIM. China Telecom has come p with a NON NFC standard RF SIM.  Nokia 6216: First NFC standard SIM compatible. Operator can load application.

Japan is leader with NTT DoComo Osaifu-Keitai e-wallet phones. Spain, Netherlands, France and Germany, mobile bus and rail ticket system are being piloted.  China has started.  UK to start by 2015 and fully switch to NFC by 2020.

I am skeptic how they would take my presentation – all Asian experiences to an almost hundred percent European audience except for two gentlemen from Botswana. Developed vs. Developing world. Connected vs. Unconnected. Are the issues similar? Or is it a different scenario?

I am glad we find some common ground. Bridging last mile isn’t an issue as serious as in Asia, but ‘Cell Broadcasting’ generates an interest. A DRR professional from audience talks about their efforts to introduce the same in France, with some success. One gentleman from Botswana asks why not in Africa. He is also interested in SMS based solutions. I introduce the Sahana SMS module to him.

Other than that, the discussion focuses more on the issues technology creates, rather than ones it solves. They talk about ‘over dependence’ on technology and the problems old find using technology. “Technology is fine, but KISS” (Keep It Simple and Stupid) says one speaker.

One pleasant surprise was to find the Director General, Civil Protection, Netherlands highlighting the benefits of Cell Broadcasting in the closing session. I am not sure whether he attended Seminar F.

Download my presentation slides from here.

China’s productivity has been lifted by a massive expansion of private enterprise, and a shift of labour out of agricultural work and into more productive jobs in industry. China’s average return on physical capital is now well above the global average, according to Goldman Sachs. A decade ago it was less than half the world average.

Why have the Asian economies led the pack? The most important determinants of longer-term productivity growth are the rate of adoption of existing and new technologies, the pace of domestic scientific innovation and changes in the organisation of production. These, in turn, depend on factors such as the openness of an economy to foreign direct investment and trade, education and the flexibility of labour markets.

Using a composite index of technology penetration and innovation (including, for instance, computers and mobile phones per head), Mr Cates finds a strong link between the rate of increase in an economy’s technological progress and its productivity growth. China’s level of technology is still well behind that in America, but it has seen by far the fastest rate of improvement over the past decade. This is not just because China started from such a low base but also because it is more open to foreign investment than many other emerging economies, including Japan and South Korea when they were at similar stages of development. China’s TFP growth is almost twice as fast as that of Japan and South Korea during their periods of peak economic growth.

]]> http://lirneasia.net/2009/11/productivity-driving-growth-in-china-and-asia/feed/ 0 http://lirneasia.net/2009/07/mobiles-afflicted-with-galapagos-syndrome/ http://lirneasia.net/2009/07/mobiles-afflicted-with-galapagos-syndrome/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:13:30 +0000 Rohan Samarajiva http://lirneasia.net/?p=4875 What does mobile handset design and Darwin’s theory of evolution have in common. Read the full article for an answer.

At first glance, Japanese cellphones are a gadget lover’s dream: ready for Internet and e-mail, they double as credit cards, boarding passes and even body-fat calculators.

Competition is fierce in the relatively small Japanese cellphone market, with eight manufacturers. Takeshi Natsuno developed a wireless Internet service that caught on in Japan.

But it is hard to find anyone in Chicago or London using a Japanese phone like a Panasonic, a Sharp or an NEC. Despite years of dabbling in overseas markets, Japan’s handset makers have little presence beyond the country’s shores.

“Japan is years ahead in any innovation. But it hasn’t been able to get business out of it,” said Gerhard Fasol, president of the Tokyo-based IT consulting firm, Eurotechnology Japan.

]]> http://lirneasia.net/2009/07/mobiles-afflicted-with-galapagos-syndrome/feed/ 0 http://lirneasia.net/2009/02/a-connectivity-scorecard-that-places-the-us-in-first-place/ http://lirneasia.net/2009/02/a-connectivity-scorecard-that-places-the-us-in-first-place/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:11:25 +0000 Rohan Samarajiva http://lirneasia.net/?p=3818 Several years back, Korea topped the OECD’s broadband rankings and the ITU’s Digital Opportunity Index. That caused a lot of countries to reexamine their broadband policies. It caused others to develop new indices. The NYT carries a report on one:

After the United States, the ranking found that Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway rounded out the five most productive users of connectivity. Japan ranked 10, and Korea, 18.

And while wired and wireless broadband networks used by consumers lagged other countries, the United States ranked No. 1 in the world for technology use and skills by consumers. (This was measured by comparing countries on five measures: The penetration of Internet use, penetration of Internet banking, wired and wireless voice minutes per capita, SMS messages per capita, and consumer software spending.)

To see the full methodology, look at page 38 in this report.

]]> http://lirneasia.net/2009/02/a-connectivity-scorecard-that-places-the-us-in-first-place/feed/ 0 http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/passage-to-india/ http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/passage-to-india/#comments Sun, 23 Nov 2008 05:39:53 +0000 Rohan Samarajiva http://lirneasia.net/?p=2935 In 1997, NTT bought 35 per cent of a badly managed government phone company called SLT along with the right to manage it for five years for USD 225 million. The decision was bracketed by the Central Bank attack (on a per capita basis more devastating than the World Trade Center hit of 11 September 2001) and the bombing of an empty [Sri Lankan] World Trade Center. Many wondered what the logic was. One explanation was that NTT saw Sri Lanka as a stepping stone to India. But no step was taken.

Others saw it as the only sensible foreign investment made by NTT, a high-cost operator that was completely unaccustomed to the challenger role, but was the quintessential incumbent. Their culture meshed perfectly with the monopoly culture at SLT. In contrast to the losses incurred in Thailand and Indonesia, they did well in Sri Lanka, in the process turning SLT into some kind of modern organization, even if they could not make it efficient.

Now the Economist talks of the return of the Japanese. No stepping stone, now. Directly to India.

HERE we go again. When NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s dominant mobile operator, last ventured abroad, the results were painful. Between 1999 and 2001 it spent almost ¥2.2 trillion (about $20 billion) buying minority stakes in a handful of mobile operators around the world. But it ended up booking a loss of half the value of these investments in 2002 and scuttled home. In the past couple of years, however, DoCoMo has been buying stakes in foreign operators once again, with investments in South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia and Bangladesh. Its latest move: India.

On November 12th DoCoMo said it would pay $2.7 billion for a 26% stake in Tata Teleservices, the mobile-telecoms arm of the Tata Group, one of India’s biggest conglomerates. The price, valuing the privately held Indian business at $10.4 billion, is steep: the operator is India’s sixth-largest, with barely 30m customers in a crowded market that boasts more than 300m. The company is believed to be unprofitable and is about to begin a costly network upgrade.

Pity the Economist missed the Sri Lanka experience of NTT.

]]> http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/passage-to-india/feed/ 1 http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/mobile-broadband-to-soar-in-asia-gsma/ http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/mobile-broadband-to-soar-in-asia-gsma/#comments Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:24:02 +0000 Chanuka Wattegama http://lirneasia.net/?p=2837 The number of subscribers to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) services – a technology that enables broadband access on mobile phones and other computing devices – will more than double next year in Asia, according to a forecast by telco industry group GSM Association (GSMA).

In an interview with BizIT, Jaikishan Rajaraman, GSMA director of product and service development, said the number of users in Asia subscribing to HSPA will swell from 26.5 million to 53.5 million over the next 12 months. Fuelling this trend are soaring demand from both businesses and consumers, coupled with falling prices of mobile broadband services, he said. This trend is expected to be mirrored in other parts of the world, including Europe and the US.

In August, GSMA – a global trade organisation comprising more than 750 mobile phone operators around the world – reported that the number of HSPA subscribers worldwide had exceeded 50 million, from 11 million a year ago. There are 197 HSPA commercial deployments in 92 countries, with Asia currently accounting for 46 per cent of the global HSPA subscriber base, according to GSMA.

‘Mobile broadband has truly made socio-economic impact, especially in emerging markets like Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka as well as developed markets like Australia, Japan and South Korea,’ said Mr Rajaraman.

Read the full story in Asiaone Business here.

]]> http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/mobile-broadband-to-soar-in-asia-gsma/feed/ 1 http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/what-is-the-cheapest-remittance-mechanism-of-them-all/ http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/what-is-the-cheapest-remittance-mechanism-of-them-all/#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:42:28 +0000 Chanuka Wattegama http://lirneasia.net/?p=2778 Last year as many as 190m migrant workers sent cash home, according to the World Bank. These remittances amounted to US$337 billion, of which US$251 billion went to developing countries. But the cost of sending hard-earned cash depends on both the source and destination. On average, sending US$500 from Spain to Brazil will incur a [...]]]>
Last year as many as 190m migrant workers sent cash home, according to the World Bank. These remittances amounted to US$337 billion, of which US$251 billion went to developing countries. But the cost of sending hard-earned cash depends on both the source and destination. On average, sending US$500 from Spain to Brazil will incur a modest charge of US$7.68, or a 1.5% fee. Sending the same sum from the Netherlands to Indonesia costs a whopping US$86.41, a 17.3% charge. The Netherlands, Germany and Japan tend to be the priciest places to send money from. Costs are generally lowest in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Singapore, America and Britain. (economist.com)

With hard times at our doorsteps, all we can say is a remittance mechanism that employs mobile communications would be an excellent idea. By the way, that is one area our research on Mobile2.0@BoP will focus.

]]> http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/what-is-the-cheapest-remittance-mechanism-of-them-all/feed/ 0 http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/australia-to-also-provide-early-detection-of-tsunamis/ http://lirneasia.net/2008/11/australia-to-also-provide-early-detection-of-tsunamis/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:46:45 +0000 Rohan Samarajiva http://lirneasia.net/?p=2763 In addition to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawai’i and the center in Japan, it appears that Australia will also be able to provide early detection data.

While Australia will be the main beneficiary of the new centre, upgraded and expanded seismic monitoring will now extend to Indian Ocean countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mauritius and Kenya.

“We can be confident now that nearly all these countries have either had their telecommunications upgraded, they’ve had assessment parties go through their countries, (or) their governments because of their loss of life have treated it very seriously.”

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