Meet Japan's Earthquake Search-and-Rescue Robots: PopSci exclusive

The combination of vulnerability to earthquakes and a natural affinity for robotics has led to a surplus of Japanese rescue robots

By  Rainbow Posts2 Comments

CueBot Rescue Bot Kiyoshi Ota

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A terrible disaster occured in Japan yestereday at around 2:46 (JST) And now it's got the world talking. though it was mostly the Tsunami that was the big approach. Japan gets a lot of earthquakes every year, why is this one the one worth talking about?

• Because it was the largest earthquake in Japan (8.9 Magnitude)
• It was the 5th largest earthquake in the world
• It caused 1,000s of deaths and supposed to cause more...
• There is a 70% chance of another earthquake in that area, Bigger than 8.0 Magnitude.

But, the earthquake wasn't that big of a concern-- It was what the earthquake produced, a enormous Tsunami-- Here are a few Videos:

Here are a few images of the disaster from BBC:

 Although the Earthquake has produced a lot of damage, we also believe that that modern Technology could make the losses, (And damge) less severe. Starting from using special devices that can detect people's phones, and iPads, and to Tsunami-Resistant buildings, people, and their belongings and houses could be a lot more safe and secure, especially where earthquakes happen a lot like Japan.

This Excerpt from PopSci has a good suggestion on Technology to help reduce an Earthquakes (or Tsunamis) impact:

By Dan Nosowitz:

 Though the earthquake that struck Japan's eastern coast earlier today has left the country with massive destruction and hundreds of deaths, modern technology (and Japan's impressive levelof readiness) are helping the country track survivors and dampen the damage as much as possible. In the future, our ability to cope with natural disasters will only increase, due in large part to the particular talent earthquake-vulnerable areas--especially Japan (and to a lesser extent, California)--have for robotics.

Predicting earthquakes is still a remarkably fruitless effort--seismologists are not reliably able to predict even a particular month in which an earthquake will occur, let alone a day. So the work done to mitigate the damage done by earthquakes is often in post-quake search-and-rescue tactics. Interestingly, two of the most earthquake-prone places in the world are also two of the world's hotbeds of robotics engineering. Japan is situated along the so-called Pacific Rim of Fire, at the point where the Pacific and Eurasian tectonic plates collide. The country is continually at risk of massive earthquakes, and as a technological world power, is uniquely capable of creating technological salves for 'quakes.

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Hopefully, advances like the ones shown here will be able to somewhat lessen the destruction of earthquakes in the future.

Note: While most of these creations come from Japan, we stumbled across a few from elsewhere that were so cool we couldn't keep them to ourselves. Although, interestingly, those were mostly from another high-tech and high-risk earthquake area--California.