Scenario: Mount Fuji Eruption

Imagine that for the first time in 200-300 years Mount Fuji legit erupts. Do your best to describe what kind of effect this would have on Japan. Begin.

Dassault Papillon: Parts of Japan would evacuate a bit. Afterwards life would go on as normal.

admin: Wouldn't such an eruption, which would likely bury Tokyo under countless tons of lava, devastate the Japanese economy?

I went to Japan shortly after the tsunami. If there's any country in the world who can sustain, bounce back from and even improve from a natural disaster - it's Japan.

My money would be on them taking a short term hit and then within three years being 100% ahead of where they would have been had it not happened.
I honestly don't think anything devastates the Japanese.

nzlockie: I wouldn't go that far.

The long lasting effects of their two nuclear power disasters are still quite severe.

Also Swag is right. Mount Fuji is a volcano.

Japanese or not, that lava will go through anything it touches for miles.

Blackflag: The city of Tokyo has a GDP of over 1 trillion dollars. Since Japan has a GDP of around 5 trillion, that'd constitute 2% of that year's GDP completely dissipating. Plus, it'd take several years for Japan's GDP to reach its pre-eruption level.
Let's not even get started on what would happen to the quality of Japanese air.

All I'm saying is that I go to Japan once or twice a year. Those guys simply do not know the meaning of give up. When bad things happen they lift their game and power through it.

I can't think of a single other country that can handle a national disaster the way those guys can.

When you're considering the way japan would respond to something like that, you can't base it on the way a western country would handle it because they are so much better than us.

Dassault Papillon: Nope. That's not how eruptions work.

That would be like saying the next time Mt St Helens erupts, the whole West Coast will be destroyed.

Moreover, eruptions are probably the single most predictable disaster in this day and age.

admin: Tokyo is really close to Mount Fuji, the same way that Pompeii and Herculaneum were really close to Mount Vesuvius.

Actually, I think Tokyo is closer to Mount Fuji than Pompeii was to Vesuvius.

Dassault Papillon: It's not about location, it's about lahar paths. They're the biggest real danger.

This is where the Japanese government scientists say the lahars will flow, and ash will fall:



As you can see, Tokyo would be covered by 2cm of ash, and not be in danger of lahars.

admin: Although, that being said, I'm not sure I'd really believe anything the Japanese government told its citizens...

nzlockie: Good point actually

Admin

My father lived in a town right below Mount Fuji. Millions are going to die whether it hits Tokyo or not

As for why Japan is so good at recovering from natural disasters, is because the government takes massive loads of debt out whenever a disaster occurs. The actual costs for accidents like Fukushima never got truly payed for. They are on credit.

Also contrary to what admin said, volcanoes are definitely not one of the easiest natural disasters to account for. Usually they predict an eruption by monitoring changes in seismic activity. Many times though anomalies occur, or high seismic activity is consistent which makes it even tougher for the people in charge to decide whether to use the alarm.

Volcanic ash is the most dangerous part of the volcano too. When it is dense it will choke you out. Even if they could predict the earthquake successfully, how much faith can we put in any government to successfully evacuate a metropolitan area of 35 million people?

Finally, the lahar stuff is nonsense. The billions of factors involved in determining where lava will flow makes the task impossible, even if you got every man in the world working together to speculate.