News: Toilet shortage feared in case of big Tokyo quake

[drakkenfyre]

From Yahoo News and the Associated Press:

Assuming that each of those fleeing will need to stop for the bathroom every two hours, the report said 810,000 people will be desperately looking for a toilet within hours of the quake, even if half of the public facilities remained intact.

Some might wait 17 hours before finding a toilet, the simulation

Comments

[troutkitty]

From the sheer number of people I've seen both urinating and defecating on the side of the street/road/alley/highway in Hokkaido, I don't think the lack of toilets are going to bother a large percentage of Japanese people *at all*

[drakkenfyre]

Wow, I always thought the Japanese were obsessed with cleanliness.

[troutkitty]

They all, but before modernization, cities put up piss buckets on the street corners for people to use as urinals, and I guess the habit of dropping trou and going never really died out. At least, that was how it was explained to me.

[drakkenfyre]

Wow, that's fascinating. Now, if only we could explain 17th Avenue at Stampede time . . .