Incredible Before-And-After Photo Shows How Fast Japan Is Rebuilding

Business Insider ^ | 03/23/2011 | Joe Weisenthal

[Hoffer Rand]

Hell, it’s been ten years since 9/11 and still we haven’t rebuilt on Ground Zero.

I still think they should have given it to Donald Trump to build. Loved his idea of putting them right back up exactly where they had been, bigger and taller than they were before.

[Mrs. B.S. Roberts]

“The ‘after’ picture appears to be taken a few hundred feet further back then the ‘before’ picture.”

Is it me? I am no paving expert; but, it doesn’t look like that stretch of road is FRESHLY paved. Japan may well be rebuilding already but, this picure seems bogus as an “AFTER” photo.

[Professional]

I’d bet that these pictures are from the 07 quake. I looked at some pictures from that quake, and it caused extensive highway damage. The first pic is probably taken 6-8 weeks after the quake, then the follow up picture is from spring of 2008.

[Professional]

Japanese Quakes and Highway Damage, from various quakes in the past. I’m no expert, but it looks like the picture below, on the kashiwazaki hwy of 2007.

http://www.news-world.us/pics/2009/03/24/japan-highways-and-earthquakes/

[bereanway]

No, I think these are pics of this area in March 2011. In this part of Japan they're still suffering from freezing temps in the lower 20’s through the evening hours. Avg temps only being in the mid 30’s. Many deciduous trees such as oaks keep their old foliage well into the spring.

This also doesn't look like a July pic given how the worker is dressed in the first pic.

[TalonDJ]

Using Carbon fiber on a massive scale for bridges and buildings simply would not work very well from a physical standpoint alone. It would also be very difficult to produce enough Petroleum based plastic resin to meet the demand of such a broad application as infrastructure.

Good run down. What is more... it is more expensive! The scale on which you can crank out extruded steel... why would anyone want you something that is vastly more expensive for no real performance benifit?

Different materials have different properties and different engineering needs different stuff. Some materials end up being similar enough to have trade offs. There is just about nothing that reinforced concrete and fiber. Materials science is VASTLY more complicated than 'X is stronger than Y'.

[thatjoeguy]

Not trying to be a skeptic here but those don’t seem to be the same stretch of road.

Either the shot is from the other direction (doesn’t look like it) or the trees have moved.