Japanese infrastructure

Last year there was a collapse of a major tunnel in Japan. The following are comments made by Rice Farmer in emails. They serve to illustrate the parlous state of infrastructure in Japan and quite how far collapse has progressed there

Infrastructure collapse in Japan

“I'm sure you heard about the tunnel ceiling collapse here. The government and media are trying to convince the public that it happened simply because of lax management, but in fact this country has countless tunnels built a half-century or more ago that could collapse any time. There simply isn't enough money to maintain everything. On the way to town there's a tunnel that's 1.6 km long....

“It was actually the ceiling panels that collapsed. If seismic activity had anything to do with this, it was merely the final stroke. The whole ceiling had deteriorated and the bolts holding the panels had corroded. In the final analysis, it's a matter of insufficient funds to check and maintain the huge number of tunnels. Metropolitan Tokyo itself has a HUGE infrastructure problem. Its system of elevated expressways is full of cracks, and salt has infiltrated the rebar, so corrosion is proceeding from the inside. Much of the sewer system needs to be replaced. Etc. Glad I don't live there. Here were I live, if the flush toilet stops I can dig a hole out back. But what are people in the cities going to do? It's going to be a monumental disaster."