Earthquake off Japan

[Sky Captain]

Now moving onto the the main issue itself. It is a sad reality that this will impact on the construction and general maintainable of nuclear power plans. Already there have been protests in England and other places. I do wonder how such concerns on nuclear powerplants will affect their future construction.

I guess it will be pretty bad especially if some more japanese reactors melts down. nearly everyone will be screaming how unsafe nuclear reactors are and how Japan narrowly avoided huge nuclear disaster. Good luck getting licences for new reactors in western world after this fiasco. Instead utility companies will keep already built reactors in service well past their designed lifetime thus making another serious breakdown more likely and build more fossil fueled plants to meet the rising demand.

[Master of Ossus]

What pisses me off is that this should really be a testament to the safety of nuclear power plants. A couple of 50-year-old facilities took what amounts to a direct hit from the fifth largest earthquake in recorded history (and the largest in the history of the most seismically active country on Earth), followed by a tsunami which wiped out most of the coastal settlements, and the main issue was whether they could maintain the viability of the reactors. They ended up losing the fight to save the reactors, and so they'll have to be shut down, but nothing happened--there was no substantial release of radioactive material and no one has died or likely will die from radiation. In the meantime, there's a terrible disaster in which many thousands of people died, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and lost their homes and livelihoods, and Japan is going to have to spend tens or hundreds of billions of dollars and many years to recover, and that gets second billing in the press to a nuclear accident that might, maybe be bad.

[Todeswind]

On facebook this morning.

Japan Earthquake Information - Updated Mar 14, 8:05AM

Scheduled Blackout
There will be a scheduled blackout (power outage) starting the morning of 3/14 in Tokyo, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, Yamanashi, and Shizuoka.
Areas will be divided into 5 groups and each group will experience about 3 hours of power outage.

Please refer to the TEPCO Homepage (as of now, the list is only provided in Japanese) to find out which group you are in and what time the power outage will occur in your group.

Train companies have announced that there will be irregular operation, including out of service hours.

JR | Tokyo Metro | Toei Subway/Bus | Tokyu | Odakyu | Keio | Tobu | Keikyu | Keisei

Major out of services are: Tokaido Line (all day), Yokosuka Line (all day), Yokohama Line (all day), Odakyu will only operate between Kyodo to Shinjyuku (all day), Keio will only operate between Chofu and Shinjyuku (during morning and evening rush hours).

The Facebook website will not be affected by this blackout.

About this box: Facebook uses this box to provide information to foreigners and visitors in Japan for the duration of the current crisis.

[Zixinus]

I myself am a bit confused on the radiation leakake though: some steam escaped and all, but how large (also, how much) and how dangerous material are we talking about?

[Broomstick]

To be honest, reports are a bit conflicting as to what, exactly, happened at the plant. No one received enough radiation to be in imminent danger of death, and so far as anyone knows, no one has even gotten in although some workers are being monitored and checked.

The only injuries reported so far - and there were a few - involved injuries from the quake. (Last I heard - although wasn't there something about a fall from a crane?)

It IS serious enough to require evacuation of civilians, particularly pregnant women and children, and to issue potassium iodide tablets, but that is an entirely appropriate reaction to release of radiation from a nuclear facility, even if the radiation levels aren't particularly high.

Some of the reports of peak radiation levels were high enough to cause minor to moderate illness in a short time frame IF you were standing on top of the source for 5-10 hours, but nobody was doing that and, as I said, it was at peak, not a sustained level.

So yes, it was an actual meltdown event and radiation was released. It was most emphatically NOT a Chernobyl, everyone should be able to go back home after a few days or weeks, and most likely the only people at any real risk of harm are the people who were working at the plant - and even they are unlikely experience anything more than mild radiation sickness, which they should completely recover from in a week at most, if not simply a couple days.

[MKSheppard]

Breaking:

A tsunami alert has been issued to various places in Japan. They are said to reach about 5m. People are advised to go to higher grounds ASAP.

Fox New's blurb had it being 10m high.

[MKSheppard]

BBC Live Feed:

Apparently Reactor No 3 at Fukushima has exploded (another hydrogen blast)

0227: There were two explosions at Reactor 3, the operator Tepco says - AFP.

[Eternal_Freedom]

This just keeps getting worse. Another tsunami? Christ this is bad. And another explosion at the power plant. Damn. I wish there was something I could do to help the situation besides donating to the organisations helping the survivors.

[MKSheppard]

0229: An ashen-faced Japanese quake monitor is live on Japanese TV right now saying no tsunami has been detected.
0231: No data to suggest a tsunami several metres in height, the monitor adds.
0234: Some 2,000 bodies were found today on two shores in Miyagi Prefecture, 1,000 on the Ojika Peninsula and 1,000 at Minamisanriku - Japanese news agency Kyodo.

[Simon_Jester]

At least the second tidal wave was a false alarm.

[Broomstick]

What could have triggered another tsunammi? Another quake? But wouldn't they mention that, too?

You realize, of course, that if the past few days had been the plot of a horror movie it would have been dismissed as implausible, right?

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's good, if only the second explosion was a false alarm as well.

[montypython]

What could have triggered another tsunammi? Another quake? But wouldn't they mention that, too?

You realize, of course, that if the past few days had been the plot of a horror movie it would have been dismissed as implausible, right?

This does go to show just how much more twisted and stranger real life is compared to fiction, indeed...

[Lanika]

After earth and water, here comes fire.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2 ... lders.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.s ... rmath.html
I know volcanic activities are common around there, but it just seems that they're just not getting a chance to take a breath after the events in the past few days.

EDIT: Woops, sorry for the repeat. Skipped the part where this had already been spoken of..

[Broomstick]

On the nuclear thing - on another message board there was a link to an article discussing it that seems fairly easy for the layperson to understand, and isn't hysterical or anti-nuclear (it's actually a pro-nuclear site). It's pretty long, so I'll just provide a link

[Broomstick]

There is a report of six workers injured at the #3 Fukushima reactor. The new explosion is believed to be another hydrogen explosion. The estimated 600 people left within 20 km of the plant have been advised to go inside their homes or other buildings and stay there.

Three workers from Fukushima are reportedly showing signs of radiation exposure, though no word on what symptoms or how severe. These are people who were inside the plants and very close to the radiation sources. Beyond the plant boundaries it is believed the radiation levels never reached a level that would make people sick.

Meanwhile, in the rest of Japan, the main concern is getting basic humanitarian supplies to people - food, water, clothing, etc. Also, finding survivors. Of course, folks can put up with lack of a lot of things for a couple days, but after those few days conditions will deteriorate further if the basics can't be supplied.

The government is publishing plans to have rolling blackouts as the surviving power plants (of all sorts) are not up to the task of providing all needed energy'

And, for the Stating the Obvious Award - the media is reporting that the Japese stock market "plunged" today and the quake/tsunami/quake/nuclear meltdown/volcano sequence has "seriously impacted" Japan's economy. Oh, you think? Of course, right now there are a lot of people more concerned with where food and water are coming from the next day than how their stock market is doing.

Really, I hope the disasters stop coming. This is just... just... over the top. And an uncomfortable reminder that the universe is a hostile place and for all our technology there are just some things we can't stop once they start happening.

ETA: Um... that volcano and its spewing of ash, smoke, etc. isn't going to interfere with airborne relief operations, is it?

[Todeswind]

For those of you who want to help with recovery efforts this is one group I recommend.

http://www.2hj.org/

[FSTargetDrone]

Nuclear issues aside, the shear scale of the cleanup everywhere else seems insurmountable, just from the video we're getting on the news. Ruptured gas lines, oils spills, burning oil, the various fluids that are sure to be leaking from the thousands of wrecked vehicles, sewage, other spilled chemicals, the debris and mud in general. Mud, mud, mud everywhere.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Not just mud, but horribly contaminated toxic mud. Several hundred square miles of verdant farmland, has essentially been covered in several feet of muck that has absorbed the house-hold pollutants and toxins of Thousands of houses along the way. The region of Japan is going to be an environment disaster for over a decade.

[Todeswind]

Not just mud, but horribly contaminated toxic mud. Several hundred square miles of verdant farmland, has essentially been covered in several feet of muck that has absorbed the house-hold pollutants and toxins of Thousands of houses along the way. The region of Japan is going to be an environment disaster for over a decade.

What is REALLY scary about this is that a lot of that land was previously farmland.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The tsunami false alarm was from a very strong offshore aftershock that appeared to trigger a landslide, but the collapse wasn't the right kind.

[Todeswind]

It feels odd to be living so normally when most of the country is un upheaval.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/photonews/arti ... &id=105398

[cosmicalstorm]

This stuff is going to be on Greeepeace posters for the next decade I guess

[Winston Blake]

Apparently according to the 'typical distribution of aftershocks', a magnitude 8 aftershock over the next few days is 'likely'. There is a risk that buildings which were weakened by the first quake may be collapsed by the 'main aftershock'. This will only cause another tsunami if the sea floor moves in a certain fashion.

NORTH-EASTERN Japan can expect another monster earthquake large enough to trigger a tsunami within days, the head of the Australian Seismological Centre says.

The director, Kevin McCue, said there had been more than 100 smaller quakes since Friday, but a larger aftershock was likely.

''Normally they happen within days,'' he said. ''The rule of thumb is that you would expect the main aftershock to be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, so you would be expecting a 7.9.

''That's a monster again in its own right that is capable of producing a tsunami and more damage.''

A government official today said the country faced a nervous wait.

"There is a 70 per cent possibility that an aftershock with a magnitude of seven or more will occur" within the next three days, Takashi Yokota, director of earthquake prediction and information at the Japan Meteorological Agency, said.

"The possibility is 50 per cent" during the three days from March 16, he added, pointing out that strong aftershocks have continued since Friday's quake and tsunami.

A magnitude-7 quake is capable of destroying buildings and triggering tsunamis.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Even the aftershocks are rated at 6 or so magnitude. Bloody hell!

And according to Sky News at 0900 this morning, cooling systems at Fukishima No. 2 reactor have malfunctioned and water levels in the core are falling.

These guys just can't catch a break can they?

Oh, yes. The US Navy has said the radiation level's are perfectly safe. But they are still pulling Seventh Flet back some.