8.9-9.0? Quake in Japan, Tsunami triggered

[Jane]

I'm watching this live on the news, just incredible footage. If you're awake, turn on CNN or something.

If you live on the West coast by the beach, be aware of upcoming tsunami warnings!

[Tess Abrahams]

Oh man. Those poor people. :(

James says they've been upped from a watch to a warning over in the islands. He's moving my horses now to the ranch and getting the rest of the animals and himself moved up to high ground, just in case.

[Park Kraken]

I'd heard it was a 7.9 Earthquake originally, but holy wow if it was an 8.9 Earthquake. I've heard reports of hundreds of buildings on fire in Tokyo, and a 30 foot or so Tsunami inundating several coastal Japanese fishing ports on Hokkaido.

[Anna Fernandez]

It was indeed a 8.9 and now the OR coast has been upgraded to a tsunami warning and Hawaii is evacuating.

[Tear]

They say if a wave is going to hit hawaii it might hit around 2 P.M, apparently. Here's hoping there is no wave.

[Anna Fernandez]

2 am, I believe.

[Rutabaga]

If I read the info correctly, by the time the tsunmani hits us here on the west coast around 8am local time, it will be something like a 3 to 6 foot surge. Not nearly as bad as it was closer to Japan, but still capable of causing damage if people don't heed the warnings.

Plus I hear at least one nuclear plant in Japan is on fire...holy crap.

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by this disaster. :(

[Morgan Evanar]

Nuclear plant is ok, there is an oil refinery on fire though. This is really bad. =/

[Jedi Master Carr]

It is awful there, I heard reports that near where the Tsunami hit they found 200-300 bodies. This is really a bad disaster and the death toll will continue to rise. My thoughts are with the Japanese people right now.

[Jane]

We saw the explosion at the oil refinery LIVE - it was incredible. Felt like you could feel the heat coming out of the TV.

Tsunami waves are coming ashore here in Oregon now, the water keeps going out and coming back up on the beach - the real danger is some idiot walking their dog might get caught in a sudden surge and crazy tide, but other than that Oregon isn't going to see any damage.

Santa Cruz has some ships in a marina being swept inland.

And of course Japan has some coastal cities that have been completely obliterated. Praying for Japan right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPsHUlBp4PI some video that we've all probably seen before, but there's a little more of the guy on the bridge in Japan watching the wave throw boats toward him - looks like the water starts coming up on the bridge and all the cars start trying to get the heck out of there. :ohno

[Rhianna]

:ohno please mother earth, forgive the dumb species that inhabits you.

:(

[Jane]

They may upgrade this quake to a 9.0

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/03/powerful-japan-quake-sparks-ts.html

[Ilias Nytrau]

And one of my very good friends was just there very recently, in Japan, for three weeks. Thank goodness she's home now. |I

The kind of damage that's happened in Japan is ugly, horrific stuff. It makes me feel terrible for the people there and makes me think of all of the major earthquakes that have happened in the past year or so. Not to be all doomy, but it makes me wonder who's next. :ohno

[Peter McCoy]

My cousin is over there at the moment, studying. She's in Fukuoka and said she didn't feel a thing. She was buying a futon at the time, lol!

[Mu Satach]

Scary stuff. One of my co-workers is from Japan, thankfully her family is all ok. I never thought I would see photo's to rival the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.

[Rutabaga]

Yikes, one nuclear plant is in such bad shape they're apparently going to go ahead and vent radioactive gas to try to relieve the stress on the core, since the cooling system failed. If the core goes, it will be catastropic. :ohno

[Jane]

I'm not too worried about the nuclear plant, according to my sources at somethingawful these things are designed so well that even if it 'blows' it'll be inside the containment building.

Basically American media is fearmongering and comparing this very unfairly to Chernobyl.

[Mu Satach]

I guess we'll find out soon if that containment building works. An explosion has been reported at or near one of the plants.

[Darth Turbogeek]

Yikes, one nuclear plant is in such bad shape they're apparently going to go ahead and vent radioactive gas to try to relieve the stress on the core, since the cooling system failed. If the core goes, it will be catastropic. :ohno


No. It. Will. NOT. Excuse me for being terse, but the whole OMG ATOMZ the media is spewing is nothing but alarmist crap. The core can not go. The radiation being vented is barely beyond that of a chest XRay and will rapidly dissipate. Your average coal fired power station spews out much MUCH more radiation than this will - and in blunt reality the actual real problem is the myriad of chemical / fuel plants that have been destroyed that have thrown much more pollution into the area.

Literally the only thing that can crack the containment vesel is a nuclear bomb - the explosion was a turbine that could not handle the pressure of the cooldown. HOWEVER the reactor in this case uses water as a moderator - ie it NEEDS water to keep the reaction going. A rapid loss of water means the reactions stops and can not meltdown. The reactors right now are having problems releasing reidual heat - meltdown will not happen and nor will anything beyond this turbine - as said the real problems are the very real problems of many chemical plants destroyed.

The media are truly fuckign disgusting in their pathetic fearmongering.

However it was surreal to see live a Tsunami destroy quite large cities.

[Dasquian Belargic]

For UK posters, or anyone who has worked out how to view the iPlayer outside of the UK, the BBC has put together a News Special which brings together lots of just mind-boggling footage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00zxn24/BBC_News_Special_Japan_Special/

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12726628

more on the 3 nuclear plants


Two days after the alarm was first raised about safety at Fukushima Daiichi plant, uncertainty still surrounds the situation on the ground and the status of the three reactors that were functioning at the time of Friday's earthquake and tsunami.

It appears that a partial meltdown did occur in reactor 1.

On Sunday, officials said the same thing was suspected in reactor 3 - although later, they appeared to retract this statement.

What is certain is that engineers are still struggling to pump enough water past the reactors to keep the cores cool.

At noon local time (0400 GMT), Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which operates the plant, gave this status report:

Reactor 1 - shut down, under inspection because of Saturday's explosion, sea water and boric acid being pumped in

Reactor 2 - water level "lower than normal", but stable

Reactor 3 - high pressure coolant injection was "interrupted"; but injection of sea water and boric acid were under way.

Later, officials said seawater and boric acid were also being pumped into reactor 2.

They were still encountering problems - among them, a stuck valve. Its exact purpose was not revealed.

Venting of mildly radioactive steam continued at reactors 2 and 3, and officials warned that an explosion was possible in reactor 3's building.

The official line is that the reactor 1 explosion was caused by a build-up of hydrogen originally produced in the reactor, though this remains to be confirmed.

[Park Kraken]

From what I understand, the problem isn't so much from the reactors themselves (despite what the fearmongering media may otherwise claim) but from the spent fuel rods that rely on cooling from water and other sources to prevent them from spreading radiation. An actual Reactor core meltdown (aka Chernobyl) is virtually impossible with the safety standards to which the Japanese Nuclear Plants were built.

[Anna Fernandez]

I think the biggest disaster we're talking about here is that these reactor cores are shot, they've had to pump boron enhanced seawater into them to cool them off, and that ruins them. So its going to be very costly to replace and repair, and in the meantime there is an energy crisis going on in Japan.

The media is spending most of its time going ATOMS!! :ohno, while the real human tragedy of the tsunami and the 10s of thousands who are missing and dead is being sidelined. :colbert

[Figrin D'an]

The media is spending most of its time going ATOMS!! :ohno, while the real human tragedy of the tsunami and the 10s of thousands who are missing and dead is being sidelined. :colbert


Quoted for emphasis.

The level of media sensationalism over the reactor issues is sickening. Thousands of people are dead from one of the worst earthquakes on record, thousands more are injured and homeless, and all we get from certain media outlets is propaganda pieces about the "evils" of nuclear fission.

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12729138


Two thousand bodies have been found on the shores of Miyagi prefecture, Japanese media are reporting

The government announced it was pumping 15 trillion yen ($182bn; £113bn) into the economy to prop up the markets - which slumped on opening

Prime Minister Naoto Kan postponed planned rolling powercuts, saying they may not be needed if householders could conserve energy

The BBC's Rachel Harvey in the port town of Minami Sanriku says everything has been flattened until about 2km inland. It looks unlikely that many survivors will be found, she adds.

Japanese police have so far confirmed 1,597 deaths, but the final toll is expected to be much higher.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from the area around Fukushima Daiichi plant.

At least 22 people are now said to be undergoing treatment for radiation exposure.

[Anna Fernandez]

http://www.benlambert.co.uk/japan/

^^ Page with all the information from an excellent OP at somethingawful about the nuclear situation. Please pass this information along to anyone you know who is telling you we should all be taking iodine tablets right now. I already put it up on my facebook page, but this information really should get out there.

This situation is going to resolve itself and all we'll come away with (thanks to the media) is that WE GOT LUCKY, REALLY DODGED A BULLET THERE, and nuclear power is going to be set back another decade or two. Makes me mad. Where's all the uproar about all the pollutants and carcinogens that refinery fire is/was pumping into the atmosphere??

edit: and it really should be noted that these 40 yr old plants could actually have been almost perfectly safe and all of this avoided if the people running them had had extra diesel fuel on hand for the emergency coolant pumps. I think there has been some talk of falsified saftey checks in the past at these plants as well, which is really bad. Still, with all that, the 'fallout' (pardon the pun) from this situation is most likely going to be very minor compared to what the western media is hyping it up as.

And of course, US nuclear power plants are actually held to an even stricter code than the Japanese plants.

[Dasquian Belargic]

^ Slimmed down version of the above link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12732015

Also, a quote from the BBC's Breaking News updates:


20:39 - Regis de Lavison, who lives in Fukushima city - about 60km from the nuclear power plant - tells the BBC: "It's been nerve-wracking having the multiple tremors since the earthquake. We've been following the situation with the nuclear reactors - of course, that is a big concern. But at the same time, we see images of the tsunami and of the coastal towns being wiped out, so in a way we are very lucky. There is very little damage, just a few power outages, no running water, very little petrol, rationed food, but all that seems not that important."

[Jane]

The current situation at the #2 reactor is a little nebulous right now. There was an explosion and workers who aren't involved in pumping seawater into the reactor have been evacuated, but I'm not sure exactly where the explosion was inside the plant, or what it affected.

[Morgan Evanar]

Things are going bad and the reactor is now going to be unmanaged. The crew has been evacuated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html?_r=1&hp

[Darth Turbogeek]

Nah, it's actually looking up. Reports #1 and #3 are better off today, #2 under water pumping, fire at #4 (Which was not spent fuel rods or the reactor) is out.

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843


Radiation levels around Fukushima for one hour's exposure rose to eight times the legal limit for exposure in one year, said Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), which runs the 40-year-old plant. After Tuesday's blast, radiation dosages of up to 400 millisieverts per hour were recorded at the site. A single dose of 1,000 millisieverts causes temporary radiation sickness such as nausea and vomiting.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3396817&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 I suggest people read this thread (well, the OP) at somethingawful. The last update to the OP was at 8 am GMT, but its got lots of good information in it.

Last I heard the 400 mSv/hr reading was on the fourth floor of the #4 Daiichi reactor. Radiation has been going down since then.

IIRC there is still a lot of uncertainty about the spent fuel rod cooling pool at the #4 reactor. If a steam or other type of explosion or fire were to throw that stuff around that would be very bad. But there is no fire at the site anymore.

[Figrin D'an]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=21170

DailyTech posting about how MSNBC.com blatantly lied in their reporting on the safety of US nuclear power facilities, and continues to deny any wrong doing, despite the NRC showing how the reporter involved distorted the information which they provided for the story.