Earthquake/Tsunami Thread - FG Members Check In.

All this is surely not helping in dealing with the immediate repercussions of the earth quake and the tsunamis. If word gets out, that there might be a nuclear disaster actually happening, it will catapult the whole situation on a new level. People might leave in panic by the millions and re-building the area will seem like a suicide job.

Thernobyl was bad but at least they didn't have to cope with the aftermath of an 8.9 earth quake and a tsunami at the same time.

Strange thing is, I have seen pictures on TV last night about the Fukushima plant being completely flooded with water as a result of the tsunami. Yet I fail to find any picture or video of it on the internet. It's just a hunch but maybe the Japanese government is holding back information in order to prevent a mass exodus in the area in addition to the already grim situation.
 
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All this is surely not helping in dealing with the immediate repercussions of the earth quake and the tsunamis. If word gets out, that there might be a nuclear disaster actually happening, it will catapult the whole situation on a new level. People might leave in panic by the millions and re-building the area will seem like a suicide job.

Thernobyl was bad but at least they didn't have to cope with the aftermath of an 8.9 earth quake and a tsunami at the same time.

The worst part of all of that is that the damn earth still hasn't stopped shaking. All of these were in the last 90 minutes.

MAP 5.1 2011/03/12 09:40:44 38.867 142.829 25.0 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/12 09:27:12 37.436 143.716 25.8 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.4 2011/03/12 09:18:56 37.141 143.496 25.0 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.2 2011/03/12 09:00:03 37.328 143.591 41.3 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/12 08:52:50 37.221 143.659 38.1 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

And these were earlier in the day:
MAP 6.8 2011/03/12 01:47:16 37.588 142.682 24.8 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 6.2 2011/03/12 01:46:21 37.354 141.998 25.4 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 6.0 2011/03/12 01:34:10 38.748 142.853 24.5 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 6.1 2011/03/12 01:19:07 -16.727 -173.174 10.9 TONGA


I used to live in what I thought was earthquake country out in California (though I knew Japan got frequent small to moderate earthquakes); I was there for the Northridge and Loma Prieta quakes, among others. I've never seen anything like this; even the Mexico City or the recent Chilean one didn't look like this.
 
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Yeah, I just saw the change of the radius. There's some commentary that an unusual light flash caught during the explosion of the building might have been Cherenkov radiation - if so, hooo boy....

TEPCO, the company that runs the facility, is going to be holding a press conference in about 14 minutes.

Edit: Still no confirmation either way as to loss of containment.

ABC News (the American outfit) has a somewhat confused article up:
As of 11:20 a.m. local time, a part of the "fuel assembly" of fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's No. 1 reactor was exposed above water, with a maximum exposure of about 90 centimeters.

If the fuel rods remain exposed, they will be damaged, releasing radioactivity.

The article does not mention if they are sitting exposed to the outside world or if they just mean that the water level has dropped in the pressure vessel. One would hope the latter, but ABC's reporting blows as usual.
 
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I just read, that many people are already leaving the area, driving south.
 
So horrifying.

I'll respond since Viper's probably busy. We are fine, luckily Portland's not close enough to the ocean (although he's in Texas right now anyway) and I've got a huge chunk of land between me and the ocean.

I made a helpful map. ^_^

https://pic.armedcats.net/t/ta/talaaya/2011/03/12/Super_Helpful_Map.jpg

I wish anyone involved with this catastrophe the best of luck.
 
Yeah, I just saw the change of the radius. There's some commentary that an unusual light flash caught during the explosion of the building might have been Cherenkov radiation - if so, hooo boy....

TEPCO, the company that runs the facility, is going to be holding a press conference in about 14 minutes.

Edit: Still no confirmation either way as to loss of containment.

ABC News (the American outfit) has a somewhat confused article up:


The article does not mention if they are sitting exposed to the outside world or if they just mean that the water level has dropped in the pressure vessel. One would hope the latter, but ABC's reporting blows as usual.

Well, I can tell you one thing: When all has settled and the final analysis is out, it will certainly be said, that nuclear energy is save and controllable, that it has just been an "unlucky combination of circumstances", some neglection of safety measures and human failure and that in future something like this won't happen again.

Until next time...
 
MacGuffin, D-Fence, bunch of others: Can we leave the general nuclear power debate out of this, please?
 
Erm... the problem isn't going to be seaborne (if there is fallout or ejected contaminants). If most of this stuff goes into the sea, that would actually be better (thank you, dilution) - no, the problem is that it's going to be airborne and probably in the Polar jet stream... which goes right over you. It could also enter the Pacific jet stream, which tends to hit the southern half of the country.

Why is Viper down here? :p
 
MacGuffin, D-Fence, bunch of others: Can we leave the general nuclear power debate out of this, please?

Sorry, it's just all this happening in Japan right now, has left me shocked and also pissed big time.

And it WILL be debated, if you like it or not. I don't think you can contain this discussion to just expressing your feelings of sorrow for the victims and being glad, that no forum members got hurt.
 
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Well, I can tell you one thing: When all has settled and the final analysis is out, it will certainly be said, that nuclear energy is save and controllable, that it has just been an "unlucky combination of circumstances", some neglection of safety measures and human failure and that in future something like this won't happen again.

Until next time...

Counter-example: The US Navy. 100% containment safety record, and unlike civilian plants, theirs move around the planet, get shot at, get bombed/set on fire (See: 1969 Enterprise munitions explosion and fire), rammed into things and in some cases dropped pretty hard, and they still manage to do it successfully. In fact, we have EIGHT forty-eight-year-old reactors sailing around the world in formation on a regular basis - not a problem. In fact, right now, they're over in the Med, not all that far from Germany.

For work. He's at South by Southwest. I'm not familiar with that so I'll leave you to read the Wikipedia article. :p

I am - huge local music and arts festival down here.
 
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You seem to know something about nuclear plants and radiation, so elaborate or explain if you can: I read experts saying this is different type of plant to Chernobyl and that chances for a huge explosion sending radioactive particles flying all over the place would be pretty slim. Of course there's still the matter of the exposed core if it melts down.
 
You seem to know something about nuclear plants and radiation, so elaborate or explain if you can: I read experts saying this is different type of plant to Chernobyl and that chances for a huge explosion sending radioactive particles flying all over the place would be pretty slim. Of course there's still the matter of the exposed core if it melts down.

I'll explain it briefly and leave the details to Spectre: Chernobyl's reactor had no containment building (the powerplant building can't really be called a containment building) and its design allowed for a runaway chain reaction in certain circumstances.
 
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Sorry, it's just all this happening in Japan right now, has left me shocked and also pissed big time.

And it WILL be debated, if you like it or not. I don't think you can contain this discussion to just expressing your feelings of sorrow for the victims and being glad, that no forum members got hurt.

That's not my point. I'd just like to keep the focus on the nuclear disaster at hand and leave the general discussion until the facts are in ;)
 
I don't know what time they changed it, just saw it was 3km and then 10km at the announcement.

I may have misread the map earlier, there are 2 facilities very close, one with 4 reactors and one with 2 (from memory) they had different evacuation zones earlier, now they are the same, 20km.

I would guess that article means the rods are exposed from the water, not to the outside environment. That would mean they aren't being cooled and may melt.
 
I'll explain it briefly and leave the details to Spectre: Chernobyl's reactor had no containment building (the powerplant building can't really be called a containment building) and its design allowed for a runaway chain reaction in certain circumstances.

Didn't they fail to shut it down quickly and over-rode the safety whachamacallit? Sorry my brains a bit scrambled at the moment. My wife's working night shift and I'm looking after the rug-rat to top things off.

That's not my point. I'd just like to keep the focus on the nuclear disaster at hand and leave the general discussion until the facts are in ;)

Yeah, maybe it can be taken to another thread? Even though I live here it's good to get various English sources of info - even if a lot of the Western media is ill-informed and sensationalist.
 
Didn't they fail to shut it down quickly and over-rode the safety whachamacallit? Sorry my brains a bit scrambled at the moment. My wife's working night shift and I'm looking after the rug-rat to top things off.

Yup... and for my last post on the nuclear debate, all the overrides and the shutdown failure created those circumstances that led to the runaway reaction and the meltdown.
 
Not related or important but walked to Odaiba today and everything was shut down, will be until the 15th. I guess the Yurikamome monorail still being stopped might have something to do with it, perhaps also safety checks. It was like a ghost town.
 
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