Japan Earthquake (Fri 11th March)

[John]

I have separated this part from the above, just to separate it from the reactor talk and to make reading easier.


My father works in the nuclear fusion industry (ITER to be exact) and used to be based in Tokai (near Mito) in Japan (roughly 80 miles north of Tokyo). You may recognise this photo from Mito.: http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2011/ ... pan_24.jpg

My parents are still waiting to hear from their friends in the area - there is no electricity or water (so no email).

A friend from Abiko (near Tokyo) however send the following by email:
"In Mito area (JAEA in Tokai ) buildings were cracked badly and roads have crevas and holes here and there. Train stations are closed. There is no electricity, no water since yesterday. Toshi is driving for Abiko, as his appartment was badly damaged. My parents still insist to stay in their house in Mito. It is still shaking now and then, not too strong, but too frequent to worry us. Up in the north part of Japan, it is a real disaster; more than 1300 people are died or missing. Tsunami washed away cars and houses, which had good distance from the shore. It is like a mightmere. We are very lucky to be alive."


And just to help place Tokai, the epicentre, Sendai, is a further 150 miles north.

[JamieLei]

170,000 people evacuated from the area... - this is getting much worse than feared...

[John]

Just an update on the death count:

Meanwhile, police have warned that the death toll in tsunami-hit Miyagi prefecture alone could exceed 10,000.

And just to quote a friend from facebook:
"Getting really annoyed at the massive amount of disinformation and bias that Channel 4 and the BBC come up with if nuclear is mentioned. Not forgetting the disproportionate amount of coverage given to such a small part of a massive natural disaster. **Goes to write letter to the Daily Mail blaming it on foreigners and criminals**."

[CommanderZ]

I guess anything nuclear is extremely spicy for media, but I agree it is very annoying. I thought whole yesterday that there were "only" hundreds of dead and hundreds of missing people. And only in evening TV news they reported that entire city with 10k people disappeared Of course only after detailing the explosion at the nuclear power plant with several entries from experts etc.

Though I have to offer another view for discussion (warning: very cynical) : while the 10k is certainly huge tragedy, its impact relatively localized. But if there was a meltdown/major radiation leak from the nuclear plant, its impact would be global. I'm not speaking about effects of radiation, I'm speaking about politics and public opinion. It was only in recent years that interest in nuclear power was again on the rise after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. And I'm afraid we can't afford to suspend construction of new reactors for another 15 years, it might be too late then.

[Drury]

This is just... They don't deserve this.

[Bad Hair Day]

What I find disturbing is that some people are calling the quake karma for the bombing of Pearl Harbour and glorifying it all.

[Drury]

"They nuked Pearl Harbor!"

[Hyronymus]

What I find disturbing is that some people are calling the quake karma for the bombing of Pearl Harbour and glorifying it all.

And the "irony" in that is what happends to the karma of people who say/think it :s.

[Lord Aro]

What I find disturbing is that some people are calling the quake karma for the bombing of Pearl Harbour and glorifying it all.

I have also seen the picture, and i find it disgusting.
You only need to say 2 words to these people, before cutting off all contact with the person: 'Nagasaki, Hiroshima.'
For God's sake, i don't know exact figures but: a couple of thousand died at pearl harbour, but 120,000 died in the initial blasts in japan, and millions have been affected in tue years since. Grow up for God's sake.

[Geo Ghost]

What I find disturbing is that some people are calling the quake karma for the bombing of Pearl Harbour and glorifying it all.

One of my friends met someone like that the other night.
That person went home with a broken nose.

I can't believe people are so cruel and stupid to say such. Unfortunately most of them have been American that I've noticed so far. And whilst I mean no offence to any of our cousins from across the pond here as I'm aiming this at the select numbers who have been saying such horrible things... If that's the case, I wonder what 9/11 was Karma for if we're using their level of 'intellect'.

Also, NYTimes put together some before and after satellite photos. It's... just devastating.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011 ... unami.html

Lord Aro: Very true words sir. If that doesn't put it in perspective for people saying such things then may as well take them out of the gene-pool for ignorance and stupidity now. And also... Pearl Harbour occurred when there was a World War going on for crying out loud. How can two totally different events, decades apart, be compared!

[John]

Also, NYTimes put together some before and after satellite photos. It's... just devastating.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011 ... unami.html

There's also a youtube video from inside Sendai Airport: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_6iDBoOvb0

What is quite impressive is that there were no commercial airliners at the airport. According to the schedule there should have been at least 3 parked up (ranging from 737 to 767). They had 15 minutes from quake to tsunami striking. No-one (certainly on airliners.net) seems to know how the hell they managed to get them all into the air that quickly...

They now also have almost no way of getting relief supplies up to the north as all the infrastructure has gone.


And judging by some of the eyewitness accounts people had around 5 minutes to escape after the warnings went out. This probably saved countless more lives.

[Dave]

Reporter on BBC on Saturday was waxing lyrical about this being Japan's first real nuclear emergency...

What?

Anyway, terribly sad moments. Have seen the video of the boat being swept away. Insane what nature can do really.

[JamieLei]

Facebook homepage:

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. Summary here.

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.

One of my friends is leaving for London today. Companies are beginning to evacuate their foreign workers, or move them to other parts of the country such as here in Kansai. I'm staying put, even if it gets to the rolling blackout stage.

[SHADOW-XIII]

I am following (trying to) from the beginning, I am amazed by engineers who were building both nuclear plants and normal buildings that withstand earthquake of magnitude 9 in Richter scale (while supposedly nuclear plants were suppose to last only 7.3-7.5 from what I heard and that's HUGE difference of power between those 7.5 and 9.0). But tsunami following so shortly (and quickly) after earthquake was nearly impossible to avoid.

I feel sorry for Japan but I believe they were the best prepared as you could be, best prepared nation from all over the world, and still they are quite organized afterwards (while imaging this hitting US/UK/EU would cause much bigger chaos).

[Geo Ghost]

Another explosion at the Fukashima nuclear power plant.
This time it is the Reactor 3 building. Larger explosion but it was the same reason as Reactor 1 with a hydrogen explosion/High-pressure.

Hopefully that's the last time anything will happen at the plant. I don't want to see what might happen next

[JamieLei]

The weather forecast has been revised to blow inland from Fukushima. Not looking good. US Navy soldiers confirmed to have radiation experience.

[michael blunck]

The situation in Fukushima I block 3 is more dangerous as in block 1, simply because it´s fitted with MOX fuel containing plutonium as well and having a lower melting point, and its output power being 60% higher than for block 1, hence there´s a higher amount of decay heat.

Meanwhile, there´s melting of fuel bundles occuring in block 2 as well.

regards
Michael

[CommanderZ]

Found awesome article about how Japanese handled the earthquake.

A few quotes:

The overwhelming response of Japanese engineering to the challenge posed by an earthquake larger than any in the last century was to function exactly as designed. Millions of people are alive right now because the system worked and the system worked and the system worked.

There is currently a lot of panicked reporting about the problems with two of Tokyo Electric’s nuclear power generation plants in Fukushima. Although few people would admit this out loud, I think it would be fair to include these in the count of systems which functioned exactly as designed. For more detail on this from someone who knows nuclear power generation, which rules out him being a reporter, see here.
The instant response — scramming the reactors — happened exactly as planned and, instantly, removed the Apocalyptic Nightmare Scenarios from the table.
There were some failures of important systems, mostly related to cooling the reactor cores to prevent a meltdown. To be clear, a meltdown is not an Apocalyptic Nightmare Scenario: the entire plant is designed such that when everything else fails, the worst thing that happens is somebody gets a cleanup bill with a whole lot of zeroes in it.

Many of our clients are in the general vicinity of Tokyo. When Nagoya (again, same island but very far away) started shaking during the earthquake, here’s what happened:
T-0 seconds: Oh dear, we’re shaking.
T+5 seconds: Where was that earthquake?
T+15 seconds: The government reports that we just had a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the coast of East Japan. Which clients of ours are implicated?
T+30 seconds: Two or three engineers in the office start saying “I’m the senior engineer responsible for X, Y, and Z universities.”
T+45 seconds: “I am unable to reach X University’s emergency contact on the phone. Retrying.” (Phones were inundated virtually instantly.)
T+60 seconds: “I am unable to reach X University’s emergency contact on the phone. I am declaring an emergency for X University. I am now going to follow the X University Emergency Checklist.”
T+90 seconds: “I have activated emergency systems for X University remotely. Confirm activation of emergency systems.”
T+95 seconds: (second most senior engineer) “I confirm activation of emergency systems for X University.”
T+120 seconds: (manager of group) ”Confirming emergency system activations, sound off: X University.” ”Systems activated.” ”Confirmed systems activated.” ”Y University.” ”Systems activated.” ”Confirmed systems activated.” …

[John]

Found awesome article about how Japanese handled the earthquake.

That article also links to this one about the nuclear situation: https://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011 ... -reactors/


An interesting read, from someone who claims he knows what he is talking about. Makes a change from all the current media...

[Kamikazi spoon]

Here's a good read if anyone's interested in the nuclear reactor situation. So much better, informative and less hyped than any of the bbc material with their "experts" talking to incompetent presenters.

Now, where does that leave us?

* The plant is safe now and will stay safe.
* Japan is looking at an INES Level 4 Accident: Nuclear accident with local consequences. That is bad for the company that owns the plant, but not for anyone else.
* Some radiation was released when the pressure vessel was vented. All radioactive isotopes from the activated steam have gone (decayed). A very small amount of Cesium was released, as well as Iodine. If you were sitting on top of the plants’ chimney when they were venting, you should probably give up smoking to return to your former life expectancy. The Cesium and Iodine isotopes were carried out to the sea and will never be seen again.
* There was some limited damage to the first containment. That means that some amounts of radioactive Cesium and Iodine will also be released into the cooling water, but no Uranium or other nasty stuff (the Uranium oxide does not “dissolve” in the water). There are facilities for treating the cooling water inside the third containment. The radioactive Cesium and Iodine will be removed there and eventually stored as radioactive waste in terminal storage.
* The seawater used as cooling water will be activated to some degree. Because the control rods are fully inserted, the Uranium chain reaction is not happening. That means the “main” nuclear reaction is not happening, thus not contributing to the activation. The intermediate radioactive materials (Cesium and Iodine) are also almost gone at this stage, because the Uranium decay was stopped a long time ago. This further reduces the activation. The bottom line is that there will be some low level of activation of the seawater, which will also be removed by the treatment facilities.
* The seawater will then be replaced over time with the “normal” cooling water
* The reactor core will then be dismantled and transported to a processing facility, just like during a regular fuel change.
* Fuel rods and the entire plant will be checked for potential damage. This will take about 4-5 years.
* The safety systems on all Japanese plants will be upgraded to withstand a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami (or worse)
* I believe the most significant problem will be a prolonged power shortage. About half of Japan’s nuclear reactors will probably have to be inspected, reducing the nation’s power generating capacity by 15%. This will probably be covered by running gas power plants that are usually only used for peak loads to cover some of the base load as well. That will increase your electricity bill, as well as lead to potential power shortages during peak demand, in Japan.

Edit: lol, bad timing for me to post a duplicate to the one john just put up

What I find disturbing is that some people are calling the quake karma for the bombing of Pearl Harbour and glorifying it all.

here's someone to add to the list:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX80v...layer_embedded