Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster In Japan

[Timkin]

sad..   there just are no other words ..

[buckethead]

Why is there no looting in Japan?
The landscape of parts of Japan looks like the aftermath of World War Two; no industrialised country since then has suffered such a death toll. The one tiny, tiny consolation is the extent to which it shows how humanity can rally round in times of adversity, with heroic British rescue teams joining colleagues from the US and elsewhere to fly out.

And solidarity seems especially strong in Japan itself. Perhaps even more impressive than Japan’s technological power is its social strength, with supermarkets cutting prices and vending machine owners giving out free drinks as people work together to survive. Most noticeably of all, there has been no looting, and I’m not the only one curious about this.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100079703/why-is-there-no-looting-in-japan/

I was thinking about this watching the vid shot by the guy on the bike. Not a single person carrying a TV.

[Timkin]

I think the Japanese people have much more important fears and concerns at present. I would imagine looking for missing , possibly and probably deceased loved ones, and basic necessities would be their priority.  I feel extremely sympathetic for these people.  This is one of those times where I truly wish the entire world could unite and help each other, because these folks need every bit of help the world can offer.  Their situation is horrible.  I cannot even fathom the amount of terror they have witnessed...at least, those who survived.

[jandar]

Different cultures, they even stand in long lines patiently for water.


Most of the looters in New Orleans were people accustomed to getting hand outs from the government and society.

Most of the looting after the floods in Britain were by normal people. Breaking into cars, stealing free water, etc.

In Chile, the army had to be called in due to looting.

In Japan, they wait patiently. Its amazing.

[JeffreyS]

It is a true testament to the Japanese people.

[thekillingwax]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LPGzzaSsbU

I found something about this video to be absolutely terrifying, almost nauseating- seeing the ground undulate like that along with the liquefaction while everything else seems so calm. It's so creepy.

[JeffreyS]

That is one freaky video especially the end.

[thekillingwax]

Okay, so now there's supposedly a huge fire at reactor 4. #4 was totally offline for inspection before the earthquake but there's something very wrong because radiation levels are getting very high around it. If the facility was damaged by one of the previous explosions, TEPCO made absolutely no mention of it. I can't honestly judge what's going on at the moment but up until several hours ago TEPCO was saying that everything's basically under control and all of a sudden a supposedly totally inactive reactor building is on fire spewing radiation? I don't buy it.

[Timkin]

Well..... given the circumstances of the last 3 days, potentially anything could go wrong.. This just keeps getting worse

[peestandingup]

Well..... given the circumstances of the last 3 days, potentially anything could go wrong.. This just keeps getting worse

Yeah, its bad. From what I can gather from digging the last several hours:

Three reactors have had major explosions in a couple days time & are said to be near full meltdown, one other is on the verge of its initial explosion, while a remaining one is starting to have the same coolant failures that the others had at the beginning. Less than 50 workers remain at the complex & some are rumored to basically be the "walking dead", meaning they've already had very high exposure & are probably making their last stand to regain control. If only one reactor goes full meltdown, they'll likely either die right there or be helpless to do anything about the others, because they're so close together & it wouldn't matter at that point anyway. In other words, they'll all likely meltdown. Or at least those that have started the process already & are still "hot".

They've upgraded the nuclear emergency level to a 6 (7 is the max & means a full blown meltdown is in progress). The evacuation distance has been pushed back again, iodine tablets have been passed out to hundreds of thousands of people & they've started teaching fallout readiness procedures to the public in the surrounding areas.

Oh, and to top it off, from what I understand some of these reactors were storing spent (already used up) fuel rods in suspension pools & are they themselves now starting to overheat. Those things are still highly radioactive BTW.

Don't know how accurate some of this is, I'm obviously not there, but it's what I've gathered from bits & pieces from credible looking sources, watching the news, etc.

So it seems like this is the real deal folks & may turn out to be the daddy of all nuclear accidents. Everything that could have gone wrong has. My gut tells me we're going to be seeing some seriously disturbing shit in the next couple days. I guess there's always a chance & a miracle could happen, but it ain't looking good.

Oh, and I didn't even mention the jet stream potentially picking some of this crap up & dumping it on our own country's doorstep out west.

[fsujax]

good thing they didnt build those reactors on reclaimed land. Liquifaction is one of the most interesting phenomena of an earthquake.

[Shwaz]

Well..... given the circumstances of the last 3 days, potentially anything could go wrong.. This just keeps getting worse

Yeah, its bad. From what I can gather from digging the last several hours:

Three reactors have had major explosions in a couple days time & are said to be near full meltdown, one other is on the verge of its initial explosion, while a remaining one is starting to have the same coolant failures that the others had at the beginning. Less than 50 workers remain at the complex & some are rumored to basically be the "walking dead", meaning they've already had very high exposure & are probably making their last stand to regain control. If only one reactor goes full meltdown, they'll likely either die right there or be helpless to do anything about the others, because they're so close together & it wouldn't matter at that point anyway. In other words, they'll all likely meltdown. Or at least those that have started the process already & are still "hot".

They've upgraded the nuclear emergency level to a 6 (7 is the max & means a full blown meltdown is in progress). The evacuation distance has been pushed back again, iodine tablets have been passed out to hundreds of thousands of people & they've started teaching fallout readiness procedures to the public in the surrounding areas.

Oh, and to top it off, from what I understand some of these reactors were storing spent (already used up) fuel rods in suspension pools & are they themselves now starting to overheat. Those things are still highly radioactive BTW.

Don't know how accurate some of this is, I'm obviously not there, but it's what I've gathered from bits & pieces from credible looking sources, watching the news, etc.

So it seems like this is the real deal folks & may turn out to be the daddy of all nuclear accidents. Everything that could have gone wrong has. My gut tells me we're going to be seeing some seriously disturbing shit in the next couple days. I guess there's always a chance & a miracle could happen, but it ain't looking good.

Oh, and I didn't even mention the jet stream potentially picking some of this crap up & dumping it on our own country's doorstep out west.

Maybe a little more research was necessary before handing out the crown for ‘daddy’ of all nuclear accidents… I believe the rumors about the 'walking dead' are just that. Any links to support?

Q: What about the radiation released? Is it dangerous?


A: It would appear that some of the nuclear fuel in FD1 has melted and released gaseous fission products to the interior of the reactor. These would include xenon, krypton, and iodine. There are about seven isotopes of xenon that are radioactive and would be released in such an incident, with atomic masses of 133, 135, 137, and 138, along with three isomers, 131m, 133m, and 135m. With the exception of the isomers, each of these xenon atoms will decay into cesium and some into other elements past cesium. There is also krypton but its radioactivity and decay products are of less concern.

Xenon itself is not particularly dangerous. It is a noble gas and is not concentrated in the body. Cesium is more of a concern. Here are the seven decay sequences:

Xenon-131m will decay to stable xenon-131.
Xenon-133m will decay to radioactive xenon-133.
Xenon-133 will decay to stable cesium-133.
Xenon-135m will decay to radioactive xenon-135.
Xenon-135 will decay to very mildly radioactive cesium-135.
Xenon-137 will decay to radioactive cesium-137.
Xenon-138 will decay to radioactive cesium-138 and then quickly to stable barium-138.

Of all of these, the decay of xenon-137 to cesium-137 is probably responsible for the most risk, but xenon-137 decays so quickly that the mobility of cesium-137 is limited. I do not think this poses much risk because it can’t get far. The xenon-135 has a longer half-life (9 hours) but decays to a nearly harmless form of cesium (135). I think this poses almost no risk due to the very long half life of cesium-135.

Q: Is this like the Chernobyl disaster? Could it be?

A: No, absolutely not. The Chernobyl disaster was a combination of a bad reactor design coupled with a bad operational sequence. It led to a steam explosion, a burning reactor, and no containment building so radioactive byproducts were spread far and wide. Fundamentally, Chernobyl was driven by fission energy (95% of the energy produced in a nuclear reactor) not by decay heat energy (5% of the energy produced in a nuclear reactor).

The circumstances at Fukushima-Daiichi are very different. The reactors shut down successfully and their heat generated from the decay of fission products began to drop rapidly. Take a look at this graph:

It has been several days since the reactors were shut down and they are now generating only about 0.5% of the thermal power they were generating before. Assuming that they were generating about 1500 thermal megawatts of power, now they’re only generating about 7 megawatts of thermal power. Nevertheless, that heat needed to be removed through cooling systems, but there’s not nearly enough power there to cause a Chernobyl-type incident.

[Shwaz]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-asia-pacific/

It's just as bad as it sounds'
“It’s just as bad as it sounds,” he said. “What they have not been able to do is restore cooling of the radioactive core to prevent overheating and that’s causing a variety of problems, including a rise in temperature and pressure with the containment (buildings).
“What’s critical is, are they able to restore cooling and prevent fuel damage? If the fuel starts to get damaged, eventually it will melt through the reactor vessel and drop to the floor of the containment building,” raising the odds that highly radioactive materials could be released into the environment.
But Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the U.S.-based Nuclear Energy Institute, said that while the situation was serious, a meltdown remains unlikely and, even if it occurred would not necessarily pose a threat to public health and safety.
“Obviously that wouldn’t be a good thing, but at Three Mile Island about half the core melted and, at the end of the day … there were no adverse impacts to the public,” he said.

[peestandingup]

Maybe a little more research was necessary before handing out the crown for ‘daddy’ of all nuclear accidents…

And maybe you should read a bit more thoroughly before responding?? Lemme help you:

Yeah, its bad. From what I can gather from digging the last several hours:

Three reactors have had major explosions in a couple days time & are said to be near full meltdown, one other is on the verge of its initial explosion, while a remaining one is starting to have the same coolant failures that the others had at the beginning. Less than 50 workers remain at the complex & some are rumored to basically be the "walking dead", meaning they've already had very high exposure & are probably making their last stand to regain control. If only one reactor goes full meltdown, they'll likely either die right there or be helpless to do anything about the others, because they're so close together & it wouldn't matter at that point anyway. In other words, they'll all likely meltdown. Or at least those that have started the process already & are still "hot".

They've upgraded the nuclear emergency level to a 6 (7 is the max & means a full blown meltdown is in progress). The evacuation distance has been pushed back again, iodine tablets have been passed out to hundreds of thousands of people & they've started teaching fallout readiness procedures to the public in the surrounding areas.

Oh, and to top it off, from what I understand some of these reactors were storing spent (already used up) fuel rods in suspension pools & are they themselves now starting to overheat. Those things are still highly radioactive BTW.

Don't know how accurate some of this is, I'm obviously not there, but it's what I've gathered from bits & pieces from credible looking sources, watching the news, etc.

So it seems like this is the real deal folks & may turn out to be the daddy of all nuclear accidents. Everything that could have gone wrong has. My gut tells me we're going to be seeing some seriously disturbing shit in the next couple days. I guess there's always a chance & a miracle could happen, but it ain't looking good.

Oh, and I didn't even mention the jet stream potentially picking some of this crap up & dumping it on our own country's doorstep out west.

I never "crowned" anything, as this is still playing out. Save your graphs & "safety" jargon for a couple days & lets see where we're at. Or better yet, show the people of Japan & see what they think about it right now.

[Shwaz]

Well graphs and oh I don't know 'facts' seem to be the most important part in detailing a catastrophe. Not rumors / hearsay "I read the news and shit and people are like zombies all dead & stuff".