Earthquake in Japan....9.0...ouch!

[ThomasTheTankEngine]

You've got to hand it to the Soviets, they drafted in over 500,000 men to "clean up" the Chernobyl. Many of them died or received huge doses of radiation whilst serving their country. They basically treated it like a full scale war.

Contrast this with Japan's response, so far... and it is pretty poor. They seem to be tip toeing around the reactors now that they know radiation is high. So the only way out for them will be robotic technology. (Which the Soviet's used as well!)

Disclaimer: This post contains facts I have learnt from Wikipedia in the last 24 hours.

The difference was, that Chernobyl spewed out a crapload more radioactive material than the plant in Japan. Tip-toeing around the reactors when the radiation is high is pretty much the correct thing to do. They couldn't do this in Chernobyl because so much radioactive material was released, they had no choice but to clear it up before it got into the water-system and contaminated the whole of europe (more than it already had).

 

[merlin]

Did I just hear William Hague on the radio recommending all Brits in and North of Tokyo to either flee south immediately or simply get on a plane and leave the country full stop? Had radio on in background whilst on a call & couldn't quite catch all of it.

 

[JaffaJedi]

Did I just hear William Hague on the radio recommending all Brits in and North of Tokyo to either flee south immediately or simply get on a plane and leave the country full stop? Had radio on in background whilst on a call & couldn't quite catch all of it.

Yep thats what I heard as well. The UK Gov are putting on a couple of planes for UK folk to take them to Hongkong

 

[Edrof]

True Heroes.

+1

 

[Cosimo]

It’s pity that most of the TV reporting can’t be like Matt Frei’s report on the one o’clock BBC news. Everything covered, concise and no panicking.

 

[Dolph]

Did I just hear William Hague on the radio recommending all Brits in and North of Tokyo to either flee south immediately or simply get on a plane and leave the country full stop? Had radio on in background whilst on a call & couldn't quite catch all of it.

To be fair though, they should be recommending that even if there had been no nuclear incident at all. Japan during the clean up is not going to be a pleasant place, and leaving if you don't need to be there and aren't supporting the rescue/recovery effort makes absolute sense.

 

[leaskovski]

You've got to hand it to the Soviets, they drafted in over 500,000 men to "clean up" the Chernobyl. Many of them died or received huge doses of radiation whilst serving their country. They basically treated it like a full scale war.

Contrast this with Japan's response, so far... and it is pretty poor. They seem to be tip toeing around the reactors now that they know radiation is high. So the only way out for them will be robotic technology. (Which the Soviet's used as well!)

Disclaimer: This post contains facts I have learnt from Wikipedia in the last 24 hours.

How many died?

 

[merlin]

To be fair though, they should be recommending that even if there had been no nuclear incident at all. Japan during the clean up is not going to be a pleasant place, and leaving if you don't need to be there and aren't supporting the rescue/recovery effort makes absolute sense.

Fair point, but some Brits are keeping the wheels of Japanese industry turning.

And almost on that topic - does anyone think that this will but Japan back into recession?

 

[drunkenmaster]

How many died?

Of 600k(maybe 800k, 200K apparently cleaned up area's that weren't radioactive, or very very low) about 60k died and 165k I think ended up disabled, haven't seen what from but radiation poisoning can cause brain damage so I'd assume more that side, with some probably getting cancers in limbs and the like.


errm

-- Reactor No. 1 - Suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapor vented, building damaged Saturday by hydrogen explosion, seawater being pumped in.

-- Reactor No. 2 - Suspended after quake, cooling failure, seawater being pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapor vented, building housing reactor damaged Monday by blast at reactor No. 3, damage to containment vessel on Tuesday, potential meltdown feared.

-- Reactor No. 3 - Suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapor vented, seawater being pumped in, building housing reactor damaged Monday by hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby on Tuesday, plume of smoke observed Wednesday and presumed to have come from spent-fuel storage pool, severe damage to containment vessel unlikely, seawater dumped over pool by helicopter on Thursday, spraying water at it begun from ground.

-- Reactor No. 4 - Under maintenance when quake struck, fire Tuesday possibly caused by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, abnormal temperature rise in spent-fuel storage pool, fire observed Wednesday at building housing reactor, pool water level feared receding, renewed nuclear chain reaction feared.

Reactor 4, on an official "status" update from the guys in charge is worrying. Renewed Nuclear chain reaction feared, the fact they are listing that probably means they risk has gone up significantly.

The fact part of reactor 4's roof caved in rather than blew out on the other plants, if the pool has been covered then it could be incredibly difficult to get water into.

 

[Ranger07]

And almost on that topic - does anyone think that this will but Japan back into recession?

Probably initially but a disaster like this will create lots of jobs. The real problem might be levels of radiation around Fukushima power plants that could last for generations. The area around Chernobyl is still highly radioactive over 20 years later. I know this isnt the same as Chernobyl but the pollution in the surrounding area is going to take a long time to die off or clean up.

 

[mlbtheshow]

Reactor 4, on an official "status" update from the guys in charge is worrying. Renewed Nuclear chain reaction feared, the fact they are listing that probably means they risk has gone up significantly.

Apt.

They need that blasting out in the area of the nuclear plants to cheer them up a bit.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Probably initially but a disaster like this will create lots of jobs. The real problem might be levels of radiation around Fukushima power plants that could last for generations. The area around Chernobyl is still highly radioactive over 20 years later. I know this isnt the same as Chernobyl but the pollution in the surrounding area is going to take a long time to die off or clean up.

Its a strange situation, as of yet most of the radiation hasn't been terrible, but theres risk of it increasing to much worse types on a larger scale, still not hugely widespread.

The thing is though, the Tsunami wiped out so many coastal towns around the power plants that, essentially, the area is somewhat livable without the power plant problems, and the cleanup will take so long a huge number of the evacuated people would have had to find new places to live elsewhere anyway.

Without the Tsunami if the power plants went, you'd have a lot of lively towns, people and have to abandon(assuming the radiation got bad enough) all those towns, but right now, a lot of those towns are gone anyway, a lot of the evacuation would have happened purely because of the Tsunami.

It will be quicker to build new elsewhere, while cleaning up, than to clean up then start building, and it will be different people to do both jobs so, they can start building new, probably safer towns well away from the power plants anyway. Basically such a unique situation that they aren't making the situation longterm, that much worse.

 

[mrbios]

You've got to hand it to the Soviets, they drafted in over 500,000 men to "clean up" the Chernobyl. Many of them died or received huge doses of radiation whilst serving their country. They basically treated it like a full scale war.

Contrast this with Japan's response, so far... and it is pretty poor. They seem to be tip toeing around the reactors now that they know radiation is high. So the only way out for them will be robotic technology. (Which the Soviet's used as well!)

Disclaimer: This post contains facts I have learnt from Wikipedia in the last 24 hours.

One major difference though is that these days everyone knows what radiation can do to you.

Most of the soviets didn't have a clue of the consequences back then until it was too late.

 

[Mr Krugga]

One major difference though is that these days everyone knows what radiation can do to you.

Most of the soviets didn't have a clue of the consequences back then until it was too late.

And they didn't have much to say in regards to their own safety anyway.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Moron interviewing on BBC asking if theres a line they've come up with in terms of radiation levels before they'll evacuate and has that come yet. He was talking about Tokyo, what a complete arse, the levels in Tokyo are nothing, well nothing even close to worrying about, even then I'm sure those readings will be the northside of Tokyo and outside in the open air, by the time it gets to central Tokyo and people inside the levels will be much lower again. Trying to drum up fear and panic, they Japanese guy he was talking to looked unsure for a minute then said "you mean Tokyo" and kind of chuckled, realising what the interview was. That question MIGHT have been appropriate when talking about a town 200km north maybe which have shown mildly high levels of radiation.

"Today a shopkeeper who overcharged me for some fruit cycled to the bus station on the off chance of finding me to pay me back. Japanese spirit and kindness remains strong."

The opposite of profiteering, can't imagine what a bottle of water would cost in the UK if this happened anywhere near.

 

[Draeger]

People complaining about Sky News... why d'you watch it and give them a ratings figure?!

I don't watch it, I happened to flick through the channels to it on the way to BBC News.

You'd get more concise information watching Cbeebies tbh.

 

[thedoc46]

Probably initially but a disaster like this will create lots of jobs. The real problem might be levels of radiation around Fukushima power plants that could last for generations. The area around Chernobyl is still highly radioactive over 20 years later. I know this isnt the same as Chernobyl but the pollution in the surrounding area is going to take a long time to die off or clean up.

indefinately according to some nuclear experts.. So what is in store for Japan? WORST CASE scenario?? I mean the land mass is no bigger than the UK and its home to nearly 130million people. That's twice as many as the UK.. There's not a lot of room to move cities out of harms way. How big will the exlcusion zone be for them? 100 ? 200 miles? How big is it for Chenoybl ?

 

[JHeaton]

How big is it for Chenoybl ?

30km

 

[Tummy]

Chernobyl could have rendered very large parts of Europe uninhabitable. Shocking to think about what could have happened.

RE; worst case?

Let me now talk about what would be a reasonable worst case scenario. If the Japanese fail to keep the reactors cool and fail to keep the pressure in the containment vessels at an appropriate level, you can get this, you know, the dramatic word “meltdown”. But what does that actually mean? What a meltdown involves is the basic reactor core melts, and as it melts, nuclear material will fall through to the floor of the container. There it will react with concrete and other materials … that is likely… remember this is the reasonable worst case, we don’t think anything worse is going to happen. In this reasonable worst case you get an explosion. You get some radioactive material going up to about 500 metres up into the air. Now, that’s really serious, but it’s serious again for the local area. It’s not serious for elsewhere even if you get a combination of that explosion it would only have nuclear material going in to the air up to about 500 metres. If you then couple that with the worst possible weather situation i.e. prevailing weather taking radioactive material in the direction of Greater Tokyo and you had maybe rainfall which would bring the radioactive material down do we have a problem? The answer is unequivocally no. Absolutely no issue. The problems are within 30 km of the reactor. And to give you a flavour for that, when Chernobyl had a massive fire at the graphite core, material was going up not just 500 metres but to 30,000 feet. It was lasting not for the odd hour or so but lasted months, and that was putting nuclear radioactive material up into the upper atmosphere for a very long period of time. But even in the case of Chernobyl, the exclusion zone that they had was about 30 kilometres. And in that exclusion zone, outside that, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate people had problems from the radiation. The problems with Chernobyl were people were continuing to drink the water, continuing to eat vegetables and so on and that was where the problems came from. That’s not going to be the case here. So what I would really re-emphasise is that this is very problematic for the area and the immediate vicinity and one has to have concerns for the people working there. Beyond that 20 or 30 kilometres, it’s really not an issue for health.

 

[Mr Krugga]

I mean the land mass is no bigger than the UK and its home to nearly 130million people. That's twice as many as the UK..

Over half times larger than the UK and with twice as large population - 127M in Japan, 62M in the UK (with Tokyo having 13M population as opposed to 7.5M of London).