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

Guess my trip to japan on tuesday might not be happening. :( Trying to redirect our flight to somewhere else nearby...
 
drunkenmaster said:
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.
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Didn't see it but it's probably the same guy with his heavy emphasis on the nuclear aspect and it's effect on Tokyo, while still giving a live open air interview in Tokyo.....:rolleyes:
 
NathanE said:
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.
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Different situation, different county, different scale of event, different style of ruling. To name but a few.
 
Mr Krugga said:
Over half as big as the UK and twice as large population
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Due to geography they actually have less available land mass. Much of the country is too mountainous for anything but forestry or whatever their equivalent to sheep farming is.

Cultivated land is area is 46,993km2 in Japan vs 56,604km2 in the UK (17% smaller). I can't find stats for all land flat enough to be used for normal economic activity (or know what that may be called) though I doubt it could have the 10,000km2 of extra factories and buildings to pull ahead.
 
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Firestar_3x said:
Different situation, different county, different scale of event, different style of ruling. To name but a few.
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I have been wondering over the past day what may happen if the situation deteriorates sufficiently. Will we see a kamikaze mission by brave souls with fire hoses heading for the spent fuel pools.
 
#i've been following the nuclear side pretty much all day every day this week via a thread on another forum with quite a few Japanese posters and its been quite a ride and i'm sitting in london =/

What has truly appaled me is the utter ratings chasing that is going on from most of the press. Reporting either wrong information, or exagerated information, or general misinformation which in no way helps anyone but just scares them unnecessarily.

What has been readily apparent is that a massive amount of people are worried who have no idea a) how a nuclear power station functions, b) what actually happened at Chernobyl, c) why this is totally different from Chernobyl and to top it off d) they are trusting some of the most ridiculous news sources going because they seem to think that all news = 100% truth. So few seem inclined to educate themselves :(

My continuing fear is that this entire event, even if it gets resolved and there is no major radiation problems and no superheroes emerge or anything like that, stops production of new plants in western nations. I honestly don't think that can be allowed to happen.
 
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2zsms79.jpg


:eek:

Boston Big Picture has some great photos, as always.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/
 
Tummy said:
Chernobyl could have rendered very large parts of Europe uninhabitable. Shocking to think about what could have happened.

RE; worst case?
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That's an interesting read if he/she is correct (where did it come from?) and shows just how blown out of proportion this is if it's correct. Good old media.
 
Todge said:
#i've been following the nuclear side pretty much all day every day this week via a thread on another forum with quite a few Japanese posters and its been quite a ride and i'm sitting in london =/

What has truly appaled me is the utter ratings chasing that is going on from most of the press. Reporting either wrong information, or exagerated information, or general misinformation which in no way helps anyone but just scares them unnecessarily.

What has been readily apparent is that a massive amount of people are worried who have no idea a) how a nuclear power station functions, b) what actually happened at Chernobyl, c) why this is totally different from Chernobyl and to top it off d) they are trusting some of the most ridiculous news sources going because they seem to think that all news = 100% truth. So few seem inclined to educate themselves :(

My continuing fear is that this entire event, even if it gets resolved and there is no major radiation problems and no superheroes emerge or anything like that, stops production of new plants in western nations. I honestly don't think that can be allowed to happen.
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The accident is totally different to Chernobyl, the outcome SO FAR is quite different, the potential worst case scenario, shouldn't be as bad, but the actual, real worst case scenario isn't far off.

With Chernobyl a lot of stuff was spewed a very long way, most of that didn't actually do all that much, upset some Boar in Germany and some sheep in Wales, and some farmers standing behind the sheep, in reality the most damage was very local to Chernobyl, theres a fairly real chance of significant local damage from these plants, the worst case isn't miles off.

One of the biggest reasons people have been saying this "can't be a chernobyl" is because Chernobyl didn't have a containment building and these do, hate to tell you but the majority of radiation at the moment is being spewed out directly from WITHIN the containment building that people are talking about making this totally different. 2 of the containment buildings are severely damaged, a 3rd is severely damaged but no signs the pool is open to the air, though it might be.

Theres a very real chance, listed as a fear in the official status report that the open to air spent fuel rods in plant 4 could reach critical reactivity and start the chain reaction again, they've had one day long fire in there already, couple that + a fire spewing radiation into the air and you actually have something VERY close to Chernobyl, its not particularly likely to happen, theres still a decent chance it could.

The reactors themselves look safer, while they are hot and partial meltdown is almost certain to have occured in 3 of them, they are getting water continuously at the moment, they are venting the lightly radioactive steam from that cooling but thats magnitudes less bad than the cores going into full meltdown. Having cooling has already failed several times, bad situations in the other reactors has effected cooling around it, the explosion at 3 knocked out 4 of the 5 fire pumps they had for some time.

This isn't a small accident and it has potential to be huge, some media are saying like its almost a certainty, too many people are making completely false claims that this could NEVER be like Chernobyl and the danger is passed is another claim we've seen, both of those things are the LEAST accurate description of current events.

As for your continuing fear, get a grip and stop being naive, things wrong with these reactors, and most important the chain of events are INCREDIBLY important, if ANYTHING at all can be learnt and put into new reactors as increased safety measures then by all means new plants SHOULD be delayed and upgraded before they are built.

Will a reactor in germany suffer a Tsunami, bar an extinction level asteroid to an ocean, no, can back up generators on site get flooded in torrential rain, can power lines be knocked out requiring their immediate shut down, loss of primary cooling function and their backups run into trouble, yes, ANYTHING that leads to a safety increase would be worth the wait.

Frankly, as in EVERYTHING, history is the best teacher, mistakes at Chernobyl led to newer safety measures, same at Three Mile, this will to and unfortunately the next inevitable accident will also lead to improvements, thats how we've learned as the human race, through our mistakes.

Chernobyl, the problem is, as you said, misunderstood, it was very bad and yet, not very bad at all. The official death numbers are utter balls, the clean up crew of 600k people left 220k+ dead or disabled..... but ultimately years later its largely just a fairly overall quite small area of land left uninhabitable, in the grand scheme of things, its far from the worst disaster the world has ever seen, or will see. Its the worst nuclear accident and yet no where near the worst disaster in the world.
 
Some positives in an update from Kyodo:

Operation to pour water at Fukushima nuke plant said effective

TOKYO, March 18, Kyodo


An unprecedented attempt to douse an apparently overheating spent fuel pool with tons of coolant water at a stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima bore some fruit Thursday, but the emission of smoke newly confirmed at another pool suggests the difficulties that lie in the way of resolving the crisis triggered by the March 11 quake and tsunami.

Up to 64 tons of water were aimed by helicopters and fire trucks of the Self-Defense Forces as well as a water cannon truck of the Metropolitan Police Department into the pool at the No. 3 unit of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The utility said vapor rising from the partially destroyed No. 3 reactor building suggests the operation went some way toward cooling down the pool that could otherwise emit highly contaminated radioactive materials.

However, no major changes were seen in radioactive levels at the plant immediately afterward.
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The rest of the report and some photos of the plant:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79057.html
 
Anyone watching RT News (sky 512) footage on japan?

One of Their experts are claiming it will be a lot worse than chernobyl

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New expert says its not as bad?




6 reactors now a problem?
 
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badcompany said:
Anyone watching RT News (sky 512) footage on japan?

One of Their experts are claiming it will be a lot worse than chernobyl

Edit

New expert says its not as bad?

6 reactors now a problem?
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I think it's safe to say th word "expert" is thrown around more than a rugby ball in a welsh playground. Pointless even paying attention to the news now, i'm just looking and videos and pictures, they're the only thing telling the truth.
 
This is doing my head in because the last time I heard from a friend of mine who's backpacking, she was in Kyoto. I have no clue where she was heading next... :( Fingers crossed she's ok!
 
mrbios said:
I think it's safe to say th word "expert" is thrown around more than a rugby ball in a welsh playground. Pointless even paying attention to the news now, i'm just looking and videos and pictures, they're the only thing telling the truth.
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Yes, the front page of today's Metro featured a picture of a crying Japanese woman with the headline "THEY'RE LEAVING US TO DIE"

And you've got to love this background graphic from BBC news today

earth-quark.jpg
 
Yeah I've given up listening to anything an 'expert' says now, tbh none of them have any more of a clue whats going on there than we do. We've got every prediction from 'nothing to worry about' right to 'this will make Chernobyl look like a chip pan fire' now so it's just a waste of effort listening to them.
 
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