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

I thought they were blocking access to high-bandwidth sites like youtube to free up as much of the net speed as possible for communications?
 
Some good news.

livingsocial.com said:
Despite high levels of radiation close to the units, levels detected at the edge of the power plant site have been steadily decreasing [the below is given in reverse chronological order].
17 March, 4.00pm: 0.64 millisieverts per hour
17 March, 9.00am: 1.47 millisieverts per hour
16 March, 7.00pm: 1.93 millisieverts per hour
16 March, 12.30pm: 3.39 millisieverts per hour
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NEI.org @ 17:45 EDT (13:45 GMT) Thursday said:
NEI has uploaded three new videos to its YouTube channel. The first features Art Stall (Retired), President and Chief Nuclear Officer of NextEra Energy, discussing how the U.S. nuclear industry prepares for natural and man-made disasters. The second and third videos feature Jeff Merrifield, former NRC commissioner and senior vice president at The Shaw Group, discussing next steps for implementing lessons learned from Japan and confidence that construction of new U.S. nuclear plants should continue.

UPDATE AS OF 5:00 P.M. EDT, THURSDAY, MARCH 17:

It is unlikely that radiation released from the nuclear reactors in Japan will harm anyone in the United States, President Obama said in a press briefing this afternoon.

"We do not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach the United States, Hawaii, Alaska or U.S. territories in the Pacific," Obama said. He added that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "does not recommend that people in the U.S. take precautionary measures other than staying informed."

Obama said "our nuclear plants have undergone exhaustive study and have been declared safe for any number of contingencies." However, he said that when there is an event such as the Fukushima accident, "we should learn from that. That's why I have asked the NRC to do a comprehensive review of our nuclear plants" in light of the natural disaster that has happened in Japan.

In a briefing earlier on Thursday, Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said, "There can't be any harm to anyone in the United States" from the Japanese nuclear power plant.

Dan Poneman, the deputy secretary of energy, said today that two U.S. flights to Japan collected information on radiation levels. These readings informed the decision to recommend that Americans evacuate an area 50 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility.

Poneman expressed confidence in the safety of U.S. nuclear power plants, saying they're evaluated on a "minute by minute" basis. Taking safety precautions "goes back decades," he said. Tough safety standards have been in effect and upgraded since 1979, he said.

Status of Fukushima plants

In Japan, engineers have laid a power line that can connect reactor 2 of the Daiichi facility to the off-site power grid, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported. Workers are working to reconnect the power to reactor 2 after they complete spraying water into the reactor 3 complex to provide additional cooling to the used fuel pool. Reconnecting to the power grid is expected to enhance efforts to prevent further damage at the plant.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency reported on Thursday that the backup diesel generator for reactor 6 is working and supplying electricity to reactors 5 and 6. TEPCO is preparing to add water to the storage pools that house used nuclear fuel rods at those two reactors.
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NEI.org @ 22:20 EDT (18:00 GMT) on Thursday said:
TEPCO continues to install cables, transformers and distribution equipment to restore offsite grid power to Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1 and 2. Reactor 1 has now been included in the power restoration plan.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano said in a recent conference that plans are in place to use 30 water cannon trucks and fire engines to spray water into the reactor 3 spent fuel pool, and TEPCO is discussing whether to do the same for the reactor 1 spent fuel pool. The spraying work is to be done in the next few hours, after the cable work is completed.
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Todge said:
Some good news.
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... and a little bad news:

Japan's nuke agency raises accident severity level to 5 from 4

TOKYO, March 18, Kyodo


Japan's nuclear safety agency said Friday that it has raised the severity level of the country's nuclear accident involving the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station to 5 from 4 on a 7-level international scale.

The provisional evaluation would mean that the country's disaster has come to the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979.

==Kyodo
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simulatorman said:
... and a little bad news:
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Considering that in that quote they say its now rated on the same level as TMI and TMI really wasn't even a blip on the scale in real terms I wouldn't say its that bad really.

Level 5: Accident with wider consequences

Impact on People and Environment
Limited release of radioactive material likely to require implementation of some planned countermeasures.
Several deaths from radiation.

Impact on Radiological Barriers and Control
Severe damage to reactor core.
Release of large quantities of radioactive material within an installation with a high probability of significant public exposure. This could arise from a major criticality accident or fire.

Examples:
  • Windscale fire (United Kingdom), 10 October 1957. Annealing of graphite moderator at a military air-cooled reactor caused the graphite and the metallic uranium fuel to catch fire, releasing radioactive pile material as dust into the environment.
  • Three Mile Island accident near Harrisburg, PA (United States), 28 March 1979. [3] A combination of design and operator errors caused a gradual loss of coolant, leading to a partial meltdown. Radioactive gases were released into the atmosphere.
  • First Chalk River Accident,[citation needed] Chalk River, Ontario (Canada), 12 December 1952. Reactor core damaged.
  • Goiânia accident (Brazil), 13 September 1987. An unsecured caesium chloride radiation source left in an abandoned hospital was recovered by scavenger thieves unaware of its nature and sold at a scrapyard. 249 people were contaminated and 4 died.
  • 2011 Fukushima I nuclear accidents (preliminary)
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Remember, it doesn't have to match all of those criteria to be scaled up, just some.
 
This deserves to be here rather than the video thread.

You can never be prepared for when a tsunami strikes but you can be when an earthquake strikes:

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