OMG Earthquake?

[Bieksa(not really)]

What would you do if you were in my position?

I am very thankful that people on this forum have provided very helpful information, and links

that I might spend hours trying to find.

I have been watching Japanese TV for 2 days. I just stumbled upon this thread, and it has been very helpful

[Seguin]

BBM that is going around right now:

BBC FLASHNEWS: Japan government confirms radiation leak at Fukushima nuclear plants. Asian countries should take necessary precautions. If rain comes, remain indoors for first 24hrs. Close doors & windows. Swab neck area with betadine where thyroid area is, radiation hits thyroid first. Radiation may hit Philippines starting 4pm today. Please send to your loved ones.

don't know how true this is, but man...thats scary if true.

[Buggernut]

What would you do if you were in my position?

I am very thankful that people on this forum have provided very helpful information, and links

that I might spend hours trying to find.

I have been watching Japanese TV for 2 days. I just stumbled upon this thread, and it has been very helpful

Japanese media and Tweets from those at the scene aren't more reliable?

[German_Canucks_Supporter]

Japanese media and Tweets from those at the scene aren't more reliable?

Maybe they are, but the users who post them here filter the most interesting/important/recent ones out. So, actually, it's a lot easier to stay up-to-date here than through single media outlets or the extensive twitter-universe.

[key2thecup]

Nuclear fuel rods fully exposed at Japan reactor

(Reuters) - Nuclear fuel rods at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear reactor are now fully exposed, Jiji news agency said, quoting the plant's operator, Tokyo Eletcric Power Co .

The report referred to the Fukushima Daiichi complex's No.2 reactor, where levels of water coolant around the reactor core had been reported as falling earlier in the day.

The Jiji report said a meltdown of the fuel rods could not be ruled out. A meltdown raises the risk of damage to the reactor vessel and a possible radioactive leak, experts say.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/japan-quake-rods-idUSTKB00733720110314

Reactor Fuel Rods May Be Melting After Exposed a Second Time

Tokyo Electric Power Co. can’t rule out that the fuel rods are melting at the Fukushima Dai Ichi No. 2 reactor, heightening the risk of a meltdown, after water levels dropped, exposing them a second time.

An air flow gauge was accidentally turned off causing air pressure into the reactor to rise suddenly and blocking the flow of cooling water, the company said in a press conference on national broadcaster NHK’s website. Tokyo Electric is now attempting to reopen the valve to release pressure building inside the reactor and inject water to cool the rods, the company said.

This was the second time the fuel rods have been exposed at the earthquake-stricken nuclear power plant 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of Tokyo. Earlier yesterday Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the fuel rods may have melted after heat evaporated the water, leaving them fully exposed.

Radiation levels reached a record 3,130 microsieverts an hour at the monitoring site near the gate of the plant as of 9:37 p.m. March 14 local time, twice the previous record. Radiation had retreated to 326.2 microsieverts per hour at 10:35 p.m., the utility said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Akiko Nishimae in New York at anishimae3@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-14/reactor-fuel-rods-may-be-melting-after-exposed-a-second-time-1-.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cWzlX8B51k

Edited March 14, 2011 by key2thecup

[Wetcoaster]

There have been numerous and continuing aftershocks since the big quake (and a number of preceding it). Here is a graphic of the number of quakes over the past hour (red), day (yellow) and week (blue) off Japan:

And a list of earthquakes from around the world over the last week - noted how many are near Japan beginnng on March 9. There were 23 recorded before the big one and and just over 250 recorded since the big one:

Latest Earthquakes Magnitude 5.0 and Greater in the World - Last 7 days

Magnitude 5 and greater earthquakes located by the USGS and contributing networks in the last week (168 hours). Magnitudes 6 and above are in red. (Some early events may be obscured by later ones on the maps.)

The most recent earthquakes are at the top of the list. Times are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Click on the word "map" to see a ten-degree tall map displaying the earthquake. Click on an event's "DATE" to get a detailed report.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_big.php

From the Japan Meteorological Agency:

The activities of aftershocks of "The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake" has been very active. As of 15:10JST 14 March, the aftershocks larger than magnitude 7.0 occurred 3 times, and those larger than 6.0 occurred 44 times. The aftershocks have occurred in the large area off the coast of Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, and Ibaraki Prefectures. When compared to past cases, the activity of aftershocks is very high.

http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/News/2011_Earthquake_02.html

This makes search and rescue and recovery operations extremely hazardous as debris may shift or damaged structures collapse as the workers do their jobs.

Edited March 14, 2011 by Wetcoaster

[Wetcoaster]

The New York Times is reporting that experts say radioactive releases in Japan could last months as result of the problems with the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

March 13, 2011

Radioactive Releases in Japan Could Last Months, Experts Say

By DAVID E. SANGER and MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — As the scale of Japan’s nuclear crisis begins to come to light, experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.

The emergency flooding of stricken reactors with seawater and the resulting steam releases are a desperate step intended to avoid a much bigger problem: a full meltdown of the nuclear cores in reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. On Monday, an explosion blew the roof off the second reactor, not damaging the core, officials said, but presumably leaking more radiation.

Later Monday, the government said cooling systems at a third reactor had failed. The Kyodo news agency reported that the damaged fuel rods at the third reactor had been temporarily exposed, increasing the risk of overheating. Sea water was being channeled into the reactor to cover the rods, Kyodo reported.

So far, Japanese officials have said the melting of the nuclear cores in the two plants is assumed to be “partial,” and the amount of radioactivity measured outside the plants, though twice the level Japan considers safe, has been relatively modest.

But Pentagon officials reported Sunday that helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates — still being analyzed, but presumed to include cesium-137 and iodine-121 — suggesting widening environmental contamination.

In a country where memories of a nuclear horror of a different sort in the last days of World War II weigh heavily on the national psyche and national politics, the impact of continued venting of long-lasting radioactivity from the plants is hard to overstate.

Japanese reactor operators now have little choice but to periodically release radioactive steam as part of an emergency cooling process for the fuel of the stricken reactors that may continue for a year or more even after fission has stopped. The plant’s operator must constantly try to flood the reactors with seawater, then release the resulting radioactive steam into the atmosphere, several experts familiar with the design of the Daiichi facility said.

That suggests that the tens of thousands of people who have been evacuated may not be able to return to their homes for a considerable period, and that shifts in the wind could blow radioactive materials toward Japanese cities rather than out to sea.

Re-establishing normal cooling of the reactors would require restoring electric power — which was cut in the earthquake and tsunami — and now may require plant technicians working in areas that have become highly contaminated with radioactivity.

More steam releases also mean that the plume headed across the Pacific could continue to grow. On Sunday evening, the White House sought to tamp down concerns, saying that modeling done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had concluded that “Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Territories and the U.S. West Coast are not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity.”

But all weekend, after a series of intense interchanges between Tokyo and Washington and the arrival of the first American nuclear experts in Japan, officials said they were beginning to get a clearer picture of what went wrong over the past three days. And as one senior official put it, “under the best scenarios, this isn’t going to end anytime soon.”

The essential problem is the definition of “off” in a nuclear reactor. When the nuclear chain reaction is stopped and the reactor shuts down, the fuel is still producing about 6 percent as much heat as it did when it was running, caused by continuing radioactivity, the release of subatomic particles and of gamma rays.

Usually when a reactor is first shut down, an electric pump pulls heated water from the vessel to a heat exchanger, and cool water from a river or ocean is brought in to draw off that heat.

But at the Japanese reactors, after losing electric power, that system could not be used. Instead the operators are dumping seawater into the vessel and letting it cool the fuel by boiling. But as it boils, pressure rises too high to pump in more water, so they have to vent the vessel to the atmosphere, and feed in more water, a procedure known as “feed and bleed.”

When the fuel was intact, the steam they were releasing had only modest amounts of radioactive material, in a nontroublesome form. With damaged fuel, that steam is getting dirtier.

Another potential concern is that some Japanese reactors (as well as some in France and Germany) run on a mixed fuel known as mox, or mixed oxide, that includes reclaimed plutonium. It is not clear whether the stricken reactors are among those, but if they are, the steam they release could be more toxic.

Christopher D. Wilson, a reactor operator and later a manager at Exelon’s Oyster Creek plant, near Toms River, N.J., said, “normally you would just re-establish electricity supply, from the on-site diesel generator or a portable one.” Portable generators have been brought into Fukushima, he said.

Fukushima was designed by General Electric, as Oyster Creek was around the same time, and the two plants are similar. The problem, he said, was that the hookup is done through electric switching equipment that is in a basement room flooded by the tsunami, he said. “Even though you have generators on site, you have to get the water out of the basement,” he said.

Another nuclear engineer with long experience in reactors of this type, who now works for a government agency, was emphatic. “To completely stop venting, they’re going to have to put some sort of equipment back in service,” he said. He asked not to be named because his agency had not authorized him to speak.

The central problem arises from a series of failures that began after the tsunami. It easily overcame the sea walls surrounding the Fukushima plant. It swamped the diesel generators, which were placed in a low-lying area, apparently because of misplaced confidence that the sea walls would protect them. At 3:41 p.m. Friday, roughly an hour after the quake and just around the time the region would have been struck by the giant waves, the generators shut down. According to Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant switched to an emergency cooling system that operates on batteries, but these were soon depleted.

Inside the plant, according to industry executives and American experts who received briefings over the weekend, there was deep concern that spent nuclear fuel that was kept in a “cooling pond” inside one of the plants had been exposed and begun letting off potentially deadly gamma radiation. Then water levels inside the reactor cores began to fall. While estimates vary, several officials and industry experts said Sunday that the top four to nine feet of the nuclear fuel in the core and control rods appear to have been exposed to the air — a condition that that can quickly lead to melting, and ultimately to full meltdown.

At 8 p.m., just as Americans were waking up to news of the earthquake, the government declared an emergency, contradicting its earlier reassurances that there were no major problems. But the chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, stressed that there had been no radiation leak.

But one was coming: Workers inside the reactors saw that levels of coolant water were dropping. They did not know how severely. “The gauges that measure the water level don’t appear to be giving accurate readings,” one American official said.

What the workers knew by Saturday morning was that cooling systems at a nearby power plant, Fukushima Daini, were also starting to fail, for many of the same reasons. And the pressure in the No. 1 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi was rising so fast that engineers knew they would have to relieve it by letting steam escape.

Shortly before 4 p.m., camera crews near the Daiichi plant captured what appears to have been an explosion at the No. 1 reactor — apparently caused by a buildup of hydrogen. It was dramatic television but not especially dangerous — except to the workers injured by the force of the blast.

The explosion was in the outer container, leaving the main reactor vessel unharmed, according to Tokyo Electric’s reports to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (The walls of the outer building blew apart, as they are designed to do, rather than allow a buildup of pressure that could damage the reactor vessel.)

But the dramatic blast was also a warning sign of what could happen inside the reactor vessel if the core was not cooled. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that “as a countermeasure to limit damage to the reactor core,” Tokyo Electric proposed injecting seawater mixed with boron — which can choke off a nuclear reaction — and it began to do that at 10:20 p.m. Saturday.

It was a desperation move: The corrosive seawater will essentially disable the 40-year-old plant; the decision to flood the core amounted to a decision to abandon the facility. But even that operation has not been easy.

To pump in the water, the Japanese have apparently tried used firefighting equipment — hardly the usual procedure. But forcing the seawater inside the containment vessel has been difficult because the pressure in the vessel has become so great.

One American official likened the process to “trying to pour water into an inflated balloon,” and said that on Sunday it was “not clear how much water they are getting in, or whether they are covering the cores.”

The problem was compounded because gauges in the reactor seemed to have been damaged in the earthquake or tsunami, making it impossible to know just how much water is in the core.

And workers at the pumping operation are presumed to be exposed to radiation; several workers, according to Japanese reports, have been treated for radiation poisoning. It is not clear how severe their exposure was.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-reactor.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

[Wetcoaster]

Incredible before and after comparison shots of a number of affected areas. You can move the slider to get an idea of the total devastation.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html

[Wetcoaster]

Japanese nuclear engineer Masashi Goto who was involved in building the Fukushima nuclear plant says that Toshiba knew there would be dangers from an earthquake and tsunami as the design was not robust enough. Also the "worst case scenario" by the government is actually much worse due to the nature of the nuclear fuel.

1422: Japanese engineer Masashi Goto, who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima's reactor core, says the design was not enough to withstand earthquakes or tsunamis and the plant's builders, Toshiba, knew this. More on Mr Goto's remarks to follow.

1426: Mr Goto says his greatest fear is that blasts at number 3 and number 1 reactors may have damaged the steel casing of the containment vessel designed to stop radioactive material escaping into the atmosphere. More to follow.

1431: More from Japanese nuclear engineer Masashi Goto: He say that as the reactor uses mox (mixed oxide) fuel, the melting point is lower than that of conventional fuel. Should a meltdown and an explosion occur, he says, plutonium could be spread over an area up to twice as far as estimated for a conventional nuclear fuel explosion. The next 24 hours are critical, he says.

Minutes ago this report on the situation of Reactor 2 at Fukushima:

1918: Technicians have resumed injecting seawater into the stricken reactor 2 at Fukushima after a steam vent of the pressure container was opened, Kyodo news agency reports citing Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco).

[Blackberries]

So does the mox fuel have a potential for spreading further? I know plutonium is a stronger isotope but does that mean they have to reevaluate the estimates of it not reaching ourshores?

[EX_Bert_Worshipper]

So does the mox fuel have a potential for spreading further? I know plutonium is a stronger isotope but does that mean they have to reevaluate the estimates of it not reaching ourshores?

Just read this on NEWS1130

BURNABY (NEWS1130) - BC is only an ocean away from the heavily damaged nuclear plant in Japan. But it's unlikely a significant amount of radiation will reach BC, even under the worst of circumstances.

Kris Starosta, an associate professor with SFU's chemistry department, says three parts would have to align for radiation to reach our shores. He adds there would first have to be a fracture in the Fukushima containment tank, releasing radioactive gas, water or solids, something that hasn't happened.

"Depending on how it breaks, you will have certainly a release of gas, and you may or may not have a release of water which would be contaminated."

Next, Starosta says the weather would have to co-operate. "The radioactivity which is released would have to be carried through the atmosphere or the water to the atmosphere of BC."

He clarifies the process would also have to happen quickly before isotopes decay. Overall, Starosta says even in a very bad scenario, the effect on BC will not be significant.

link

[Shift-4]

Incredible before and after comparison shots of a number of affected areas. You can move the slider to get an idea of the total devastation.

http://www.nytimes.c...er-tsunami.html

Incredible photos/comparisons.

It is absolutely unreal to see the damage like that.

[Wetcoaster]

Things seem to be reaching a critical point at Reactor Number 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant as the situation is reported deteriorating by the New York Times a few minutes ago. It is being reported that officials are in panic mode.

Emergency Cooling Effort at Reactor Is Failing, Deepening Japanese Crisis

By HIROKO TABUCHI, KEITH BRADSHER and MATT WALD

TOKYO — Japan’s struggle to contain the crisis at a stricken nuclear power plant worsened early Tuesday morning, as emergency operations to pump seawater into one crippled reactor temporarily failed, increasing the risk of a wider release of radioactive material, officials said.

With the cooling systems malfunctioning simultaneously at three separate reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station after the powerful earthquake and tsunami, a more acute crisis developed late Monday at reactor No. 2 of the plant. There, a series of problems thwarted efforts to keep the core of the reactor covered with water — a step considered crucial to preventing the reactor’s containment vessel from exploding and preventing the fuel inside it from melting down.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, said late Monday that efforts to inject seawater into the reactor had failed. That caused water levels inside the reactor’s containment vessel to fall and exposed its fuel rods. The company said its workers later succeeded in infusing seawater in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday morning, but fuel rods were exposed for at least several hours.

Workers had been having difficulty injecting seawater into the reactor because its vents — necessary to release pressure in the containment vessel by allowing radioactive steam to escape — had stopped working properly, they said.

But Tuesday morning Tokyo Electric announced that workers had succeeded in opening a malfunctioning valve controlling the vents, reducing pressure in the container vessel. It then resumed flooding the reactor with water.

The company said water levels were not immediately rising to the desired level, possibly because of a leak in the containment vessel. Still, a Tokyo Electric official said the situation was improving.

"We do not feel that a critical event is imminent," he told a press conference.

The release of pressure appears to avert the immediate risk that the containment vessel would explode, creating a potentially catastrophic release of radioactive material into the atmosphere. But if the vessel is cracked and is not holding water properly, the risks of a large scale release of radioactive material would remain high.

In reactor No. 2, which is now the most damaged of the three at the Daiichi plant, at least parts of the fuel rods have been exposed for several hours, which also suggests that some of the fuel has begun to melt. Government and company officials said fuel melting has almost certainly occurred in that reactor, which can increase releases of radioactive material through the water and steam that escapes from the container vessel.

In a worst case, the fuel pellets could also burn through the bottom of the containment vessel and radioactive material could pour out that way — often referred to as a full meltdown.

"There is a possibility that the fuel rods are heating up and starting to melt,” said a Tokyo Electric spokesman told a late-night conference on Monday, televised on public broadcaster NHK. “It is our understanding that we have possible damage to the fuel rods,” he said.

By Monday night, officials said that radiation readings around the plant reached 3,130 micro Sievert, the highest yet detected at the Daiichi facility since the quake and six times the legal limit. Radiation levels of that magnitude are considered elevated, but they are much lower than would be the case if one of the container vessels had been compromised.

Industry executvies in touch with their counterparts in Japan Monday night grew increasingly alarmed about the risks posed by the No. 2 reactor.

“They’re basically in a full-scale panic” among Japanese power industry managers, said a senior nuclear industry executive. The executive is not involved in managing the response to the reactors’ difficulties but has many contacts in Japan. “They’re in total disarray, they don’t know what to do.”

The venting problems made it impossible for a time to administer the emergency remedy the plant operator had been using to control heat at the three crippled Daiichi reactors, all of which experienced failures in their electronic cooling systems. That remedy involves pumping in seawater to cool the fuel rods, then opening vents to release the resulting steam pressure that builds in the container vessel. When the vessel is depressurized, workers can inject more seawater, a process known as “feed and bleed.”

The extreme challenge of managing reactor No. 2 came as officials were still struggling to keep the cores of two other reactors, No. 1 and No. 3, covered with seawater. There was no immediate indication that either of those two reactors had experienced a crisis as serious as that at No. 2.

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that the Japanese government had formally asked for assistance as it responds to the crisis in Fukushima. As part of a wider response, the United States has already dispatched two experts in boiling-water reactors, the type used at Daiichi. They are in Tokyo offering technical assistance to the Japanese, the commission said in a statement. The commission is considering further assistance, including providing technical advice, it said.

The situation at Daiichi was also complicated on Monday by another problem when the outer structure housing reactor No. 3 exploded earlier on Monday. A similar explosion destroyed the structure surrounding reactor No. 1 on Saturday. Live footage on public broadcaster NHK showed the skeletal remains of the reactor building and thick smoke rising from the building. Eleven people had been injured in the blast, one seriously, officials said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said earlier Monday evening that the release of large amounts of radiation as a result of the explosion at No. 3 was unlikely because the blast did not compromise the steel containment vessel inside the No. 3 reactor. But traces of radiation could be released into the atmosphere, and about 500 people who remained within a 12-mile radius were ordered temporarily to take cover indoors, he said.

“I have received reports that the containment vessel is sound,” Mr. Edano said. “I understand that there is little possibility that radioactive materials are being released in large amounts.”

Mr. Edano and other senior officials did not address the escalating crisis at reactor No. 2 later Monday or early Tuesday.

But the situation a reactor No. 3 was being closely watched for another reason. That reactor uses a special mix of nuclear fuel known as MOX fuel. MOX is considered contentious because it is made with reprocessed plutonium and uranium oxides. Any radioactive plume from that fuel would be more dangerous than ordinary nuclear fuel, experts say, because inhaling plutonium even in very small quantities is considered lethal.

In screenings, higher-than-normal levels of radiation have been detected from at least 22 people evacuated from near the plant, the nuclear safety watchdog said, but it is not clear if the doses they received were dangerous.

Technicians had been scrambling most of Sunday to fix a mechanical failure that left the reactor far more vulnerable to explosions.

The two reactors where the explosions occurred are both presumed to have already suffered partial meltdowns — a dangerous situation that, if unchecked, could lead to a full meltdown.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html?hp

[key2thecup]

Miracle of the baby girl plucked from the rubble: Four-month-old reunited with her father after incredible rescue

Amid the mangled towers of wreckage and flooded debris, a country in despair is grateful for any cheerful news.

And today, the discovery of a baby girl who had survived for three days after the tsunami that devastated Japan provided just that.

Accounts as to how the four-month-old had survived were lost in translation - but it is believed she was plucked helpless from the rubble in Ishinomaki, in the state of Miyagi.

Against the odds, she was rescued apparently safe and unharmed after being spotted by a member of Japan's Self-Defence Force.

The member of Japan's Self-Defence Force member holds the four-month-old baby girl in Ishinomaki, northern Japan after her rescue

As soldiers went from house-to-house to look for bodies, they discovered this remarkable child.

A man, pictured below, later arrived claiming to be the baby's father. Some reports suggested the father had been with the child for the last three days.

But the image of the child, snug inside a pink jacket being held by a member of the Japanese army, provided some better news for the tsunami-hit country.

But today, the joyful reunion of father and daughter was interrupted by another tsunami warning.

Amid sirens and the fear of further devastation, the fear on his face is clear to see, as he tries to flee to safety.

The country has been hit by more than 100 aftershocks since Friday's 9.0 magnitude earthquake, with experts warning a second huge quake - almost as powerful as the first - could hit the country, triggering another tsunami.

Thousands of people have been killed, and some 180,000 have been evacuated from an area surrounding an unsafe nuclear power plant, which became unstable in the disaster.

Upon hearing another tsunami warning, a father tries to flee to safety with the baby girl he has just been reunited with

A 'HELP' sign is written on the ground of a primary school (bottom of picture, centre) near the coast in tsunami-hit Ishinomaki. A baby girl was remarkably found wrapped in a pink jacket after three days alone

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366155/Japan-earthquake-survivor-reunited-baby-daughter--tsunami-warning-sounds.html#ixzz1Gc5mAOoL

[c0medyClub]

I wonder if Bear Grylls could survive a tsunami. I think he'd build a makeshift surfboard and surf his way to safety.

But yeah, the pictures are insane. It's still tough to believe that something like that could happen to a first world country and cripple them in a matter of days.

Edited March 14, 2011 by c0medyClub

[Aquiace]

Japanese media and Tweets from those at the scene aren't more reliable?

Believe it or not, but most of the sources outside of Japan give the information quicker. But they're also more likely to post information with unreliable sources. That's why there's been so much doom-and-gloom speculation.

You get information quickly, but it's more likely to be "a guy I saw who said this..." or "someone from around the globe offering his opinion on the same information we just gave him that may or may not be accurate".

So it's a mixed bag. Twitter is essentially the game of telephone.

The local media in Japan will be accurate, but it will be slower because they need to verify the information first.

[c0medyClub]

*insert loling face here*

Crappy outdated IE

[Aquiace]

2106: More from Prime Minister Kan: He says he will personally lead operations at the joint response headquarters, which will be based at Tepco's main office in Tokyo. The company earlier said fuel rods at Fukushima Daiichi's reactor 2 were once again fully exposed, just hours after it managed to stabilise a similar emergency.

I hate news like this... it worries me to my core.

[c0medyClub]

^ Plus one, good sir.

[Señor Hoff]

Exposed fuel rods raise fears of 3rd blast

Also, CNN reported that US navy ships moved away from the Japan coast because they detected a large plume of radiation....this was right after CNN also reported from a Japanese official that no dangerous radiation had been released. lolol When the US military ducks for cover I'll believe them over some govt. 'yes men.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yHKQfeMiRUc

Edited March 14, 2011 by Señor Hoff