OMG Earthquake?

[kenshlee]

^That footage is amazing and scary at the same time. It really shows how resourceful the survivors are though, especially reaching the people stranded outside the building.

[inane]

yikes that last shot is freaky. you're driving along... not a care in the world and bam.

[Wetcoaster]

The Japanese SDF are using firetrucks to try to cool down the fuel rods that apparently were exposed. The Tokyo Fire Deparment has dispatched trucks to assist in the efforts.

Meanwhile efforts continue to restore electricity and bring the cooling pumps back on line.

Fire trucks wait for cooling down operation

The Japanese Self-Defense Forces are getting fire trucks ready for another attempt to cool down one of the spent-fuel storage pools at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Friday, the second day of the operation.

The spent-fuel storage pools of the No.3 and No.4 reactors have overheated, posing a risk of leaking a massive amount of radiation.

It is believed water levels at the pool of the No.3 reactor remain low, despite water spraying operations by the SDF from both the air and ground on Thursday.

The Defense Ministry says it plans to use 5 high-capacity fire trucks on Friday, shooting tons of water at the No.3 reactor building.

The Ministry says SDF personnel involved in Thursday's operations were each exposed to several millisieverts of radiation. It says that level is below the safety limit for emergency personnel.

Friday's operation is expected to start after 2:00 PM, following an attempt by the Tokyo Electric Power Company to restore power to the cooling system.

Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said there is no plan to dump water from helicopters on Friday.Fire trucks wait for cooling down operation

Also:

Tokyo Fire Dept. sends units to Fukushima plant

The Tokyo Fire Department has sent 30 emergency units and special fire engines to the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The 139 fire-fighters, including elite rescue teams, left for Fukushima in northeastern Japan shortly after 3 AM on Friday.

The dispatch order was given by Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara after a request from the Japanese government at 1 AM Friday.

The Tokyo Fire Department says one of the fire engines has a 22-meter-high water discharging tower, used to put out flames in high places or sites that are difficult to get close to.

Also among the vehicles is a truck usually used for airplane disasters, which can discharge 5 tons of water per minute. Another one can supply large amounts of water from the sea or rivers.

The emergency unit is due to arrive at the plant on Friday morning. It is expected to start operation along with Self-Defense Force fire engines after consulting with the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, about safety measures.

Friday, March 18, 2011 10:22 +0900 (JST)

And:

Reactors may restore cooling systems by Sat.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it hopes to restore power to two of its troubled reactors by Saturday to activate the cooling systems in a bid to prevent the nuclear crisis from worsening.

The utility company announced this at a news conference on Friday morning.

At the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, three reactors lost their cooling capabilities due to a power outage and the failure of emergency power generators after last week's earthquake and tsunami.

The company says it has been working to lay a new power line to the plant since yesterday.

It is aiming at restoring the cooling systems at the No. 1 and No.2 reactors. It has so far installed a distributor panel at an office next to the No. 1 reactor. It is now trying to connect the power line to a transformer at the No. 2 reactor via the No. 1 reactor.

The workers are carefully watching radiation levels, which remain high -- up to 20 millisieverts per hour at some points.

Tokyo Electric says it hopes to complete laying the cable on Friday afternoon and to connect power lines to the two reactors by Saturday.

Friday, March 18, 2011 13:13 +0900 (JST)

[p0l3r]

Thanks for the updates wetcoaster.

[Barney Stinson]

Apparently the 1st reactor is 70% damaged?

Yikes.....

[Wetcoaster]

After outside review it has been confirmed by the IAEA the level of nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi has been raised to 5. There are seven points on the scale. The disaster at Chernobyl in 1986 was at 7 on the scale. Three Mile Island, America's worst commercial nuclear accident in 1979 was at 5 on the scale.

[Femme.Canuck]

As Cooling Efforts Continue, Japanese Officials Consider Burying Fukushima Plant

Japanese officials conceded today they might have to entomb the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in a sarcophagus of sand or concrete in order to contain the radiation. It's a last resort, but acknowledging it's possible is a sign that matters are still not improving at the stricken plant.

Engineers are still hoping to restore power and restart water pumps to cool the overheating fuel rods, according to Reuters. Workers have been spraying the hardest-hit reactors with water, using boats and helicopters. Four of the power plant's six reactors have experienced fires, explosions or partial meltdowns.

Even if power can be restored, there's no guarantee the pumps will work. Much of the plant was heavily damaged in the quake, tsunami and resulting explosions, and the voluminous amount of acid-laced seawater that workers have been pumping in may have corroded equipment further.

It is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete. But our priority right now is to try and cool them down first," an official from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, said at a news conference.

This was the procedure at the Chernobyl reactor after it exploded in 1986. The reactor was covered with sand, lead and boric acid dropped from a helicopter, whose pilot was hailed as a hero for his efforts (he died four years later of leukemia, a result of radiation poisoning). The radiation at Fukushima Daiichi is nowhere near that at Chernobyl.

Meanwhile, Japan raised the nuclear crisis' severity rating to Level 5 on the seven-level INES international scale. That's on par with the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, Reuters said. Some experts argue Japan's situation is more serious, however. Chernobyl was a 7 on that scale.

Even if Japanese officials decide to bury the plant, they will still have to cool it off first, according to an adviser to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission who spoke to CBS News.

One week after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami, at least 6,500 people are confirmed dead and 10,300 are missing. Nearly 400,000 people are homeless.

Japanese officials hope to restore power to pumps for reactors 1, 2 and 4 by Saturday, according to Reuters.

LINK

UPDATE:

TEPCO connects line, can supply power to Daiichi plant

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said Friday it has connected the external transmission line with the stricken Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan and confirmed that electricity can be supplied.

In a statement, the company said, "It planned to supply Unit 2 first, followed by Unit 1, Unit 3 and Unit 4 ... because Unit 2 is expected to be less damaged."

(REUTERS)

Edited March 18, 2011 by P.OneOh

[Wetcoaster]

Many elderly people who are homeless had been suffering greatly due to the cold and snow in the north-eastern areas most affected by the quake and tsunami.

Some heartening news for the earthquake and tsunmai affected areas where weather has been bitterly cold: temperatures are set to rise in Miyagi prefecture and surrounding areas over the weekend.

[Wetcoaster]

BBC report about those living near the Fukushima nuclear plant who are advised to remain indoors. This report is from a resident who is in the 20-30 km zone. Dai Saito took this image of some of the thousands of homes destroyed along Japan's coastline.

His story of what it is like inside the zone.

Japan quake: Inside the evacuation zone

Dai Saito lives in Haramachi-ku in Minamisouma, a town inside the 20-30km "stay indoors" zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

As engineers work to stabilise overheating fuel at the plant, he describes the situation on the ground.

"I find out information on the arrival of relief goods via Twitter.

If you have the information then you can pass this on to your friends and relatives in, for example, Haramachi-ku, Minami-Soma-shi.

But for people without access to Twitter they miss out on information such as when to start queuing at the petrol station because information about when the petrol station is going to open and when they are going to get their deliveries is disseminated via Twitter.

My neighbours are behaving in various different ways. Although we have been instructed to stay indoors, some people are out walking in the streets normally, some people are even sunbathing. Of course they all wear masks, but not all of them stay indoors.

If there is an order to evacuate by the government then we will evacuate but basically we want to stay at home, because of the love for our home town. We have a strong desire to reconstruct our home town, and we want to stay here.

My mother doesn't want to leave her home, and will only agree to leave if the evacuation is temporary and if I promise her we can come back later.

There are no goods because all the shops are closed. We don't like to waste petrol so we cannot go anywhere, we simply have to stay at home.

There is a sense here that the crisis is fading. Everything looks normal as if there is no radiation crisis, except for the news."

Thursday

"My mother and I are staying in my house which is within the 20-30km evacuation zone near the nuclear power station, where people have been ordered to take shelter.

Since the earthquake struck, we haven't had enough supplies - not only petrol but basic necessities. We do have electricity, gas and fresh water, although the water isn't very clean.

It is more serious in the shelters and hospitals. The mayor of Minamisouma said that the lorries refused to come into the area with supplies and I think that he is right. The drivers and logistics operators are not reaching the area because they think it is "contaminated".

The order for the evacuation was issued on 14 or 15 March. The evacuation zone has been gradually widened.

Initially the evacuation was on a voluntary basis. We were not ordered to make our own way out of the city.

Instead representatives from the local authority drove around the district urging residents to stay inside their homes, warning those who did decide to evacuate that it would be at their own risk.

All the garages around Minamisouma had closed by early evening the day after the earthquake. Petrol was diverted to the emergency relief effort. No fuel was made available to civilians. Only state vehicles could access the pumps.

The queues at supermarkets for two days after the quake were horrendous. I just wanted some fast food from a grocery store but I gave up after seeing the queues.

Many shops soon ran out of things to sell and almost all supermarkets and grocery stores were shut by 14 March.

We've got enough food for two because my mother stocked up on the day before the earthquake.

The reason I don't evacuate is that we lack petrol but actually my mother would not want to leave here even if we could. Of course I don't want to leave either but I don't want to die.

The people who managed to leave the area have to have tests to get a certificate of radiation exposure, to confirm they are safe.

Often, privately funded shelters do not accept people without the certificate. On the other hand, public shelters often cannot accept all the refugees because of their limited capacity.

The current evacuation sites were initially for the victims and potential victims of tsunami. However, the situation changed as the state of the nuclear plant got worse by day.

Honestly speaking, government press releases have been useless.

The delivery of aid material has been insufficient since the onset of the disaster, and the delayed press releases saying 'The situation was this, so we did this' really haven't helped anyone who needed to understand the crisis as it happened."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12780060

[Wetcoaster]

The confirmed death toll stands at 6,548, as of 18 March. The map below shows the three areas that have been the hardest hit. These figures are expected to rise sharply once the search and rescue teams are able to more fully penetrate the hardest hit areas.

[Wetcoaster]

There is more about how people in the worst-affected areas are learning to fend for themselves as supplies run short. The Associated Press reports from Shizugawa where American helicopter crews are sending aid. The report cites Kouetsu Sasaki, a 60-year-old city hall worker who said the survivors still need gas, vegetables, socks, underwear, wet wipes and anti-bacterial lotion.

[Wetcoaster]

It's pnly gonna get worse with the nuclear plant.

There is more detail about why the IAEA raised the nuclear alert level for Japan. A spokesman said it was made because of the condition of reactors 1, 2, and 3 at the plant. "The cooling function was lost and the reactor cores were damaged. Radioactive particles continue to be released in the environment," he is quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

BBC has series of graphics depicting what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12726591

Here is a story about the 200 workers who are fighting to contain the possible nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant knowing that serious health problems or possibly death will be their likely reward even if they succeed.

As noted in the article the sacrifice brings to mind British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's most oft-repeated quotation paying tribute to the British Air Force Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain in a speech he gave on 20 August 1940. The Allied airmen of the Battle of Britain ultimately became known as "The Few" and as one flight commander noted "and there were a damn lot fewer of us as time went on":

"Never... was so much owed by so many to so few."

A father's goodbye: 'Live well. I cannot be home for a while'

The Fukushima 50 may come out alive, but not unscathed

By Tom Peck

Friday, 18 March 2011

"Please continue to live well. I cannot be home for a while." These words have come to encapsulate the struggle of the emerging heroes of Japan's nuclear crisis.

They were sent by email to the wife of one of the "Fukushima 50" – the middle and low-ranking operators, the technicians, soldiers and firefighters – who remain at the stricken power plant after all others have fled, exposed to dangerously high levels of radiation but fighting to stop it spreading further while haunted by the grim spectre of what may happen if they fail.

"They are running out of food... we think conditions are really tough. He says he's accepted his fate... much like a death sentence," the daughter of one of the workers wrote to a Japanese TV station.

But while the nation is in awe of their sacrifice, they do not know their names, with only the most sparing details available. And although they have become known as the "Fukushima 50", there are in fact about 200 workers rotating in and out of the most dangerous part of the plant 50 at a time, taking turns eating and sleeping in a decontaminated area.

Many of them volunteered for the task, labelled a suicide mission by some nuclear scientists, fully understanding the health risks involved, yet heading back to the heart of an expanding exclusion zone, from which at least 70,000 people have already been evacuated, and a further 140,000 told not to venture outside.

As they work to pump sea water on the dangerously exposed nuclear fuel rods, already thought to be partly melting and spewing radioactive material, 150 miles to the south, British, French, German and American nationals are in Tokyo boarding flights home on the advice of their governments.

Many workers at Fukushima, however, have to ignore any warnings to leave. It was the earthquake that first compromised the plant's reactors last Friday. While the workers tried to stabilise them, they knew a a tsunami was approaching. Thirty-one people have since been killed in the plant's various explosions.

"My dad went to the nuclear plant. I never heard my mother cry so hard. People at the plant are struggling, sacrificing themselves to protect you. Please dad come back alive," read a tweet by user @nekkonekonyaa.

When her father and his co-workers are done crawling through dark mazes, armed with flashlights and radiation detectors, wearing full body radiation suits and breathing through oxygen tanks, they likely will come back alive. But at what cost? Potentially deadly doses of radiation surround them, and their suits do little to prevent radiation from seeping into their bodies. Consequences could range from radiation sickness to long term side effects such as thyroid cancer.

Radiation levels in an hour at Fukushima have been measured at several times over that which a typical nuclear facility worker might be expected to exposed to in an entire career. The government has raised the maximum legal exposure levels in order to allow the work to carry on.

Already comparisons have been drawn between the "Fukushima 50" and "Los 33" – the miners trapped in the Chilean mine last year. But the analogy does not fit. In Chile, a nation hoped and prayed for the safety of the trapped men. Here, they look to the workers at Fukushima to ensure their own safety, bringing to mind Churchill's most oft-repeated quotation: "Never... was so much owed by so many to so few."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/a-fathers-goodbye-live-well-i-cannot-be-home-for-a-while-2245411.html#

[Wetcoaster]

The New Scientist has published an article explaining "Why Fukushima Daiichi won't be another Chernobyl":

Meltdown would only become possible if, for some inexplicable reason, the operators were to undo all they have done to date to control the reaction. There have been some leaks of radioactive material and will probably be more, partly because containment systems have been breached, and partly because radioactive steam must be regularly vented to allow more water in. The biggest threat now seems to be the spent fuel ponds, where the water level has fallen and temperatures have risen. That could lead to the fuel rods breaking open, releasing their radioactive contents."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20257-why-fukushima-daiichi-wont-be-another-chernobyl.html

[lateralus]

The fear mongering in regards to the nuclear radiation is truly amazing.

[Common sense]

The fear mongering in regards to the nuclear radiation is truly amazing.

It gets even better:

Salt shame

Colleen Lee, Samson Lee and NatalieWong

Friday, March 18, 2011

Panicked shoppers stripped stores of table salt in Hong Kong - and in cities across the mainland - amid internet claims that it can ward off radiation exposure from Japan.

The alarm sparked calls from Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok for people to be level-headed and stop listening to false rumors.

Consumers also worry that salt in future may be produced from radiation- contaminated seawater.

The panic-buying pushed up the retail price of salt to as high as HK$30 a catty, from the usual HK$2.

The salt frenzy also hit Macau, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other mainland cities as misinformation crisscrossed the region via the internet in the wake of Japan's nuclear emergency.

Chow said the rumors about salt being a radiation remedy and affected seawater are "totally unfounded."

"Three-quarters of the Earth's surface is made up of seawater," he said. "We believe the supply of salt will not be affected. The contamination of the seawater around Japan will be much diluted or washed away after some time."

Chow said iodine - which can help lower the absorption of certain radioactive chemicals in the body - is useful only if people take iodine tablets within six hours before or after radiation exposure.

The run on salt comes as authorities in Japan desperately attempt to stop the meltdown of a nuclear plant crippled by last week's deadly earthquake and tsunami in the northeast of the country.

"What matters most is that Hong Kong citizens should

have common sense and analytical skills, and understand how radiation may affect our bodies," Chow said.

"We should not get affected by such rumors and the speculators who may be spreading the rumors in the hope of making profits."

People with edema, high blood pressure and kidney disease risk damaging their health more if they consume too much salt.

Undersecretary for Food and Health Gabriel Leung said about 85 percent of the table salt on the market is not iodized.

"One has to take about 2.5 to five kilograms of [iodized] table salt a day in order to absorb the dose of iodine that is contained in an iodine tablet," he said.

Tommy Chan Hing-moon, a clinical psychologist at Matilda Medical Centre, said a "herd mentality" causes shoppers to follow what others do amid a panic.

"This is an overreaction by citizens after hearing rumors and seeing negative media coverage about the potential dangers of nuclear disasters," Chan said.

It is similar to the SARS outbreak in 2003 when locals stored large quantities of vinegar to ward off the disease.

In Wan Chai, retailers said salt stocks ran out early in the morning. Pang Ho-yue, owner of grocery store Lee Yuen Loong Kee on Triangle Street, said: "Those customers who could not buy salt from supermarkets rushed to my store."

Passerby Dion Ng said: "I think those shoppers are oversensitive. This atmosphere is not very positive."

Shopper Joan Ip fears the panic may extend to other food products. "I don't have a great dependence on salt because I can use soy sauce to replace it. But what worries me now is rice and oil may run out," she said.

In Macau, police were called in when more than 200 people lined up outside a wholesale salt store on the Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=109275&sid=31697439&con_type=3

Edited March 18, 2011 by blue.dragon258

[Wetcoaster]

The Japan Meteorological Agency says a record 262 aftershocks of magnitude 5 or greater were recorded in the week following last Friday's devastating 9.0 earthquake, Kyodo News reports.

[Wetcoaster]

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has ordered a safety review of the country's nuclear facilities, including power plants in several provinces and the Chalk River nuclear research facility near Ottawa. The review is to focus on "external hazards" such as earthquakes, fires and flooding, and readiness for severe accidents. None of the seven generating plant's are in areas of high seismic activity.

[Wetcoaster]

The latest on the battle to control the problems at the Fukusima Daiichi nuclear plant per BBC Live:

1848: Tokyo Electric Power Co, which operates Fukushima Daiichi, says it has now connected an external power line to its stricken plant and would first supply reactor 2 because it is less damaged, Reuters reports. The power is needed to operate the plant's badly-needed cooling systems, which were damaged last Friday.

1927: Much has been made of the power cables being laid to restart water pumps that cool the reactors but a worrying report in the LA Times notes that some engineers believe the cooling pumps were irretrievably damaged by the initial hydrogen explosions.

1950: Statement from the Fukushima station operator (Tepco): "Tepco has connected the external transmission line with the receiving point of the plant and confirmed that electricity can be supplied."

2107: Tepco, the Fukushima plant's operator, has provided these details on the latest efforts to pump seawater into reactor 3's spent fuel pool, which is at risk of overheating: "At 0:45 am (Japan time), March 19th , water discharge by hyper rescue troop has started with the cooperation of Tokyo Fire Department. At 1:10 am, March 19th , they had finished water discharge."

The report from the LA Times on the possibility that there is severe damage to the plant electrical systems and pumps rendering the restoration of electrical power moot. Also it seems the water that is making it into the fuel rod pool is disappearing and that may mean a breach in the pool container so it is not possible to properly cool the fuel rods.

Engineers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant worked all day Friday attempting to connect a newly restored power line to reactors No. 1 and 2, but their task was repeatedly interrupted by the need to withdraw workers because of high radiation levels. The team said they hoped the task would be completed sometime Friday evening or in the early morning hours Saturday.

It is not clear yet, however, whether restoring power to the two damaged reactors will help with cooling. Some engineers believe the cooling pumps were irretrievably damaged by the hydrogen explosions that wracked the reactor buildings in the first four days after the March 10 magnitude 9 Tohoku quake, or by corrosion from the seawater that has been pumped into the reactor. At the very least, however, restoring power should restore many of the control functions at the reactor.

Officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the facility 140 miles north of Tokyo, said they hoped to have power connected to reactors No. 3 and 4 by Sunday.

Reactor building No. 4 is now the source of the biggest concern at the site because it contains spent fuel rods that may have boiled dry and are releasing large amounts of radiation into the environment.

The spent-fuel pool does not have a containment vessel, so if the fuel rods heat up and start burning, the radioactive ash will be released directly into the environment.

Workers made a second series of attempts Friday to cool the fuel rods, dumping water from helicopters and using water cannons operated by Japan's Self-Defense Forces to spray water into the pool, which sits in the upper level of the building housing reactor No. 4. The reactor itself had been shut down for maintenance before the earthquake, so it does not pose a problem.

But photographs taken by helicopters and a Global Hawk drone operated by the U.S. Air Force indicate the water is not lasting very long in the pool, suggesting that there is a major breach in the walls of the vessel holding the fuel rods, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Recognizing the severity of the problem, Japan's nuclear regulatory agency Friday upgraded the severity of the Fukushima disaster from four to five on the international scale of one to seven. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the worst nuclear disaster in history, was rated a seven.

The 1979 Three Mile Island incident, previously considered the second-worst accident in history, was also rated a five. French officials had previously called Fukushima a five and now Japanese authorities have agreed with their assessment.

But it is clear that Fukushima is a much more serious problem than Three Mile Island. Little or no radiation escaped from the Pennsylvania facility, and no one was injured there.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, which monitors radiation globally, said Friday that minute amounts of radiation from Fukushima had reached the West Coast of the United States, but only at barely detectable levels that were insignificant to health.

On Sunday, meteorologists predict a heavy rainstorm for the Fukushima area, with the prevailing winds changing toward the direction of Tokyo.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-japan-reactor-damage-20110318,0,7832119.story

[c0medyClub]

Wow, a man was found alive after 8 days in the rubble.

[Wetcoaster]

Wow, a man was found alive after 8 days in the rubble.

According to BBC Live earlier reports of a survivor being pulled from the rubble eight days after the quake appear to be incorrect. Kyodo news agency has withdrawn its story, saying the young man in question had been in an evacuation centre but then returned to see his ruined home, where he was 'discovered' by rescue workers.