OMG Earthquake?

[Wetcoaster]

A cooling pump is reported back in operation at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

0227: Japan has started using a cooling pump at the Fukushima plant's stricken reactor 5, according to several reports quoting the Japanese government. It is thought to be a diesel-powered pump, rather than a device powered by the still-to-be-reconnected electricity supply.

0326: Japan's Deputy Cabinet Secretary for Public Relations Noriyuki Shikata tweets: "On-site workers continue their utmost efforts to re-connect power to the Fukushima nuclear power plant today."

0349: The operator of the Fukushima power plant says engineers have bored holes in the roofs of the buildings housing reactors 5 and 6 to avoid a potential gas explosion, reports AFP.

0403: Tepco says temperatures have fallen in the spent nuclear fuel pool at reactor 5, reports Kyodo.

[Buggernut]

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

Hopefully, they suffer severely from hypertension and other salt overdose complications.

What really irks me about these super chicken craps is that they have no problem putting the lives of others, such as the police, military, firefighters, or even other common folks at risk to keep them safe, but when their own lives are perceived to be in even the slightest danger, they freak out, panic and mess up the supply of essentials for everybody else like this.

I wonder if they ever watch footage of 9/11 rescuers valiantly entering the collapsing buildings to their demise and feel guilty, or put themselves up against their standards of courage and heroism.

[Wetcoaster]

The latest on the battle at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to contain the radioactivity

1543: The IAEA is giving a press conference on the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. It hopes that power will be restored to reactor 2 today, which will then act as a hub to restore power to reactor 1. However it is not clear if water pumps have been damaged and if they will even work once power has been restored.

1606: The PM's Office of Japan tweets:For people living in Tohoku and Kanto regions - How to protect from radioactive rainfall (Japanese Atomic Energy Commission). "Try not to go out unless it is an emergency. Make sure of covering up hair and skin as much as possible. In case your clothes or skin is exposed to rain, wash it carefully with running water." (My note - interesting advice because numerous reports indicate that there is lack of running water within the zones)

1632: The key development so far: Enginners are trying to reconnect some of the plant's six reactors to a power grid. They have made managed to lay down connect one cable but electricity is not yet restored and it is still unclear if their cooling systems will work once power does return.

[Wetcoaster]

If the efforts at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to restore power to get the cooling pumps working and overheating of the fuels rods under control, a "Chernobyl Solution" may be the only answer - encase the reactors and ponds in tonnes of sand and concrete.

A "Chernobyl solution" may be the last resort for dealing with Japan's stricken nuclear plant, but burying it in sand and concrete is a messy fix that might leave part of the country as an off-limits radioactive sore for decades.

Japanese authorities say it is still too early to talk about long-term measures while cooling the plant's six reactors and associated fuel-storage pools, comes first.

"It's just not that easy," Murray Jennex, a professor at San Diego State University in California, said when asked about the so-called Chernobyl option for dealing with damaged reactors, named after the Ukrainian nuclear plant that exploded in 1986.

"They [reactors] are kind of like a coffee maker. If you leave it on the heat, they boil dry and then they crack," he said. "Putting concrete on that wouldn't help keep your coffee maker safe. But eventually, yes, you could build a concrete shield and be done with it."

"It is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete, but our priority right now is to try and cool them down first," a Tokyo Electric Power official told a briefing on Friday.

At Chernobyl, an army of workers conscripted by the then Soviet government buried the reactor in tonnes of sand, then threw together a concrete container known as the "sarcophagus" within months of the fire and explosion there.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Chernobyl+solution+seen+nuclear+plant/4470877/story.html#ixzz1H46OmNxQ

[Wetcoaster]

Here is an excellent page assembled by Sympatico News. It gives a stark reminder of the breadth of destruction and its effect on Japan as well as the potential international effects if the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant cannot be contained.

It consists of a number of videos and photo galleries explaining radiation effects on the human body, food sources being found to be contaminated by radioactivity near the plant, how a nuclear reactor works and what is meltdown, an interactive nuclear fallout map and photo galleries of the tsunami, its aftermath and search and rescue efforts:

http://news.sympatico.ca/japan-aftermath-video

[Wetcoaster]

Video has emerged showing the giant and deadly tsunami wave rolling toward the northeastern coast of Japan last week, before they wiped out entire towns and killed thousands.

The footage shot by the Japan Coast Guard shows the wave rearing metres above the bow of the ship as the captain steers his vessel directly into it.

The wave, which measured as high as ten metres when it smashed into Japan's coastline, would have become even bigger than it appears in the video.

The coast guard ship, the Matsushima, was operating five kilometres out at sea when it encountered the wave. Crew members can be heard on the video urging each other to hold on to something as the wave rolls in.

Here is the video:

http://itn.co.uk/481439652338f213e16a0d13f31a1ed6.html

The Yomiuri reports that last week's tsunami reached heights of around 20 metres on the Sanriku coast, according to investigations by the Port and Airport Research Institute. The Sanriku coastline is jagged, a factor which apparently increased the height of the tsunami. Among their investigations, researchers found wreckage on top of a three-storey building near the ocean.

[Wetcoaster]

National Geographic has put together a photo gallery of 20 unforgettable pictures of the devastation:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/pictures/110315-nuclear-reactor-japan-tsunami-earthquake-world-photos-meltdown/#/japan-earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-unforgettable-pictures-victim_33289_600x450.jpg

These are stunning:

[Wetcoaster]

Japan has halted the sale of Fukushima area food products after detecting the presence of radioactive iodine contamination in food products from near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Japan confirmed the presence of radioactive iodine contamination in food products from near a crippled nuclear plant and ordered a halt to the sale of such products from the area, the U.N. nuclear body said on Saturday.

In what it called another "critical" measure to counter the contamination of food products, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Japanese authorities on March 16 recommended that people leaving the area should ingest stable iodine.

Taken as pills or syrup, stable iodine can be used to help protect against thyroid cancer in the case of radioactive exposure in a nuclear accident.

"Though radioactive iodine has a short half-life of about 8 days and decays naturally within a matter of weeks, there is a short-term risk to human health if radioactive iodine in food is absorbed into the human body," the IAEA said in a statement.

Japan’s top government spokesman earlier on Satursday said tests detected radiation above the national safety level in spinach and milk produced near the Fukushima nuclear plant.

It was the first known case of contamination since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that touched off the crisis.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation levels in milk from a Fukushima farm about 30 km (18 miles) from the plant, and spinach grown in Ibaraki, a neighbouring prefecture, exceeded limits set by the government.

He said these higher radiation levels still posed no risk to human health.

But the IAEA said radioactive iodine if ingested "can accumulate in and cause damage to the thyroid. Children and young people are particularly at risk of thyroid damage due to the ingestion of radioactive iodine."

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Japan+halts+sale+Fukushima+area+food+products/4471310/story.html#ixzz1H4tClL8U

[Wetcoaster]

An article from the New York Times about how just the fear of radioactive contamination could have a serious impact on Japanese brand foods.

March 19, 2011

Food Contamination Fears Could Harm Japanese Brands

By MARK McDONALD

TOKYO — Japan’s list of casualties, already long, could soon include two of the country’s iconic brands: sushi and Kobe beef.

The Japanese Health Ministry said Saturday that it had detected elevated levels of radiation in spinach and milk at farms up to 90 miles from Japan’s crippled nuclear reactors. The ministry did not make reference to any contaminated farm animals, seafood or fishing grounds in Japan. And no food exports from Japan have failed quality tests being done by other countries.

But even the perception of contamination, one Japanese agriculture expert said, could cause long-lasting “brand damage,” especially if there was evidence of radiation spreading across Japan.

“If the accident becomes bigger, like Chernobyl, it will damage all the brands and people won’t buy any of it, even if it’s safe,” said Hiroshi Uchida, a former professor of agricultural science, speaking of Kobe, Sendai and other brands of high-priced, top-quality Japanese beef. “Even though the government hasn’t mentioned the possibility of contamination of beef, we should start testing to convince people the beef is safe.”

Trevor Corson, a sushi expert and a former commercial fisherman who used to live in Japan, said seafood caught “in an ocean churning with movement and dispersal might turn out to be less of a concern than agricultural products that are exposed and stationary.”

But Mr. Corson also said the Japanese seafood industry could face a long and difficult struggle “to establish faith in the safety of their seafood — not unlike the challenges faced by gulf fishermen in the U.S. after the BP oil spill.”

The Tsukiji fish market in central Tokyo, the world’s largest clearinghouse for just about anything that fishermen pull from the sea, was not physically damaged by the earthquake. Its cobblestone aisles and alleyways were as loud, profane and hurly-burly as ever on Saturday. But something in Tsukiji’s soul seems to have been lost, or at least badly bruised, in the tsunami.

Before the disaster, the market drew 10 percent of its daily inventory of 2,400 tons of seafood from the waters off Tohoku, the coastal epicenter of the earthquake. The fishery there is renowned for its scallops, seaweed, bonito and shark’s fin. Tohoku, as a place and a brand in Japan, was formidable.

“It’s not like the brand is just damaged now — it’s over,” said a glum Tsutomu Kosaka, the general manager at Tsukiji. “At least for now, the brand is finished. Gone. It’s hopeless.”

Mr. Kosaka said Saturday that neither the Health Ministry nor city inspectors had tested any seafood in the Tsukiji market. The last time there were radiation tests of seafood in Tokyo, he said, was in 1954, after a Japanese tuna boat was contaminated by fallout from an American atomic test on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Mr. Kosaka’s hopelessness, for now, stems more from the outright destruction of fishing facilities in the north than from a possible poisoning of the fishery.

In towns and ports all along the coast, docks and jetties have vanished into splinters. Boats and trawlers are smashed or sunk. Nets and tackle, gone. Offshore fish farms and onshore processing factories, gone. Among the victims was Ojika, a 100-year-old whaling port that had just two boats left from its once mighty fleet.

A sushi chef at a restaurant near the fish market said the tsunami and its plundering of Tohoku had also been disastrous for his business.

“Scallops, sardines and oysters from Tohoku, none of that is available now,” said Tomohito Narasaki, 27, a chef at Sushizanmai. He said millions of dollars’ worth of bluefin tuna, red snapper and yellowtail farmed off Tohoku was instantly destroyed.

Japanese consumers certainly prize the domestic seafood products that go into their premium sushi dishes, but they also eat plenty of non-Japanese products in their sushi — as do consumers around the globe. Now that sushi is eaten worldwide, it is also sourced worldwide. Wholesalers, distributors, restaurant owners and chefs search everywhere for quality fish.

“I have started to hear people in the West worrying about radioactive sushi and so on, but perception and reality are quite different,” said Mr. Corson, the author of “The Story of Sushi.” “Much of the seafood typically used in sushi doesn’t originate in Japan and never passes through the country.”

Producers of Kobe and other top brands of Japanese beef said Saturday that they had not yet tested their prized cattle, which can cost upward of $50,000 each. Nor had they tested the special feed they use.

Ranchers with operations far from the damaged reactors scoffed at the notion that their cows might be contaminated. Distance is in their favor, they said, pointing out that Kobe is 360 miles southwest of the damaged reactor complex.

“I don’t need any tests,” said Kazunori Ikeda, director of the Wagyu Registry Association, the oversight body for all Wagyu cattle, including Black Wagyu, the strain from which Kobe beef comes. “We’re not afraid of contamination because Kobe is so far from Fukushima. I’m sure all cattlemen in Japan feel the same way. I’m confident.”

Certified Kobe beef produced in Japan is not exported, the certification group said, so foreign consumers will not be affected.

Kobe cattle, like the other leading brands here, have strict requirements for certification. Only 3,000 head per year make the Kobe grade. A five-ounce sirloin at the Ekki Bar and Grill in Tokyo currently goes for 12,000 yen, about $150.

Japan’s other brands of premium beef include Sendai, Ohmi, Matsuzaka and Yonezawa. “We can’t feed our cows anymore because of the shortages of feed and water,” said Masaru Takahashi, manager of the JA Cooperative in hard-hit Furukawa, which raises Sendai beef. “We have only 20 percent of the feed we need. I can’t imagine what effect this is going to have on our herd.”

Sendai cattlemen had just started to export their beef to Hong Kong and Macao, and had drafted plans to start shipping to the United States. That project is now delayed as the ranchers await word on further radiation tests. The government said Friday that it would test meat for cesium, plutonium and uranium, but gave no timetable.

Mr. Takahashi said he was worried about the public’s perception of beef cattle if tests showed any further spread of radiation. “If the rumors grow,” he said, “I’m not confident that anyone will buy our beef, even if it’s the highest quality and even if it’s safe.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/asia/20food.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[Common sense]

The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people

The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted that the disaster was a level 5, which is classified as a crisis causing 'several radiation deaths' by the UN International Atomic Energy.

Officials said the rating was raised after they realised the full extent of the radiation leaking from the plant. They also said that 3 per cent of the fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima plant had been severely damaged, suggesting those reactor cores have partially melted down.

After Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Akio Komiri cried as he left a conference to brief journalists on the situation at Fukushima, a senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis.

He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: 'The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans.

'In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster.'

Nuclear experts have been saying for days that Japan was underplaying the crisis' severity.

It is now officially on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. Only the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 has topped the scale.

Deputy director general of the NISA, Hideohiko Nishiyama, also admitted that they do not know if the reactors are coming under control.

He said: 'With the water-spraying operations, we are fighting a fire we cannot see. That fire is not spreading, but we cannot say yet that it is under control.'

But prime minister Naoto Kan insisted that his country would overcome the catastrophe

'We will rebuild Japan from scratch,' he said in a televised speech: 'In our history, this small island nation has made miraculous economic growth thanks to the efforts of all Japanese citizens. That is how Japan was built.'

It comes after pictures emerged showing overheating fuel rods exposed to the elements through a huge hole in the wall of a reactor building at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.

Radiation is streaming into the atmosphere from the used uranium rods at reactor number four, after a 45ft-deep storage pool designed to keep them stable boiled dry in a fire.

And some of the radioactive material could reach Britain within a fortnight, according to experts.

However they say it will not be dangerous when it reaches our shores while low levels of radiation have already hit Southern California.

A UN official said the radiation reaching America is 'about a billion times' beneath health-threatening levels.

An airborne plume of radiation is expected to be swept towards Europe, and again officials stress that the levels reaching the UK will not be high enough to pose any risk to human health.

Lars-Erik De Geer of the Swedish Defence Research Institute, said particles would eventually be detected across Europe.

'It is not something you see normally,' he said. 'But it is not high from any danger point of view. It is only a question of very, very low activities so it is nothing for people to worry about.'

The prediction that particles could reach Britain within two weeks is based on previous data, gathered by scientists observing nuclear testing in China.

Meanwhile, workers at the devastated power station are continuing their desperate battle to prevent a complete meltdown which some fear could be as bad as Chernobyl.

The latest pictures show a whole wall missing from the building housing reactor number four. Inside, a green crane normally used to move spent fuel rods into the storage pool can be seen. Underneath the crane, but not seen in the picture, is the 45ft-deep spent fuel storage pool which has boiled dry.

Officials at Fukushima are rapidly running out of options to halt the crisis. Military trucks are spraying the reactors for a second days with tons of water arcing over the facility.

Engineers are trying to get the coolant pumping systems knocked out by the tsunami working again after laying a new power line from the main grid.

And they today admitted that burying reactors under sand and concrete - the solution adopted in Chernobyl - may be the only option to stop a catastrophic radiation release.

It was the first time the facility operator had acknowledged burying the sprawling 40-year-old complex was possible, a sign that piecemeal actions such as dumping water from military helicopters or scrambling to restart cooling pumps may not work.

'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, told a news conference.

But some experts warned that even the concrete solution was not without risks.

'It's just not that easy,' Murray Jennex, a professor at San Diego State University in California, said when asked about the so-called Chernobyl option for dealing with damaged reactors, named after the Ukrainian nuclear plant that exploded in 1986.

'They (reactors) are kind of like a coffee maker. If you leave it on the heat, they boil dry and then they crack,' he said.

'Putting concrete on that wouldn't help keep your coffee maker safe. But eventually, yes, you could build a concrete shield and be done with it.'

And Yukiya Amano, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency said workers were in a 'race against the clock' to cool the reactor.

Attempts to quell the overheating plant with waterbombs from helicopters yesterday failed and despite the army pelting the site with water cannon, radiation levels rose higher.

Engineers are also working to restore power to the coolant pumping system knocked out by the tsunami.

There was a potential breakthrough when engineers succeeded in connecting a power line to Reactor 2. This should enable them to restore electricity to the cooling pumps needed to prevent meltdown.

But it is not certain the system will work after suffering extensive damage.

As the crisis entered its eighth day, the Japanese government was facing growing international condemnation for its handling of the world's second worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and for the lack of information it is giving experts and the public.

Officials have declared a 12-mile evacuation zone around the plant on the north eastern coast. Another 140,000 people living within 18 miles have been told not to leave their homes.

But Britain, which is pressing Japan to be more open about the disaster, has advised citizens to give the area a 30-mile berth and to quit Tokyo nearly 150 miles to the south.

Yesterday thousands headed to Tokyo's airport to leave the country for whichever destination they could find.

Two Foreign Office-ordered chartered flights, with almost 600 seats, begin their work today to bring Britons home.

America, France and Australia are also advising nationals to move away from the plant.

A week after the earthquake and tsunami, authorities are still struggling to bring it back from the brink of disaster.

Four of six nuclear reactors at the site have been hit by explosions and fires which have sent clouds of low-level radiation into the air.

The team of exhausted workers battling to prevent meltdown at the site – dubbed the 'Fukushima Fifty' – are unable to approach the most badly damaged reactors because radiation levels are so high.

Yesterday concern focused on two large tanks used to store spent nuclear fuel at Reactors 3 and 4.

Hydrogen explosions blew the roofs off both buildings earlier this week, leaving the pools exposed to the elements.

Water levels in the tanks have dropped dramatically in the last few days, possibly because of a leak caused by the earthquake. Waste in Reactor 3 is completely exposed to the air and is emitting alarming levels of radiation as it heats up.

Unlike the other reactors which use uranium, Reactor 3 uses a mixture of uranium and plutonium. Plutonium, best known as an ingredient in nuclear weapons, is particularly dangerous if released into the environment.

In the worst case scenario, exposed fuel will melt, triggering a chemical explosion that will send radioactive dust hundreds of yards into the air.

Chinook helicopters flying at less than 300 feet dropped four loads of water over the wrecked building in the hope that some water would seep into the dried-out pool and cool the fuel.

However, footage suggested much of the 2,000 gallons of water missed its target.

Later, six fire engines and a water cannon tried to spray the building with 9,000 gallons of water from high pressure hoses. However, radiation levels within the plant rose from 3,700 millisieverts to 4,000 millisieverts an hour immediately afterwards.

People exposed to such doses will suffer radiation sickness and many will die. Today Tokyo Electric Power, which owns the plant, will try to restart the reactor's cooling systems after workers connected a half mile long power cable from the national grid to Reactor 2.

Spokesman Teruaki Kobayashi said: 'This is the first step towards recovery.'

He added: 'We are doing all we can as we pray for the situation to improve.'

Last night 14,000 were confirmed dead or missing in Japan and 492,000 are homeless. There are 850,000 households in the north of the main island without electricity in freezing temperatures.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Fukushima-nulear-plant-radiation-leak-kill-people.html

Edited March 19, 2011 by blue.dragon258

[old_time_hockey]

Hopefully, they suffer severely from hypertension and other salt overdose complications.

What really irks me about these super chicken craps is that they have no problem putting the lives of others, such as the police, military, firefighters, or even other common folks at risk to keep them safe, but when their own lives are perceived to be in even the slightest danger, they freak out, panic and mess up the supply of essentials for everybody else like this.

I wonder if they ever watch footage of 9/11 rescuers valiantly entering the collapsing buildings to their demise and feel guilty, or put themselves up against their standards of courage and heroism.

All very easy to say on this side of the Pacific. You do realize that there are people in BC buying up all the slim stocks of Potassium Iodide as we speak right? I would actually say the people in Japan have a legit concern given the level of dishonesty their government is putting out.

But I don't see your point about expecting the Police, Military and Firefighters to risk their life to keep them safe. Inherent risk pretty much is in the job description. Firefighters for example. If any employer asked you to storm into your burning place of work and put out the fire, you are well within your rights to say no and site the right to refuse unsafe work. But since Firefighters have the needed training and equipment, it is deemed their job is made as safe as possible even though there are several hazards including cancer post retirement that are known. I still say they aren't compensated well enough though for what we ask them to do.

But even more so the military. They have sworn to protect (at least in Canada) Queen and Country. They can be ordered into a situation that is absolute suicide with no chance of surviving and that is their duty to serve the people they have sworn to.

[Wetcoaster]

The Wall Street Journal - Asia Edition with some good news.

ASIA NEWS

MARCH 19, 2011, 11:30 P.M. ET

Japan Nuclear Fight May Have Turned Corner

TOKYO—The battle to bring the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan under control may have turned a corner, with cooling functions at two reactors apparently working again, a development that could ease a nuclear emergency that has gripped the nation for more than a week.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said it got cooling functions at reactors No. 5 and No. 6 working and that temperatures at the spent fuel storage pools at these reactors are closer to regular levels.

Also Sunday, the utility reported some success in hosing down the troubled No. 3 reactor, the focus of the most intense efforts to keep the temperature of radioactive material under control. The radiation level there had fallen to 2,758 microsieverts per hour late Saturday versus 3,443 microsieverts earlier in the day. The more recent level is just above the highest recommended level of exposure per year, according to U.S. guidelines.

Officials also said they restored power cables to the troubled No. 1 and No. 2 reactors and hoped to restore power later Sunday.

Japan's Self Defense Force started shooting water Sunday at the plant's No. 4 reactor, though this operation was later halted. The SDF was trying to direct water into the reactor's spent fuel tank to help cool fuel rods and keep them immersed in water to prevent them from overheating and releasing more radioactive material.

The United Nation's nuclear watchdog said Saturday that the nuclear accident at the plant hasn't widened in the past three days and that the risk of a worst-case-scenario meltdown is now reducing day by day, though the situation still is very serious.

"I prefer not to speculate about the future, but as days go by, the risk of a total meltdown is reducing," said Graham Andrew, special adviser to the International Atomic Energy Agency's director general, at a press briefing in Vienna, adding "there are still risks that it could get worse."

Underscoring the lingering risk, Tokyo Electric, known as Tepco, said Sunday morning local time that high radiation levels are delaying the restoration of power to the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors, which have been the main focus of concern in recent days because of the fear that pools of spent fuel rods stored there could overheat, resulting in the release of radioactive material.

While the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors are the least problematic of all of the reactors that were slammed by a tsunami after a magnitude 9.0 quake rocked northeastern Japan on March 11, the fact that Tepco has managed to make progress in keeping their temperatures down is a major step in helping to contain the threat of overheating and the possibility of further radiation leakage.

As of early Sunday, the temperature in the pool at reactor No. 5 was 37.1 degrees Celsius, while the temperature for reactor No. 6 was 41.0 degrees, Tepco said. Japan's nuclear regulatory agency said that the temperature in the pool Saturday at reactor No. 5 was 48 degrees and 67 degrees at reactor No. 6.

A typical spent fuel pool is kept at a temperature below 25 degrees Celsius under normal operating conditions.

Power for reactors No. 1 and No. 2 were initially expected to be restored Saturday afternoon, but moved back the timing as workers had to shield many pieces of equipment from the water spraying operations.

Another Tepco spokesman said on Saturday that in order to supply power to all of the reactors all of the cables need to be connected and checked along with other equipment.

Even if cables and other equipment function properly, to operate the reactor's cooling system the company will first have to check that all the equipment used in the system still works, the spokesman said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704021504576210251376606080.html

[bohunter]

They also said that one of the reactors needed to be vented due to pressure, and that it might have to be done manually...

[Truculence]

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

Reality check.

[Wetcoaster]

There have been reports that Japanese police have opened an investigation into the liability for the operator of the Fukushima Daiicho nuclear plant - the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). This story may explain why the investigation could be under way.

Operator of Fukushima nuke plant admitted to faking repair records

AFP

From: AFP

March 20, 2011 6:33PM

DAYS before Japan plunged into an atomic crisis after a giant earthquake and tsunami knocked out power at the ageing Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator had admitted faking repair records.

The revelation raises fresh questions about both Tokyo, the scandal-tainted past of the Electric Power Co (TEPCO), and the Japanese government's perceived soft regulation of a key industry.

The operator of the Fukushima No 1 plant submitted a report to the country's nuclear watchdog 10 days before the quake hit on March 11, admitting it had failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment in its six reactors there.

A power board distributing electricity to a reactor's temperature control valves was not examined for 11 years, and inspectors faked records, pretending to make thorough inspections when in fact they were only cursory, TEPCO said.

It also said that inspections, which are voluntary, did not cover other devices related to cooling systems including water pump motors and diesel generators.

The report was submitted after the regulator ordered operators to examine whether inspections were suitably thorough.

"Long-term inspection plans and maintenance management were inadequate," the nuclear safety agency concluded in a follow-up report two days after TEPCO's admission.

"The quality of inspection was insufficient."

The safety agency ordered the operator to draw up a corrective plan by June 2.

But on March 11 the 9.0-magnitude earthquake unleashed a 10-metre tsunami, knocking out back-up generators hooked to the plant's cooling system aimed at keeping fuel rods from overheating and releasing dangerous radiation.

A nuclear safety agency official who declined to be named said: "We can't say that the lapses listed in the (February 28) report did not have an influence on the chain of events leading to this crisis.

"We will conduct thorough research on TEPCO's activities up until this crisis but that will come afterwards. For now we are only working on saving the plant."

Firefighters, policemen and troops are hosing the damaged reactors in a desperate bid to stop them overheating, and trying to restore electricity that would kick-start cooling systems.

Images of the exploding plant triggered global alarm, but for many in Japan, TEPCO's track record of safety issues and attempts to cover them up add to suspicion over a flow of opaque, erratic information about Fukushima.

In 2002, TEPCO admitted to falsifying safety reports which led to all 17 of its boiling-water reactors being shut down for inspection, including Fukushima.

The revelation forced the then TEPCO chairman and president to resign.

And in an eerily familiar event, a 2007 earthquake paralysed its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant - the world's biggest - and more radiation leaked than TEPCO initially acknowledged.

TEPCO later said it underestimated the potential impact of an earthquake on the facility.

"People don't trust TEPCO, they don't expect TEPCO to tell the truth," Philip White of the Tokyo-based Citizens' Nuclear Information Centre, a group of scientists and activists against nuclear power, said.

"The problem is one of a culture of denial - denial that this could occur, denial Japan could be subject to a big quake and the scale of the wave that could come."

Parallels with how TEPCO has handled Fukushima and BP's dealing with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster have been drawn.

TEPCO has lost 1.93 trillion yen ($A24.6 billion) in market value since the disaster.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan was heard by a stray microphone furiously berating TEPCO officials after they took an hour to notify the government of the first explosion to hit the plant.

"What the hell is going on?" Kan was heard to say.

When the February report was released, the local Fukushima government also demanded redress, saying the "problem threatens the foundation of trust", media reported at the time.

TEPCO had issued the report after a fresh inspection at its Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant also revealed oversight.

"They had submitted the report because they were afraid they would get in trouble if they didn't," another nuclear safety official said.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/operator-of-fukushima-nuke-plant-admitted-to-faking-repair-records/story-e6frf7lf-1226024977934

[Wetcoaster]

After indicating that there might need to be further venting of radioactive gas, TEPCO now says pressure is stabilizing and there is no immediate need for the venting.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Japan Nuclear Agency: Pressure Inside No 3 Reactor Containment Vessel Stabilizing

TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Japan's nuclear safety agency said Sunday that pressure levels inside the containment vessel of the No. 3 reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are stabilizing, prompting the power company in charge of the plant to delay steps to release steam from the reactor.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), the operator of the troubled plant, informed the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency shortly after 0600 GMT that "pressure within the reactor has been stabilizing so we won't conduct ventilation for a while," an official from the agency told reporters.

Earlier in the day, the agency said that pressure in the container was rising and that Tepco would open valves at the reactor in a bid to reduce pressure levels, an operation that could release radioactive steam.

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110320D20JF496.htm

[cj_coolcat]

It gets even better:

Salt shame

My Chinese co-worker was telling me about this. He told me his Aunt in Hong Kong asked him to send her some salt. So, he went to two different grocery stores in Richmond (Save On and Superstore I believe) and they were sold out there too!

[Common sense]

My Chinese co-worker was telling me about this. He told me his Aunt in Hong Kong asked him to send her some salt. So, he went to two different grocery stores in Richmond (Save On and Superstore I believe) and they were sold out there too!

Reports of snow falling in Vancouver?

[Wetcoaster]

Official conservative estimates put the number of dead and missing all over Japan at 20,405 as of Sunday noon -- 8,133 deaths and 12,272 unaccounted for, the National Police Agency said.

However the death toll from last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami will top 15,000 in Miyagi Prefecture alone, the local police chief there said Sunday.

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110320D20JF490.htm

[The Wizard of AZ]

Don't know if this has been posted. But it's insane.