7.9 and 8.8 Earthquakes in Japan

more extraordinary footage
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12725646

Holy fuck. I don't think I can watch any more of this. Thanks, this thread, for being a useful respository of information and sanity away from babbling 24 hour news goons.

still from that is whoa

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51653000/jpg/_51653413_011515481-1.jpg

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51653000/jpg/_51653430_011515168-1.jpg

Probably a dumb question, but why is the water black? All the shit getting churned up from the seabed?

Yeah I spotted that too, like was thinking in comparison to the brisbane floods/king tide surges which were all completely brown.

Could understand inland floodwater being the colour of dirt, but 'fresh' water coming downstream straight from the sea?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm

Holy shit.

And, still no word from my Sendai relatives...my cousin in Tokyo has completely gone off radar but we think he's trying to get back north. Just pretty unspeakable really.

No. 3 reactor at #Fukushima "partial meltdown possible" says #japan cab sec. More serious than 1. No. 3 uses MOX fuel with plutonium in it.

i'm so sorry oppet, i hope you get good news, and soon. the waiting is so awful.

that video is so eerie. all that water, but so quiet.

this is a very well written article by someone who *seems* to know what they're talking about. the mass media have a lot to answer for in my opinion.

https://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/

There was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity.

By “significant” I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on – say – a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background radiation.

im going to go ahead and stop reading

lot of people *seem* to know what they're talking about

there are absolutely no consequences for them if they're wrong, so they may as well double down and make silly categorical statements like the above

errr his reputation??

unfortunately there will be no consequences for some of the hysteria the mass media is creating too.

I hope that guy does know what he's talking about, because that's an excellent read.

Sad to hear that the Japanese government and power companies are being no more clear or forthright than I imagine their American counterparts would be. There was no meltdown. There may have been a meltdown. There may have been a partial meltdown. There may have been two partial meltdowns. There may have been two partial meltdowns, and we're having serious problems cooling four other reactors. There may have been two partial meltdowns, and we're having trouble cooling four other reactors, but the amount of radiation that's escaped has been minimal.

You see where this is going, sadly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ1EB8ttNQw

enfin

Predictably/tragically, death toll reportedly rising "dramatically."

Also, rethinking my relatively pro nuclear stance. You could say, yeah, nuclear power plants should not be built in unstable countries, but it wasn't even the earthquake that did this, it was the tsunami. So, basically, you can never plan for the worst case scenario, because it will always be worse than you plan for. Of course, there would have to be an alternative energy, but that would entail an honest investment in and expansion of alternative energies, which we are not seeing at a proper clip for all sorts of selfish and stupid reasons.

An official at NISA has rated the incident at 4 under the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. Three Mile Island was rated 5 while Chernobyl was rated 7 on the 1 to 7 scale, the official said.

It's a 4 so far, though. And so far, not a single one of the reactors is totally under control, right? So best case scenario ... 4. Worst case TBD.

Probably a dumb question, but why is the water black? All the shit getting churned up from the seabed?

― James Mitchell, Sunday, March 13, 2011 6:48 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

total guess but maybe it has something to do w/the fact that while normal waves are caused primarily by wind and are active only on top of the ocean, tsunamis being created by an earthquake extend all the way down to the ocean floor and maybe pick up silt thats usually left undisturbed - so yeah shit getting churned up from the seabed

im wondering how long people had to evacuate and what the process is - like in certain places will people just go to high ground after an earthquake or are they waiting for a separate tsunami warning

I'd guess people just go to high ground when there is an earthquake in coastal areas. Someone from the UN geological commission was saying that when they detected the tsunami they could only give 6 - 10 minutes warning time before it struck, which is nowhere near enough to evacuate anyone.

interactive before and after http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/jpq031311/s_j03_31308038.jpg

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/jpq031311/s_j08_RTR2JSH3.jpg

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/jpq031311/s_j13_RTR2JSH5.jpg

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/03/japans-earthquake---the-aftermath/100023/

jesus. not saying anything that hasn't already been said here already, but the tilt shift madness of those images is impossible to reconcile

more here http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/03/japan_earthquake_aftermath.html

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/quake2/bp9.jpg

the ones of people emerging from the rubble are particularly intense

Sorry for getting pissy earlier, guys. That Australian fallout map just rubbed me waaaay the wrong way. Feel like bringing up how people outside Japan could be harmed is kind of premature and detracts from the people at hand.

facebook was getting on my nerves yesterday that's for sure

mh: even during the tsunami, some economy-related sites were only mentioning what the effects on the Yen and Dollar and "your stocks" was going to be.
The ever-growing economic demands and those of investors are responsible for this "the reactors were designed to be safe up to 7.9 on the Richter scale" crap, imho.

And the only thing they can STILL think of now is: how will the stock exchanges react tomorrow? Even Japanese companies have to grow every 3 months or else investors dump their stocks and THEN where'll we be?

>:-(

(But anyway. This isn't the place for that)

eh financial outlets cover financial issues, local news covers local stuff, its their job and people want to hear that angle - its not like theres been any shortage of people attempting to come to grips w/how horrible this is - if some people are so closed down that they cant even go there i just feel bad for them

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/13/article-1365569-0B27067100000578-153_964x654.jpg

xp yeah I started seeing those stories yesterday... really sickening... "fortunately most of the damage has been in an area that is of low economic value"... go die, economists.

so, the water has receded, yeah?

I had the impression that there was devastation along the entire East coast of Japan extending for miles inland when viewing the early videos, until I saw the post-tsunami satellite imagery. One can easily see the extent of damage by the inundation of fields with water and debris, to discover that the wall of debris flowing for miles was very atypical, occurring only at just around Sendai. 50 miles north or south and the debris fields are far more limited in extent. The videos we've been watching with awe are often the same action from different angles. I spent the first 6 months after Katrina in New Orleans, occassionally driving a press photographer staying at my father's about and saw much the same thing, with most media imagery and press events taking place in the devastated 9th Ward ghetto. The experience just a few miles away was radically different.

Not discounting the suffering of the affected, or the difficulty of search rescue and rebuilding when so much infrastructure (electricity and water) offline. Its just that looking at the big picture (from orbit) can give a sense of perspective.

xps another completely blind guess about the black water: being such a mountainous area, i would imagine japan maybe has a lot of black sand beaches? so it may be that getting churned up.

thanking u Sanpaku

http://www.deadline.com/2011/03/hawaii-five-0-production-not-impacted-by-tsunami/

ain't that a load off

was just going to start a thread for an update on that

and now a volcano is erupting http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-japan-quake-volcano-20110314,0,2486939.story

it's really just grim lols for me at this point. it really is the end of the world, isn't it?