7.9 and 8.8 Earthquakes in Japan

there's a town called Satsumasendai with a nuclear plant called Sendai down there. confusing!

There's another nuclear power station called Sendai, in the far south of Japan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendai_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Although there aren't any nuclear reactors in Tokyo nightclubs AFAIK...

Except for this atomic reactor:
http://quick.dezro.com/HardGayAlbum.jpg

(sorry if thats in poor taste in this thread someone can deletorb it)

Potential dispersion of the radioactive cloud after a nuclear accident in Fukushima
[...]
This animation displays a potential dispersion of the radioactive cloud (Caesium 137 Isotope) after a nuclear accident in reactor Fukushima I. The continuous release rate is very uncertain, thus the calculations have to be interpreted qualitatively. Dispersion in the near surface level (Level 1), in appr. 2500 m height (Level 12) and in appr. 5000 m height (Level 16).

10.46am (7.46pm JST): France has urged its nationals in Tokyo to leave the country, or at least head towards southern Japan.

This is a significant development: the first time a nation has explicitly said it does not believe Japanese reassurances about the safety of the Fukushima plant, about 150 miles from the capital. The comments by French ministers are very strong.

Hugely disturbing implications aside, it's interesting that this is coming from France, who are obviously one of the most nuclearised countries on the planet.

Hugely disturbing implications aside, it's interesting that this is coming from France, who are obviously one of the most nuclearised countries on the planet.

France may know more about Japan's nuclear industry than most given that that's where Japan sends its fuel for reprocessing.

On the other hand France seems to very much enjoy being the "first" to do something on the world stage, whatever it is (i.e. recognizing Benghazi militants as Libya's legitimate government)..

I was thinking is that if anything, you'd have expected France to play down the dangers, so it's kind of doubly alarming.

^^ yeah usually kind of blase about pacific-rim-area radiation

Hopefully just trolling the Germans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream

Could someone remind me re: Chernobyl, was that one reactor or, like this one, a few reactors? In other words, is what's going on in Japan right now potentially the equivalent of two or three Chernobyls?

i think the variety of factors that describe 'meltdown' make that sort of comparison difficult - from what i gather the awfulness of chernobyl was in the radioactivity not being contained, and being lifted very high into the atmosphere. it seems like this would be much better contained to the site, so even if there was a standard unit of 1xreactor = a certain amount of damage, you couldn't just multiply, etc.

Peter Burns, former chief executive of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety:

How is the current Japanese situation different to Chernobyl?
Chernobyl did not have a containment vessel and a large fraction of the inventory of volatile fission produces was released. Releases to date have been minor. If there is a major meltdown and the containment vessels are breached to some degree it is still likely that much of the radioactive material would be contained."

Current reports state that the radiation levels at the plant reached 400 millisieverts per hour (mSv/h). What does this number mean, is it comparable to other sources of radiation (x-ray etc)? How is it comparable to the radiation released at Chernobyl or 3 Mile
Island?
Current international recommendations allow for planned exposures up to 100mSv when dealing with accidents. At 400mSv this would occur in 15 minutes, so 400 mSv/h is a high exposure rate. A dose of 400mSv is comparable to the dose from 50 -100 CT Scans.

How dangerous are these levels for the general population in the surrounding area and further afield?
Doses from the plant fall off quickly. With a 20km exclusion zone in place doses to the public would be low in comparison to those from natural background radiation.

Chernobyl had no containment chamber, for one. think zit full of radioactive pus exploding.

Note - teenage super hero idea.

still, if things do continue to get worse, i probably wouldn't want to site an orchard/fish farm/hospital/school/house nearby for the next __ centuries.

I guess then I'm curious what "contained" means. Because if boats off the coast are detecting higher than usual levels of radiation, then clearly not everything is "contained."

it's kind of the difference between an engine that's stopped leaking a bit of oil, and a engine exploding at 100mph spewing oil and petrol and cogs everywhere. (Not really, but a bit)

it's like if you have cupped a fart but some still comes out through between your fingers

thanks ken!

Hadn't realized Akihito had never done a live TV broadcast before -- I guess part of me figured he would have at least done a new year's/annual address like Queen Elizabeth.

Correct that, I see it wasn't live but taped beforehand, but they're still saying he had never done anything like that before.

People were tripping because he used colloquial (yet proper) Japanese instead of the stilted archaic court dialectic that many people don't understand.

Fukushima Dai-ichi Reactors #2, #3 and #4 are radiating 400 mSv per hour.

Various cities around Kanto were measuring 7 to 110 times normal radiation.

*Kanto = the Tokyo/Yokohama metro area, the most densely populated area in the world iirc.

jesus

The reactors are now attempted being cooled remotely instead of via on-site workers. High pressure water cannons and aerial air/heli-tankers were in use late yesterday.

The US Govt launched an unmanned U2 to run surveillance flights and survey the damage from above.

Sorry, it is a RQ-4 not a U2.

Japanese officials insist that radiation levels are safe outside of the 20km evacuation radius.

sister of a friend is a nuclear inspector in wales, here's what she says.

**

It's really important to remember that a breach in primary containment is not the same as a breach. Secondary containment is still secure. It is still only a suspected breach, and the only ejecta would be radioactive material in steam. In these cases, most of the actual radioactive material has a half life of minutes to hours. This steam is generally held in the primary containment vessel to allow these radioisotopes to decay out. Thus it is normally held in primary for a period of time before being released to secondary, then held again before being released to the atmosphere. At this point the only isotopes left are emitting alpha particles, and a few lower energy betas, which cannot penetrate human skin and are only dangerous when inhaled, which is why people were being instructed to remain indoors. If primary containment is breeched, the ejecta is stored in secondary and cannot be held as long before being released, allowing for some gamma particle emitters to still be present in the steam. This will cause higher localized gamma radiation, since some of them will be able to overcome the shielding.

I know there was an issue about having the civil defense force use helicopters to top up the water in the fuel storage pools, but they couldn't for a while because the civil defense forces have a level of allowable exposure many times less what the plant workers can be safely exposed to. Basically it was a health and safety thing. They've since been allowed back in, since background radiation dropped again.

From what I've heard, the 'total evacuation' thing may be a translation error resulting from a shift change. There was a period where they were changing out staff pretty frequently so that no one went over a certain level of exposure. It's not clear if they evacuated non-essentials from around reactor two, but the whole plant was never evacuated, and I think the essentials were still in the control room of 2.

It's good to read the updates from the IAEA (http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html), since they are in direct, constant contact with the people on the ground. The IAEA is the one who will eventually do the analysis of the accident, but that will take ages. It's also important to remember exactly how excellently this plant, one that is actually out of date and was on its way to being decommissioned, performed. Another aside, it's pretty much impossible for the spent fuel to have a 'meltdown', because, well, it's spent fuel. Unless the old material was piled on top of each other (something that would have been noticed), it just can't happen. So chill out, guys. They're not even handing out iodine pills in Japan, and that's as far as the escaping radioisotopes can physically get. The level at which they believe radiation increases your chances of dying from cancer by 0.8% is about 100 mSv/year.

sounds plausible but i have no idea obv.

"From what I've heard, the 'total evacuation' thing may be a translation error resulting from a shift change. There was a period where they were changing out staff pretty frequently so that no one went over a certain level of exposure. It's not clear if they evacuated non-essentials from around reactor two, but the whole plant was never evacuated, and I think the essentials were still in the control room of 2."

It was clarified later that the workers were evacuated from on-site attempts at cooling and the cooling attempts are now being attempted from some distance.

atm, japanese officials are prob correct about the levels being "safe" 20km away from the nuke plants, in that they should not increase cancer risks in any appreciable amount. Let's hope they stay that way.

It's also important to remember exactly how excellently this plant, one that is actually out of date and was on its way to being decommissioned, performed.

eh?

1743: The Swiss foreign ministry said it would lay on charter flights if necessary to bring Swiss nationals home.
1742: Switzerland has also advised that its citizens leave north-east Japan and Tokyo. "At the moment, the development in the damaged nuclear facility is unpredictable and aftershocks are possible," said Swiss president Micheline Calmy-Rey.
1738: The US is advising its citizens living within 80km (50 miles) of Fukushima to evacuate or stay indoors.

While I'm perfectly willing to go with more cautiously optimistic could-be-worse views of this disaster, I'm also very aware that each day has brought worse news than the day before. Not an auspicious, hopeful trend.

for real, not two days ago ppl were saying that whats going on today could never happen

ppl say a lot of shit on tv, esp if their bread is buttered on a particular side

Could someone remind me re: Chernobyl, was that one reactor or, like this one, a few reactors? In other words, is what's going on in Japan right now potentially the equivalent of two or three Chernobyls?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, March 16, 2011 1:11 PM

"[...]at least 120 times the amount of radioactive material[of Chernobyl]."
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fumweltinstitut.org%2Fpressemitteilungen%2F2011%2F2011_03_16-848.html&act=url

i have two friends in japan who teach ESL, one who was in koriyama with his wife and they have evacuated to niigata, which is on the west coast opposite sendai. apparently their house was utterly wrecked and it took them until today to get to niigata.

a bit irrelevant, but can anyone explain why there's a statue of liberty replica in a town likely just 3hrs away from 2 places we happened to nuke?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366898/Japanese-earthquake-Death-toll-expected-reach-25-000.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

er, sorry - it wasn't something i thought i could just google search, but turns out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicas_of_the_Statue_of_Liberty

that there's also another one in tokyo

/carryon

feel like I've been saying this on repeat since fri about each new bit of footage to come out, but... the footage on c4news of kamaishi (?) is just

CNN (Andy Cooper) showed some footage last night which they cut off conveniently before what I am almost sure was footage of a family getting washed away. It was recorded from a distance, but depicted them apparently trying to carry either a body or an elderly person before the wave crept up literally inches from them. The editors cut to Cooper before you actually get to see what happened.

Anyways, like somebody said upthread... it's pure voyeurism this, but makes me wonder how different history could've been if we had handheld cameras any sooner. I don't think there's any medium that captures tragedy more definitely.

Bit of light relief...Glenn Beck explains it all (with sweets)
http://www.businessinsider.com/glenn-beck-japan-nuclear-meltdown-video-2011-3

Must say I am now completely reassured.

Can we buy some of his gold coins to protect ourselves against radiation?