7.9 and 8.8 Earthquakes in Japan

what does a regular buffalo wild wings commercial look like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snehqve-l3M

I lol'd :/

wtf with aftershocks still happening 11 days later, is that a normal thing?? i thought they just went on for a day or two.

Aftershocks go on in general for a long, long time.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/10/140_35.gif
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/Legends/legend.gif

The location of the original 9.0 hasn't had an aftershock in its immediate vicinity for a week, but the stresses are still relieving themselves towards the margins of the slip plane. No advance of the aftershock "front" towards Tokyo in 3 days.

On the meltdown front, today is the first day I've observed falling trends in environmental radiation in all the reports I follow (at the plant, near the exclusion zone, and Japan-wide) - links posted above.

heh I thought it was kind of convenient that as soon as the UN approved the resolution to enforce the no-fly zone in libya, all japan nuke reactor news immediately became 2nd page material.

this columnist at the telegraph goes to bat for a different kind of nuclear reactor

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html

no idea who he is or how credible this is. his sign-off is p hilarious

i supposed that's a better fit for the energy thread

theres been some thorium discussion in the energy thread iirc

Tokyo tap water deemed unfit for infants due to radioactive iodine detected.

There was a comprehensive site I stumbled across last night with tons of good info and graphs about radiation levels... in English, crazy enough. Let me try to find it.

Tokyo tap water deemed unfit for infants due to radioactive iodine detected.

Yeah I think that can put paid to any talk of this being a "minor incident" or a victory for nuclear power or whatever.

good site for radiation data and graphs: http://fleep.com/earthquake/

That's about right. 213 Bq/l iodine-131 vs a regulatory limit of 100 Bq/l for infants. The limit for adults is 300 Bq/l. 213 bequerels is 0.000005757 milliCuries for those keeping score. Fortunately, I-131 has a half-life of 8 days, the Cs-137 is the one to watch for persistent issues.

"Tap water not fit for infants" sounds like it goes in the first world problems thread, if not for the nuclear angle.

Then again, the tap water in a handful of rural communities around my state gets the same sort of advisory during times of the year where water levels are low.

Huge earthquake in Tokyo 5 mins ago... waiting for #s.

Ok, only 5.0 but scared the shit out of a lot of people.

It should. Look how it expanded that cloud of aftershocks some 40 km (or so) south west of its furthest extent (see graphic above). Its the first quake actually under the Kanto plain.

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-for-japan-run-away-as-qui/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12845304

Fukushima workers in hospital after radiation exposure

Two workers at Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been taken to hospital after being exposed to high levels of radiation.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/23/article-1369307-0B4B564300000578-813_634x950.jpg
Is this real? Pretty amazing I suppose but depressing that people are comparing this with not getting their potholes repaired.

Yeah, that's annoyed me too. Funny that there might be more impetus to repair something that's been totally destroyed than something that's got a bit of wear and tear.

No, that's staged in that the second photo is actually from the background of the first, further down the road.

yeah i thought i saw that debunked like a week ago and then since it's gone up everywhere

Looks like the same bit of road to me. Here was debunking thing you might be think of...

http://i.imgur.com/qxCwb.jpg

...which shows a digger rebuilding that stretch

guys, *look* at the two photos. it is the same bit of road.

Tell 'em, max

thanks for giving me the courage to do so, nick

No problem, that's what I'm here for

#courage

THE MORE YOU KNOW

one of my best friends is a teacher in sendai. he sent me a massive email this week which had some crazy stuff in it.

Anyway, I was halfway up the hill when the ground started to shake. At first I didn't pay much notice, as on the tuesday and the wednesday that week we had experienced 6+ and 7+ magnitude earthquakes, and I was beginning to get used to them, in a strange way. Well, instead of subsiding, the ground just began to shake more and more, and the noise grew louder and louder. The noise was coming from the city below me, which was slightly closer to epicentre, so I heard the severity of the earthquake moments before it really got going. It was practically impossible to walk, and branches of the trees around me started falling, so I climbed over a bush and hunkered down in the middle of the road. It was then that I looked back down the hill, at the city centre, and saw all the sky-scrapers, only about a kilometre or less away, swaying wildy. The noise became so extreme, it was like a thousand shop shutters endlessly smashing down all at once . . it went for maybe four or five minutes, in which time bits of the ground cracked away, the old castle walls opposite me subsided, and i just sat there, praying that those buildings below held together.

later

I went back to my building, the cracks, shit they were big cracks! While I was getting food from my room to bring back to my friends place, another decent aftershock hit (those days, 6+ quakes were ten a penny), the building swung, the cracks got bigger in front of my eyes

Speaking of that french guy, his earthquake story is by far the best - I wish it were mine - when it hit, he was halfway through a shit, and like me at first he thought, well, its just another earthquake, and carried on, but when it really got going it smacked his head against the wall twice, then bounced it against the door, and, according to him, his only thought was "I dont want to die on the toilet with my trousers around my ankles"!!! As the water was cut off, his shit was still in the toilet bowl three days later when he went back to inspect his apartment!

that's just a few snippets, it was a massive mail, don't want to post it all tho.

the irish embassy wouldn't fly him home, offered him a lift back to sendai once the nuclear threat had subsided! recession!

your friends a good writer! what a great description of the quake

wow Garda thanks for posting that. Max otm, vivid stuff.

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

i know, the email in full was the best thing i've read about it all so far, he manages to make jokes as well as telling the story.

i told him he should try and write an article for bbc and i'd help him, tho wondering if his story has ceased to be news.

Well anyway, after a couple of days eating crisps with salad dressing and whatever else we could get our hands on, they started shipping food up to the city. Fruit and veg. You would queue for a couple of hours, and come back with loads of fruit and veg. With no electricty or water, cooking the veg was impossible, and we had so much fruit that we used a fair bit of it to squeeze in the sho-chu (japanese vodka, rough, around 25%) which a french lad had brought with him. Helped pass the long, cold and completely dark nights (the stars were pretty amazing though, since there was no light for miles and miles).

sounds so weird.

i came back a few days ago to volunteer, i spent a couple of wasted days trying. There are too many volunteers, and there just isnt the work to go round. They wont let volunteers do much, there are too many corpses still in the "emergency zones", and it will take a long time to clear them. Times like this, I wish I had a skill, like being a doctor, or engineer, or something, so I could make a useful contribution, but even though I am fit and healthy they wont let me go to the emergency zones to help out. Instead, I sat in a waiting room for hours, along with dozens of others, such a waste of human resources.

i meant i'd help him get it published...rather than help, he is well able to write without my help!

I don't know which is worse, from a communication standpoint: starting out with modest radiation cautions before expanding their scope, or starting out more concerned and then talking it back.

Garda, it def seems worth trying...it is definitely a story that deserves telling. Shit, ALL those stories need telling, right?

Here's something great I came across. There's a local cooking school I like here that offers one-off classes (I took a knife skills class). The founder recently announced a spur of the moment trip to Japan ... which got her there the night before the quake. Here's what she wrote, which is both powerful and moving:

"It literally seems like months since my last, eager post to all of you about my impromptu vacation to Japan. I was so excited to be able to join John, rather last minute, as he was traveling there for business.

You are no doubt aware of the catastrophic & heart wrenching tragedies that have besieged northern Japan. There was an initial, much smaller quake that happened on Tuesday, March 8. My sister had emailed me about it, but after some searching the news & the internet, it seemed of little consequence. I boarded the plane on Wednesday & arrived in Tokyo, Japan on Thursday afternoon (with the time change). Thankfully, immediately, I boarded a train to meet up with John in Nagoya, which is south & west of Tokyo.

The large quake happened the very next day (my first full day there), while he was in business meetings & I was sightseeing by myself at Nagoya castle. We did feel the tremor there, but only at a 3-4.0 level. It was a bit confusing for me, on the 4th floor of this beautiful pagoda-like structure….it was moving & my first reaction was “wow, this is weird, I wonder if it’s another earthquake”. There were many Japanese people surrounding me, & the group to my immediate left was laughing. People continued to browse & read signs, as if nothing was happening. It lasted over a minute…I kept checking around to see if people were evacuating, but everyone sort of kept browsing….business as usual. After a few minutes, I did leave the building…only to return about 10 minutes later to continue sightseeing. While news reports do seem instantaneous in this day & age, it was only later that nite that we learned of the enormous impact it had on the principally affected area.

I wanted to reach out today & thank all of you for your prayers & great concern for us on our trip. We were able to post on facebook that we were all right, but I did not have the capacity to do a mass email from this platform while I was there. I know Laura & the crew at Flavour fielded a great many concerned calls directly after the earthquake. I sincerely regret that our trip caused so much anxiety, especially for our family & close friends….we were far enough away that, for the most part, our journey was minimally affected. With the media coverage here & the horrific impact it had to the northern part of the island, I know that it was concerning for many of you. How grateful we both are that you reached out, sent messages & kept us in your thoughts & prayers. I feel very blessed for our safety & your kind concerns.

This trip started out for me to be all about their food, though as you might imagine, that did not wind up being the primary focus. Our visit was life changing, in more ways than one.

Japan is an amazing culture, almost beyond words. The people are quiet & reserved, but more helpful & gracious & kind that one could ever imagine. As visitors, amidst this tragedy, we were treated with such kindness & generosity. One of our customers said it best on facebook…if any one culture can overcome this adversity, it is Japan. I couldn’t agree more. They have much to endure & conquer in upcoming months & years, but their fortitude & courage is palpable. They are a strong nation.

One of my day trips was to visit Hiroshima. It was harrowing & hopeful in one breath. They endured so much with our man-made destruction, yet have rebuilt & carried on with great strength. A few days later, my train passed thru Kobe, another Japanese city, utterly destroyed in 1995 by a measured 7.2 earthquake. Today, from the view of a train window, it looks like a vibrant, rebuilt city. I believe there is hope from that as well.

We continue to reflect on this trip & keep the amazing people of Japan close in our thoughts. We know so many of you are doing the same. It is, indeed, a small world. When catastrophic events like this occur, we are reminded about our humanness & just how fragile life is."

Into Ibaraki

When we arrived at city hall, workers informed us that about 40 people were staying on the second floor of that building and needed socks. They checked their maps for current demand to send us to the most needy locations. While they worked on that, we took socks to the people upstairs, past emergency signs and missing people reports posted at the entrance. Yoshiko received a radiation update by cell phone. Levels were low and we thought it rude to suit up around people living close to the reactors without suits, so we wore normal clothes and sometimes masks:

With map in hand and shelters prioritized by need, we set out through town. Our first stop was an athletic center that had been hastily converted into housing for the recently homeless. Heaps of donated clothing lay around the gymnasium, as we expected to find, but there was not a sock among them. We carried in our boxes, arranged them by category, and announced that we’d come to distribute new socks and care letters from around the world.

A charge of excitement rose up from the sad, stationary groups of people huddled on mats or curled up under blankets. They came over. “For us?” one asked. “Finally, socks!” another cried out, and that word spread quickly through the ranks and people began pouring in from side entrances and doorways we hadn’t previously noticed.

. . .

An old man with a face stretched tight like a lizard’s had fallen into a hole cracked through his house by the earthquake. Then, the tsunami hit. He couldn’t pull himself free of the hole. Trapped, he knew he was going to die as the water rose up his body, over his feet then knees then thighs then waist then belly then chest. “This is it,” he thought, but the water stopped. An odd calm settled across the surface of the water inside his home. Submerged in it, he gazed across the ocean in his room, motionless and numb and alone, not dead but not sure about life anymore. For two days he remained like that. The water receded and he shivered until he was dry, then shivered more in the cold. Finally, a helicopter arrived and pulled him up through a hole in the roof above him. He arrived at the shelter by himself with just the seawater-soaked clothes on his body. Everything else washed away. He asked if he could take two pairs of socks. I said he could take ten.

was talking with a friend who works fundraising desk job at MSF and she said that part of the problem with allocating help and funds is that a lot of this is long term fixes that MSF doesn't do. Like there's people who need help but there's not people who need rescue a week later. There's the living and the dead. Which reminds me of 9/11 in the city; I spent the day with thousands of people standing in front of st vincents trying to give blood or offer sweat labor and their was no one to give blood to and there was nothing to be done.

Was watching 'Summer Wars' today, and parts where there was a threat to a nuclear power station was :(

haven't watched this yet, heard it was extraordinary
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3a7_1301163352

yeah i watched that one earlier this evening, utterly unspeakale

damn, that is unreal

o_O http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/27/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1

way not to be alarmist, cnn

Shutting them down.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12903725

I mean, they've already been shut down but now they're scraping them.