Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

3ndahalfof6

another EQ warning

neaideabh

****!

Cathaoirleach

Another Earthquake

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv

Tremors in studio now

Chad ghostal

earthquakes aren't really the worry tbh, the tsunamis/radioactivity are the worry..although if I was in a high rise I would probably be getting pretty tired of the rocking and rolling all day.

Thrill

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

Ok, just now, it was 60,000 missing people on NHK.

I'm just relaying what they say.

The stock exchange is in serious trouble. Tens of billions have been removed from the economy in panic

Police say 3,373 dead, 6,746 missing from quake and tsunami in Japan.

NHK World reporting 440,000 homeless in about 2040 shelters. Many (most?) shelters are cold and have insufficient heaters and fuel.

3ndahalfof6

the footage of the camera shaking on top of the building, the EQ that caused it was only a 5,

it gives you an idea of how much they are going through as most of the after shocks are 5+

3ndahalfof6

Chad ghostal wrote: »

earthquakes aren't really the worry tbh, the tsunamis/radioactivity are the worry..although if I was in a high rise I would probably be getting pretty tired of the rocking and rolling all day.

the EQ is what will cause the tsunamis

Cathaoirleach

Thrill wrote: »

Police say 3,373 dead, 6,746 missing from quake and tsunami in Japan.

NHK World reporting 440,000 homeless in about 2040 shelters. Many (most?) shelters are cold and have insufficient heaters and fuel.

Please watch NHK - they are reporting thousands missing per prefecture. They said about 60,000 unaccounted for. Hope that's wrong. Everyone, please check.

Overheal

The Fukushima Plant has been abandoned. It's all but a matter of time until complete meltdown.

Jesus Diaz — The Kyodo News agency and several other local outlets are reporting that government officials now fear a breach in the core vessel of nuclear reactor 3 at Fukushima Daiichi, according to Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. Radiation levels have skyrocketed. Edano just announced that all workers—50 remained in the facility—have been evacuated from the plant because of this new incident. Emergency containment operations appear to have been suspended temporarily. The official explanation comes after a new cloud was spotted rising from the plant. Operators initially said that it may be steam, but apparently it's much graver than that. URL="http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78456.html"]Kyodo Ne[COLOR="Red"][/COLOR]ws[/URL] and [URL="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hr2sPhUE6ja0EMclJeUeGSQAON-g?docId=7e3dd7128b804f5d965554ff69375e76"]AP[/URL

Not at all sure what this means in the long term, such as how long they will have to abandon the plant for until they can resume containment attempts. Or how much radioactive material may now potentially be released into the environment. Or indeed if this situation could spread to the other 2 active reactors, plus the spent fuel pools.

ectoraige

That's old news, the evacuation order was recinded 90 minutes ago, Reuters are now reporting Workers ordered to leave the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were allowed back in after radiation levels fell

Chad ghostal

3ndahalfof6 wrote: »

the EQ is what will cause the tsunamis

Yes but most of the aftershocks will not be very large, so they are probably not going to cause any significant tsunamis. There have been lots of earthquakes over M7 without any problems in the past, so I don't think it's necessary for people to have a heart attack every time there is a warning... there have been over 200 aftershocks since Friday.

neaideabh

People are tweeting from Tokyo Disneyland saying DisneySea is flooding and the parking lots is over flowing with water

Overheal

Disneyland? What kind of water?

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

ectoraige wrote: »

That's old news, the evacuation order was recinded 90 minutes ago, Reuters are now reporting Workers ordered to leave the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were allowed back in after radiation levels fell

so i guess the answer to my question was "not long"

Not at all sure what this means in the long term, such as how long they will have to abandon the plant for until they can resume containment attempts.

Thrill

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

Please watch NHK - they are reporting thousands missing per prefecture. They said about 60,000 unaccounted for. Hope that's wrong. Everyone, please check.

The numbers I posted are the official figures.

Chad ghostal

neaideabh wrote: »

People are tweeting from Tokyo Disneyland saying DisneySea is flooding and the parking lots is over flowing with water

are the tweets recent? it was flooded on Friday when the other tsunamis hit; I dont think that last quake was big enough to beak any windows, let alone a create a sizeable tsunami

3ndahalfof6

Chad ghostal wrote: »

Yes but most of the aftershocks will not be very large, so they are probably not going to cause any significant tsunamis. There have been lots of earthquakes over M7 without any problems in the past, so I don't think it's necessary for people to have a heart attack every time there is a warning... there have been over 200 aftershocks since Friday.

this is true, its just when they give the warning we don't know the size of the quake till it happens,

but as you say there have been many, I was wondering because of the size of the continuing after shocks would they not be weakening a lot of the infrastructure.

so if there was a m7 or greater it might do a lot more damage than normal.

expectationlost

andyseadog wrote: »

is the plant on its own now? and if so, is it likely to stay that way?

apparently that was mistranslation and there still some workers there

expectationlost

Thrill wrote: »

Police say 3,373 dead, 6,746 missing from quake and tsunami in Japan.

NHK World reporting 440,000 homeless in about 2040 shelters. Many (most?) shelters are cold and have insufficient heaters and fuel.

they havn't said whether the people in these destroyed cities got enough warning to go to high ground and most are ok

Pi^2

It seems that after the workers were evacuated, the people in charge upped the acceptable radiation exposure limit for the workers from 100mSv to 250 mSv and sent them straight back in.

I won't be surprised when they up it again once the 250 threshold is surpassed.


I presume everyone has noticed the misinformation being thrown around with regard to the units of radiation. Whether deliberate or not, people are confusing micro-Sieverts (μSv) with milli-Sieverts (mSv).

But more seriously, they are confusing instantaneous radiation with radiation per unit time.

Those poor workers are exposed to a moderate instantaneous radiation level but they have been in the plant for a long long time.

Rob A. Bank

Interesting post which suggests they basically decided to let the reactors go when they reduced the workers to 50...

"It's obvious the situation in Japan is dire, "750 people that are being evacuated were doing critical work. They weren’t sweeping floors and washing windows; they were doing critical work. So, when the staff, basically, is cut—90 percent of the staff is told, "You have to leave the site"—that’s an indication that a lot of critical work isn’t getting done.

I really think it’s also—it’s an indication that management at the site has thrown in the towel and is going to let this thing run its course without any more human intervention. You can’t have 60 people on a six-unit site and expect that anything gets done." You know, Chernobyl was one reactor. There are three in either partial meltdown or meltdown. And then the other one has a fuel pool fire. And I understand this morning that the temperatures in the other two fuel pools are also increasing." AG

excerpts from ; Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who’s coordinated projects at 70 nuclear power plants

neaideabh

Chad ghostal wrote: »

are the tweets recent? it was flooded on Friday when the other tsunamis hit; I dont think that last quake was big enough to beak any windows, let alone a create a sizeable tsunami

My bad... Them tweets were from Friday alright. It was on top tweets on my twitter page so I mistook it for a reaction of the latest EQ!

Yakult

jesus over 400 aftershocks since the initial one.

Chad ghostal

3ndahalfof6 wrote: »

this is true, its just when they give the warning we don't know the size of the quake till it happens,

but as you say there have been many, I was wondering because of the size of the continuing after shocks would they not be weakening a lot of the infrastructure.

so if there was a m7 or greater it might do a lot more damage than normal.

I think/hope it's not a huge issue; there are loads of older buildings (especially houses/apartment blocks) that have been through buckets of earthquakes over the years and show very little signs of it. This amount over such a short time could be more detrimental, but most buildings were probably checked after Fridays quake for cracks/damage, so if they weren't showing signs of damage then, I don't think these smaller quakes will make much of a difference.

Thrill

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

Please watch NHK - they are reporting thousands missing per prefecture. They said about 60,000 unaccounted for. Hope that's wrong. Everyone, please check.

I probably should have been a bit clearer about the figures I posted. They were the last confirmed figures. A lot more are reported to be dead or missing but those have yet to be confirmed by the police.

I'm sure the official numbers will continue to rise, unfortunately.

Turtwig

It is believed, though obviously it is not yet known for sure that the latest smoke incident from Unit III was in relation to an explosion that occurred in its suppression chamber. If this is true then this means two suppressions have been knocked out of play and as we are still not 100% sure of the status of Unit's II primary containment which all signs point to it being intact, the status of Unit's III primary containment won't be known for a while.

Radiation levels at 10 a.m Japanese time rose to 1,000 µSv/hr or 1mSv/hr. Standard Operating Procedure is full evacuation at these levels. 55 minutes later the levels dropped. Prior to the spike radiation levels were fluctuating between 600-800 µSv /hr. It is not clear what the cause of the spike was. Unit II, Unit III, or Unit IV?

Plans to drop water on Unit IV via Helicopter have been abandoned again. It is also not fully know if the Unit IV second fire was a new fire or a resurgence of the original flame.

Even though the situation is getting tougher for the workers and I cannot express enough my awe at them. They know like you guys do that the longer they hold out and the more cooling they exert on whatever reactor core, spent fuel that is stricken the more they are minimising the quantity of radiation that will be leaked. Guys, this went beyond heroics 72 hours ago, all I can hope is that when they do get out of this they keep in good health and people can get a chance to find out and admire what they have been doing these past 4 days. It's been nothing short of breath taking. And, perhaps most amazing of all, they still haven't lost yet.

Cathaoirleach

#2 Fukushima is having problems - there is white smoke coming from #2 today. -NHK

Worry of dumping water on #2 #4. Worry of spent fuel displacment in #4.

6.0 Earthquake south of Fukushima, so further reports.

Tristram

This is from a british guy over here:

I have just returned from a conference call held at the British Embassy in Tokyo. The call was concerning the nuclear issue in Japan. The chief spokesman was Sir. John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, and he was joined by a number of qualified nuclear experts based in the UK. Their assessment of the current situation in Japan is as follows:

*

* In case of a 'reasonable worst case scenario' (defined as total meltdown of one reactor with subsequent radioactive explosion) an exclusion zone of 30 miles (50km) would be the maximum required to avoid affecting peoples' health. Even in a worse situation (loss of two or more reactors) it is unlikely that the damage would be significantly more than that caused by the loss of a single reactor.

*

* The current 20km exclusion zone is appropriate for the levels of radiation/risk currently experienced, and if the pouring of sea water can be maintained to cool the reactors, the likelihood of a major incident should be avoided. A further large quake with tsunami could lead to the suspension of the current cooling operations, leading to the above scenario.

*

* The bottom line is that these experts do not see there being a possibility of a health problem for residents in Tokyo. The radiation levels would need to be hundreds of times higher than current to cause the possibility for health issues, and that, in their opinion, is not going to happen (they were talking minimum levels affecting pregnant women and children - for normal adults the levels would need to be much higher still).

*

* The experts do not consider the wind direction to be material. They say Tokyo is too far away to be materially affected.

*

* If the pouring of water can be maintained the situation should be much improved after ten days, as the reactors' cores cool down.

*

* Information being provided by Japanese authorities is being independently monitored by a number of organizations and is deemed to be accurate, as far as measures of radioactivity levels are concerned.

*

* This is a very different situation from Chernobyl, where the reactor went into meltdown and the encasement, which exploded, was left to burn for weeks without any control. Even with Chernobyl, an exclusion zone of 30 miles would have been adequate to protect human health. The problem was that most people became sick from eating contaminated food, crops, milk and water in the region for years afterward, as no attempt was made to measure radioactivity levels in the food supply at that time or warn people of the dangers. The secrecy over the Chernobyl explosion is in contrast to the very public coverage of the Fukushima crisis.

*

* The Head of the British School asked if the school should remain closed. The answer was there is no need to close the school due to fears of radiation. There may well be other reasons - structural damage or possible new quakes - but the radiation fear is not supported by scientific measures, even for children.

*

* Regarding Iodine supplementation, the experts said this was only necessary for those who had inhaled quantities of radiation (those in the exclusion zone or workers on the site) or through consumption of contaminated food/water supplies. Long term consumption of iodine is, in any case, not healthy.

*

The discussion was surprisingly frank and to the point. The conclusion of the experts is that the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami, as well as the subsequent aftershocks, was much more of an issue than the fear of radiation sickness from the nuclear plants.

*

Let's hope the experts are right!

Rob A. Bank

And the experts have been so correct about the developments so far...

:-/

Rob A. Bank

The BIG elephant in the room…. 1760 Tons of spent fuel heating up or burning and surrounded by little or no containment on the disaster site…

A presentation from TEPCO(Tokyo Electric Power Company)about spent fuel storage at its Fukushima plants showing that in November 2010 they were at 75-84% of their spent fuel storage capacity.

Daiichi site was holding 1760 Tons of spent Uranium Fuel, of its capacity of 2100 Tons(84%), in its six reactor storage pools and possibly in dry-cask storage.

Daini site was holding 1060 Tons of spent Uranium Fuel, of its capacity of 1360 Tons(78%), in its four reactor storage pools and possibly in dry-cask storage.

Some of this spent fuel was due to begin being moved to a new off-site storage facility in 2012, which means there was still at least these amounts in the storage pools when this event began. We don't know the disposition of this spent fuel, except that unit 2 pool has been leaking since the quake and has been without cooling water for long hours, and the units which lost their containment building upper/outer walls from explosion likely have uncovered, exposed spent fuel pools, possibly leaking or without water altogether, and it's possible the spent fuel may have been dispersed from the explosions.

Blowfish

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

And the experts have been so correct about the developments so far...

:-/

And what exactly have they been wrong about?