Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

Brenireland

Overheal wrote: »

Can't you just say it looks like they were hit by a tsunami?

Because thats what happened.

You don't need to equate it to anything else. My understanding is they have.

I think he was merely drawing up comparisons nothing more nothing less,Sad to see so much damage I hope those who are not accounted for have just relocated further inland before tsunami actually hit.

Killer Pigeon

Overheal wrote: »

It's not sensitivity. Theres a nuclear power plant involved in this mix that some people still seem to think will go off like a bomb.

Rather than further allude to the idea that it might even remotely be true (which it isnt) it might be a better idea not to keep putting the idea in peoples heads.

I won't succumb to stupid people, good day sir!

gman2k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_6iDBoOvb0

Overheal

Faith+1 wrote: »

Will Japan be another Chernobyl with abandoned cities?

Not likely. The conditions in the chernobyl reactor were very different. For one thing the scientists were dicking around with the control rods. At fukushima they SCRAMd it and then they left the damn thing alone to shut down.

It's closer in relation to Three Mile Island, with the obvious exception that the containment structure roof is now gone its played out in many of the same ways with a SCRAM and a loss of cooling for one reason or another. It will be worse off than the TMI incident, but shouldnt be anywhere remotely as bad as Chernobyl and Pripyat. They'll be monitoring radiation levels closely for the following weeks and months.

Mr.Boots

In my experience Alot of houses in Japan seem to be prefab type buildings...hence why they were picked up and swept away so easily.
Pictues are realy shocking.

gman2k

Mr.Boots wrote: »

In my experience Alot of houses in Japan seem to be prefab type buildings...hence why they were picked up and swept away so easily.
Pictues are realy shocking.

But they are built lightweight to be relatively earthquake proof, which is the much more common risk over there than tsunami

3ndahalfof6

gman2k wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_6iDBoOvb0

that is so so sad feeling those peoples pain, to think what is in front of them now is just a bit to much.

Mr.Boots

gman2k wrote: »

But they are built lightweight to be relatively earthquake proof, which is the much more common risk over there than tsunami

Thats true...Concrete constructions seem to have dampers in the foundations...i noticed that on bridges over there.

gman2k

Mr.Boots wrote: »

Thats true...Concrete constructions seem to have dampers in the foundations...i noticed that on bridges over there.

You will often see strange supports under large long concrete structures, they are there to allow for expansion and contraction. You will see the same here under large bridges.
In earthquake prone areas, larger buildings are designed to allow for movement, as this is what protects them from collapse. If they were to be completely rigid, they would simply be shaken apart.
The twin towers in New York were famous for very evident swaying at the top, I believe up to 1 metre was not not uncommon. The engineers even had to allow for differences between the two towers structurally, as one of the towers shielded the other from a lot of the prevailing (most common direction) wind.
Here's a video of Tokyo buildings swaying on Friday - You all seen it by now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q16ynm9nNU

Overheal

and if you've ever been to the top of a tall building, like the Eifel Tower, you can feel the swaying even on a calm day. It's kind of unnerving when you're traveling up that rickety old-seeming elevator.

Local-womanizer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12723092

Good read,clears up a lot of the madness that people are displaying.

opinion guy

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

I wish they'd give us some details about what exactly they're doing right now. What temperature is the core, is it rising or falling, etc.

They probably don't have a clue.

gman2k wrote: »

You will often see strange supports under large long concrete structures, they are there to allow for expansion and contraction. You will see the same here under large bridges.
In earthquake prone areas, larger buildings are designed to allow for movement, as this is what protects them from collapse. If they were to be completely rigid, they would simply be shaken apart.
The twin towers in New York were famous for very evident swaying at the top, I believe up to 1 metre was not not uncommon. The engineers even had to allow for differences between the two towers structurally, as one of the towers shielded the other from a lot of the prevailing (most common direction) wind.
Here's a video of Tokyo buildings swaying on Friday - You all seen it by now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q16ynm9nNU

Wow. Hadn't seen that before.
Goddamn the Japanese know how to build buidlings. I can't believe how destroyed Christchurch was by a much weaker quake and yet Japanese buildings seemed to be relatively unaffected by the quake itself.

PeakOutput

opinion guy wrote: »

They probably don't have a clue.




Wow. Hadn't seen that before.
Goddamn the Japanese know how to build buidlings. I can't believe how destroyed Christchurch was by a much weaker quake and yet Japanese buildings seemed to be relatively unaffected by the quake itself.

I am sure the engineers did have a large part to play in how well these buildings survived but another thing to bear in mind was that christchurch was the epicenter of their earth quake

the japanese one was 25 miles or so off the coast as far as i know so tokyo didnt get a direct hit

opinion guy

PeakOutput wrote: »

I am sure the engineers did have a large part to play in how well these buildings survived but another thing to bear in mind was that christchurch was the epicenter of their earth quake

the japanese one was 25 miles or so off the coast as far as i know so tokyo didnt get a direct hit

Yeah thats true. But the Japanese one was 8000 times stronger. I'm thinking 25 miles doens't matter a damn to be honest (althou I could be wrong!)

iguana

opinion guy wrote: »

Yeah thats true. But the Japanese one was 8000 times stronger. I'm thinking 25 miles doens't matter a damn to be honest (althou I could be wrong!)

Tokyo was 400km/250miles from the epicentre.

robinph

opinion guy wrote: »

Yeah thats true. But the Japanese one was 8000 times stronger. I'm thinking 25 miles doens't matter a damn to be honest (althou I could be wrong!)

Christchurch wasn't known to be on a fault line until very recently. Also it's built on relatively sandy ground which amplified the movements a bit I think. There was talk of the ground turning to liquid at points around the city too.

BrookieD

Does anyone know of anybody flying over to offer some kind of assistance, if so please pm me details or help me find some as i would like to offer myself to go over for a short while to help locals in any way i can......

cheers

Local-womanizer

robinph wrote: »

There was talk of the ground turning to liquid at points around the city too.

It did yea,if I remember there is pictures of that,scary thought the ground turning to quicksand!

But regards to the Nuclear plant and fears,that BBC article goes a bit of the way to explaining the process which takes place in a reactor during such an event,and its saying that Chernobyl is a world apart in terms of cause. Big difference between a reactor melting(Japan) and one exploding(Chernobyl)

Still a dangerous situation all the same and prayers with all those who are affected by such a terrible event,the snow here pales in comparison

Topper Harley01

BrookieD wrote: »

Does anyone know of anybody flying over to offer some kind of assistance, if so please pm me details or help me find some as i would like to offer myself to go over for a short while to help locals in any way i can......

cheers

Not being smart, but unless you have been trained in disaster management you shouldn't be going. We have a Disaster Response Corps and trained professionals in the Emergency Services and Defence Forces for this very reason.

The last thing Japan needs is well meaning but hapless civilians getting themselves into trouble or killed/injured while trying to help out. The entire country is well drilled in disaster scenarios.

Aldebaran

Someone who lives in Fukushima City is answering questions on Reddit, in case anyone is interested:

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/g2me8/i_live_in_fukushima_city/

Run_to_da_hills

A friend of my ex who was teaching English in Sendai just made contact that she was ok at 5PM this evening, shows how bad communications are out there.

You can be sure that there will be little or no looting in the aftermath, the Japanese are probably the most honest race of people in the world.

Lone Stone

I havent had a tv for a week i come home and i see this, scary stuff i was planning on going to japan when i finish college in a few weeks But japan is meant to be the safest place to live for earth quakes due the building infrastructure and the training they get in school, This nuclear power station is worrying tho, hopefully it wont be another chernobyl .

I saw some thing on the news tho about the moon being the closist it has ever been to the planet and it may be causing the increase in these natural disasters

Jimmy Garlic

Looks like the Japanese govt in in "don't panic" mode. The reactor situation is very serious, looks like a Japanese Chernobyl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlHruMU7qbg

iguana

A graphic of the tsunami moving across the Pacific.

http://www.youtube.com/user/NOAAPMEL?feature=mhum#p/c/3/PBZGH3yieLc

I think it's worth commending the efforts of the organisations who monitor the Pacific and the coastal emergency services in the relevant areas who coordinated the necessary evacuations. I think there would be more than one person dead in other countries if it had been business as normal yesterday.

When you think about it, it's actually quite amazing. A couple of hundred years ago alongside the enormous disaster in Japan there would have been big disasters in Hawaii, California, Indonesia and other Pacific regions, that the populations would never have known were linked. Yesterday the subsequent disasters could be predicted and loss of life prevented. Hopefully in time we will find a way to predict the initial disaster and mitigate it's damage too.

Cathaoirleach

Early warning system in action.

Something similar was broadcasted on all TV/radio channels 20 seconds before the quake hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQVPfQu50yY

gman2k

This
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2011/03/11/nat.nhk.japan.sendai.tsunami.nhk.html

I've only seen some snippets on TV up to now, but this puts it into perspective

ressem

Lone Stone wrote: »

I havent had a tv for a week i come home and i see this, scary stuff i was planning on going to japan when i finish college in a few weeks But japan is meant to be the safest place to live for earth quakes due the building infrastructure and the training they get in school, This nuclear power station is worrying tho, hopefully it wont be another chernobyl .

I saw some thing on the news tho about the moon being the closist it has ever been to the planet and it may be causing the increase in these natural disasters

That's wrong. The next perigee isn't till March 19th. The last apogee was March 6th. (It does this cycle every lunar month). So on Friday the moon was not near it's minimum nor maximum distance, just somewhere in the middle.

With so many of the towns on that coast at such low levels (under 10m) the rescue efforts will have to be enormous.

opinion guy

gman2k wrote: »

This
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2011/03/11/nat.nhk.japan.sendai.tsunami.nhk.html

I've only seen some snippets on TV up to now, but this puts it into perspective

Christ the newsreader/reporter on that has got to be the worst ever. I couldn't no tlisten to him repeat the sam thing over and over in bad English.

ilovesleep

Jimmy Garlic wrote: »

Looks like the Japanese govt in in "don't panic" mode. The reactor situation is very serious, looks like a Japanese Chernobyl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlHruMU7qbg

I hope it doesn't result in another Chernobyl. I hope things turn a corner for the better soon.

Shulgin

http://bigthink.com/ideas/31595


Michio Kaku's take on the reactor..

Japanese Nuclear Power Plant is Spiraling Out of Control!


Think of a run-away car which has no brakes. Now imagine that the radiator explodes. This is the situation now.
The reactor is stable, but this is an illusion. It is sitting on a knife's edge. Anything (a broken pipe, a secondary earthquake, loss of water, etc.) can set off a meltdown. Now, the utility is thinking of importing boric acid and sea water. This represents a very dire situation. Boric acid is used to absorb neutrons (to dampen the chain reaction) which was also used at Chernobyl to stop the accident there. (The Red Air Force was called into dump borated sand and cement onto the flaming core at Chernobyl to emtomb the reactor).
Now, there is talk that the ulitity may want to flood the entire building with sea water in order to prevent the core from being exposed and causing a meltdown. This is like driving your run-away car off into a river to stop the engine and car from melting and exploding. This, obviously, would be a last ditch measure to prevent core damage. Flooding the core with sea water creates a whole list of secondary problems (such as contamination, health problems, instability, etc.) but right now, these secondary considerations are the last thing on the minds of the plant operators. They just want to stop the meltdown from happening.