Japanese earthquake / tsunami discussion

Overheal

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/03/13/2011-03-13_hundreds_flee_in_japan_after_shinmoedake_volcano_begins_spewing_ash_boulders.html

Gracious.

Squall19

What happens if that blows?

How big is it?

Is it close to high pop areas?

What. In. The. Hell?

1: Earthquake
2: Tsunami
3: Nuclear power failure
4: Volcano

This whole thing is sounding more and more like someone is going a bit crazy with the disasters while playing Sim City 2000. All that is left is the meteor and, well, Godzilla.

rebel10

My God:eek: How are they going to cope?

The Sparrow

A volcano as well :eek:

Not seen this update from Michio Kaku posted earlier but appologies if it was.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/31601
New developments:

1. The Japanese government has now acknowledged that partial meltdowns have probably happened at the Fukushima plants. Previously, physicists had speculated that the core at Fukushima Daiichi I was partially melting due to the presence of cesium and iodine (which are byproducts of the fissioning process). Where there is smoke, there is fire. Now, its official. Also, 3 workers have come down with full blown radiation sickness, another indication of the intense radiation at the site.

2. At Unit 1, as an act of desperation, plant operator have been injecting seawater directly into the core of the reactor. This has never been done before in history. We are watching a science experiment. This will also most likely make it uneconomical to clean up the reactor afterwards (due to corrosion, contamination, etc.). The utility has probably decided to junk the reactor afterwards. (This scenario of flooding the core with sea water does not appear in standard nuclear engineering textbooks. We are entering uncharted territory.)

3. The accident has now spread to Unit 3, which also lost control of its emergency core cooling system (ECCS). This means we may see a repeat of the accident at Unit 1. We may also see a steam/hydrogen gas explosion which rips the containment apart. What could happen next? No one knows. But a meltdown takes place in stages. First, you have the core uncovered, temperatures soar to 5,000 F, melting begins, and cesium, strontium, iodine are released. Second, it takes 30 min. to several hours for the entire core itself to melt. At TMI, it took roughly 1 hour for 90% of the core to be damaged. Third, even after a complete core meltdown, it still takes a steam/hydrogen gas explosion to blow apart or crack the vessel (which contains the uranium) and the containment structure (which has already been severely damaged).

At present, it seems that Unit 1 has only suffered partial melting. The situation at Unit 1 is stable, but the situation with Unit 3 continues to worsen hour by hour. The danger is that a further secondary earthquake or pipe break could cause the sea water to flush out of the core, uncovering the uranium and initiating a full-scale meltdown.

More to come....

Pauleta

Deleted User wrote: »

What. In. The. Hell?

1: Earthquake
2: Tsunami
3: Nuclear power failure
4: Volcano

This whole thing is sounding more and more like someone is going a bit crazy with the disasters while playing Sim City 2000. All that is left is the meteor and, well, Godzilla.

Its unbelievable, they just cant get a break and there is still the threat of disease from the Tsunami fallout. I doubt there is much clean drinking water as well plus its a very large population effected. How are they going to have enough food to feed those millions of people.

P_1

Yikes, as if they don't have enough to deal with between the quake, tsunami and partial meltdowns a bloody volcano decides to blow its top.

Jimmy Garlic

rebel10 wrote: »

My God:eek: How are they going to cope?

If they could cope with the aftermath of WW2 I am sure they can cope with what is going on now. The Japanese are a very resilient people, they get on with things.

Overheal

rebel10 wrote: »

My God:eek: How are they going to cope?

They'll cope.

If anyone can cope, frankly, it's the Japanese. They've been through hell and back before.

pegasus1

Deleted User wrote: »

What. In. The. Hell?

1: Earthquake
2: Tsunami
3: Nuclear power failure
4: Volcano

This whole thing is sounding more and more like someone is going a bit crazy with the disasters while playing Sim City 2000. All that is left is the meteor and, well, Godzilla.

Armageddon arrives early to beat the 2012 doomsayers predictions;)

bitemybanger

I've been following this closely and watch it unfold since 8am on Friday morning. I cannot even begin to comprehend what they are goin through but as the body count rises, stories of people loosing loved ones and entire towns washed away before our eyes makes it impossible for me to watch any more destruction and sadness. I'm gonna refresh tonight and listen to the stories of survival the "against the odds" stuff.
Ill check up on the reality of things tomorrow but I'm goin to bed tonight with something positive in my head.

irish1967

Just noticed in a few earlier posts here that there is a little confusion about LEVEL 7 and MAGNITUDE 7 earthquakes. Japan has it's own earthquake scale. A level 7 earthquake = Devestation

lukesmom

What the hell is going on??????????????? R.I.P Japan

aligator_am

Saw the reports of the volcano early this morning on Twitter and posted here, although they were unconfirmed at the time. Twitter seems to be a good resource for breaking news, although I'm unsure how much of it can be fully trusted initially.

As Overheal said, if anyone can pull through this it's the Japanese, fookin' hell if it happened here the government would set up a 20 year long tribunal or something!

rebel10

Jimmy Garlic wrote: »

If they could cope with the aftermath of WW2 I am sure they can cope with what is going on now. The Japanese are a very resilient people, they get on with things.

I remember walking through Hiroshima about 4 years ago, looking around it is an idyllic city, totally reconstucted and using the highest standard of planning. To think that was only just about 65 years ago, it does say alot about their ability to just get on with it. When you think of alot of the elderly people there, anyone over the age of 70 would remember well the fear of WW2, and now this, two unbelievable events in one life time.

Overheal

irish1967 wrote: »

Just noticed in a few earlier posts here that there is a little confusion about LEVEL 7 and MAGNITUDE 7 earthquakes. Japan has it's own earthquake scale. A level 7 earthquake = Devestation

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

Their scale deals with different factors not related to the force output of the quake but rather the damage that will occur to infrastructure, based on location (such as whether you live on a slope, etc)

Kobe was 7.2 on the Richter scale and also classified as JMA level 7. the 8.9 Sendai quake would have also been a level 7 on the JMA scale.

lukesmom wrote: »

What the hell is going on??????????????? R.I.P Japan

That's both premature and immature.

maquiladora

The Sparrow wrote: »

A volcano as well :eek:

Not seen this update from Michio Kaku posted earlier but appologies if it was.

Thanks for that. Great to get a commentary on this from someone as smart as Michio Kaku.

davyjose

pegasus1 wrote: »

Armageddon arrives early to beat the 2012 doomsayers predictions;)

Do you have any idea how smarmy and nauseating your post is?

andyseadog

Just caught up from where i left off in this thread last night, interesting reading. as was said, updates are probably a little slow, its only 7am in Japan now, so they are just 'waking up'.

I've just sopken with my grandmother who said she was last on the phone to my uncle yesterday who is in Tokyo city.

he said they had been out for lunch last night, and his kids 5 and 9 will be going to school tomorrow and he will be returning to work.

she asked him what the news on his end was as regards the Fukushmai and nuclear situation, to which he just replied that they are fine and 'don't mind what the news says'. whether they are genuinely confident or he is saving face for my grandmother i don't know

hmmm

Overheal wrote: »

They'll cope.

If anyone can cope, frankly, it's the Japanese. They've been through hell and back before.

It's probably the wrong words to use at this time, but the Japanese have been relatively "lucky" in that this quake has struck a relatively sparsely populated part of Japan. 7,000 people died in a much smaller Kobe quake because it hit the densely populated part of Japan, the consequences of an 8.9 quake hitting Tokyo directly would be unthinkable.

The Japanese should be well able to cope with the recovery and cleanup efforts, their economy actually did very well after the Kobe quake as billions poured into rebuilding efforts.

The nuclear events are obviously an unknown, but reading what others have said (I'm no expert), even a worst case scenario is not likely to have anything other than local consequences.

ilovesleep

tiger55 wrote: »

Volcanic lightning pictured as Mount Shinmoedake volcano in Japan erupts


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/8288283/Volcanic-lightning-pictured-as-Mount-Shinmoedake-volcano-in-Japan-erupts.html

HOLY HELL!

The Sparrow

hmmm wrote: »

It's probably the wrong words to use at this time, but the Japanese have been relatively "lucky" in that this quake has struck a relatively sparsely populated part of Japan. 7,000 people died in a much smaller Kobe quake because it hit the densely populated part of Japan, the consequences of an 8.9 quake hitting Tokyo directly would be unthinkable.

The Japanese should be well able to cope with the recovery and cleanup efforts, their economy actually did very well after the Kobe quake as billions poured into rebuilding efforts.

The nuclear events are obviously an unknown, but reading what others have said (I'm no expert), even a worst case scenario is not likely to have anything other than local consequences.

Another problem is that another strong earthquake happening over the next few days is viewed as a 70% possibility by Japanese seismologists. So who knows what damage that could cause if there was another Tsunami or that earthquake hit a more densely populated area.

Turtwig

Apparently this was a 9.1 quake? Anyone got any confirmation on that.

Iirc, two of the big problems with the Kobe earthquake was that buildings weren't exactly that "earthquake proof" a lot of them actually sank because of poor foundation soil and a lot of the building designs of the houses were old and traditional and had little room for flexibility with the quake. If you haven't seen it the Nat Geo series Seconds from Disaster did a pretty good run down of that earthquake. Well worth a watch imo.
.

hmmm

The Sparrow wrote: »

Another problem is that another strong earthquake happening over the next few days is viewed as a 70% possibility by Japanese seismologists. So who knows what damage that could cause if there was another Tsunami or that earthquake hit a more densely populated area.

Yeah, although I believe in Christchurch (as an example), a lot of buildings were already damaged by the first quake. In Japan it looks like only buildings within the Tsunami zone really suffered much in the way of heavy damage.

I've just been reading that the plate that this earthquake occurred on was not considered a likely place for an earthquake of this magnitude. The plate that runs nearer to the South West of Tokyo is considered the most dangerous, and this quake will have had an effect on that plate - good or bad effects is the question.

Star Bingo

i feel bad as old pal lynch's wife Yu is from sendai; never even called him - best sling 'im a txt..

hmmm

Malty_T wrote: »

Iirc, two of the big problems with the Kobe earthquake was that buildings weren't exactly that "earthquake proof" a lot of them actually sank because of poor foundation soil and a lot of the building designs of the houses were old and traditional and little room for flexibility.
.

If I remember correctly, the buildings were traditionally built of wood which allowed them sway but survive, but unfortunately over the years a fashion for heavy ornamental roofs has built up in Japan. The damage to residential buildings was caused as the buildings pancaked (like folding a cardboard box) because of the weight of the roof.

Jesus Wept

Ironbar wrote: »

which means the day is now 1.6 microseconds shorter...

That's not a lot really.

Turtwig

hmmm wrote: »

If I remember correctly, the buildings were traditionally built of wood which allowed them sway but survive, but unfortunately over the years a fashion for heavy ornamental roofs has built up in Japan. The damage to residential buildings was caused as the buildings pancaked (like folding a cardboard box) because of the weight of the roof.

Yep that was it, thanks.:)

The Sparrow

I've been surprised at the lack of news specials covering this on television. I know there are rolling news channels like News 24 and Sky News but for the Tsunami a few years ago most channels went big with it with news specials throughout the day. And even for Katrina too.

But for this disaster it is largely being left to the regular bulletins. I'm listening to BBC 5 Live at the moment which is providing excellent coverage of the disaster.

maquiladora

Kyodo : URGENT: Radiation level again tops legal limit at Fukushima No. 1 nuke plant