Japanese nuclear disaster

[RPK]

 

[RPK]

 

[hembo]

OMG!!! That's incredible fury of nature!!

 

[Silent observer]

they have already sent the new pump to fukushima by a c130 which will replace the old pump. this pump is used for pumping water to cool the reactor down. atleast this is what they have told on the TV, just 5 minutes ago.

regards

 

[lcloo]

F-2 jet is $127 Million USD a piece, if sea water corroded its airframe, it will be a total write-off.

 

[Hafizzz]

Radiation Levels Surge Outside Two Nuclear Plants in Japan
Radiation Levels Surge Outside Two Nuclear Plants in Japan - FoxNews.com

TOKYO, Japan – Japanese government officials say there was shaking and a trail of white smoke at a nuclear plant in the area devastated by a massive earthquake.

Fukushima Prefecture official Masato Abe says the cause is still under investigation, and it was unclear whether there was an explosion.

Another official said the utility that runs the Fukushima Daiichi plant is reporting Saturday that several workers may have been injured.

One reactor at the plant is facing a possible meltdown after its cooling system was knocked out.

Japan launched a massive military rescue operation Saturday after a giant, quake-fed tsunami killed hundreds of people and turned the northeastern coast into a swampy wasteland.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops would join rescue and recovery efforts following Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake that unleashed one of the greatest disasters Japan has witnessed -- a 23-foot tsunami that washed far inland over fields, smashing towns, airports and highways in its way.

The official death toll stood at 413, while 784 people were missing and 1,128 injured. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicenter. An untold number of bodies were also believed to be buried in the rubble and debris. Rescue workers had yet to reach the hardest-hit areas.

Adding to the worries was the damage at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, where two reactors had lost cooling ability. Because of the overheating, a meltdown was possible at one of the reactors, said Ryohei Shiomi, an official with Japan's nuclear safety commission.

But even if there was a meltdown, it wouldn't affect people outside a six-mile radius, he said. Most of the 51,000 residents living within the danger area had been evacuated, he said.

More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, or states, the national police agency said. Since the quake, more than 1 million households have not had water, mostly concentrated in northeast.

"Most of houses along the coastline were washed away, and fire broke out there," he said after inspecting the quake area in a helicopter. "I realized the extremely serious damage the tsunami caused."

The region continued to be jolted by tremors, even 24 hours later.

More than 125 aftershocks have occurred, many of them above magnitude 6.0, which even alone would be considered strong.

Technologically advanced Japan is well prepared for quakes and its buildings can withstand strong jolts, even a temblor like Friday's, which was the strongest the country has experienced since official records started in the late 1800s. What was beyond human control was the killer tsunami that followed.

It swept inland about six miles in some areas, swallowing boats, homes, cars, trees and even small airplanes.

"The tsunami was unbelievably fast," said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai.

"Smaller cars were being swept around me," he said. All I could do was sit in my truck."

His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city on Saturday. Smoke from at least one large fire could be seen in the distance.

Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled up against buildings near the local airport, several miles from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers coasted on boats through murky waters around flooded structures, nosing their way through a sea of debris.

Basic commodities were at a premium. Hundreds lined up outside of supermarkets, and gas stations were swamped with cars. The situation was similar in scores of other towns and cities along the 1,300-mile-long eastern coastline hit by the tsunami.

Also Saturday, operators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's Unit 1 tried had to tamp down heat and pressure inside one of the reactors after the quake cut off electricity to the site and disabled emergency generators, knocking out the main cooling system. Authorities detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.

The Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the six-reactor Daiichi site in northeastern Japan, said it had also lost cooling ability at a second reactor there and three units at its nearby Fukushima Daini site.

The government declared state of emergency at all those units.

Japan's nuclear safety agency said the situation was most dire at Fukushima Daiichi's Unit 1, where pressure had risen to twice what is consider the normal level. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that diesel generators that normally would have kept cooling systems running at Fukushima Daiichi had been disabled by tsunami flooding.

Japan gets about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants. Authorities warned citizens to be prepared for severe power cuts. More than 1 million households across Japan, mostly in the northeast, still didn't have access to water.

In Sendai, as in many areas of the northeast, cell phone service was down, making it difficult for people to communicate with loved ones.

"I'm waiting for my son to come here. But I cannot tell him he should come over here because mobile phones aren't working," a woman in her 70s told Japanese TV at a shelter in the town of Rikuzentakada, which appeared to be largely destroyed by the tsunami.

"My husband is missing," she said. "Tsunami water was rising to my knees, and I told him I would go first. He is not here yet."

On Friday, the entire Pacific was put on alert -- including coastal areas of South America, Canada and Alaska -- but waves were not as bad as expected.

President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially "catastrophic" disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier was already in Japan and a second was on its way. A U.S. ship was also heading to the Marianas Islands to assist as needed, he said.

Most trains in Tokyo started running again Saturday after the city had been brought to a near standstill the day before. Tens of thousands of people had been stranded with the rail network down, jamming the streets with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city.

The city set up 33 shelters in city hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many spent Friday night at 24-hour cafes, hotels and offices.

Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to the USGS. A magnitude 7.2 quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995.
Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" -- an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.

Will the radiation spread or be blown by the wind to South Korea, Russian Far East and China ???????

 

[Secret Service]

what about Japanese economy now ??

 

[Hafizzz]

what about Japanese economy now ??

Well I can tell you that Oil prices will come down because of the low demand from Japan.

 

[Gin ka Pakistan]

Japanese nation is a strong nation and will come out of this crisis in a year or so.

 

[no_koadsheding_plz]

japs are very resiliant nation,they are hardened by such natural clamaties and they are also very planed and prepared and they can quickly recover,,thats simply thir history

 

[no_koadsheding_plz]

On 12 March 2011, 18 F-2s based at the Matsushima Airbase in Miyagi Prefecture were swamped by the tsunami caused by an 8.9 scale earthquake.[8]
source wikipedia

 

[Gentle Typhoon]

can u interpret this map ? what it means ? does it means that radiation is leaking and will cover the highlighted portiuon in the mentioned time ? y is itshown jusst heading in this curved elliptic manner ? y not circular / ellipticl fallout of radiation ? does nature blows this to ammerica as a reward [>?] for thier bombing of hiroshima ?
i found a video at rt youtubes channel where a guy says that the effect eould be on china,russia,eastern asia? but this map is ver contradictory to what he mentioned? so what is the source of this map? any other source besides just one

It is called STATIC PRESSURE, You go to market, they will offer you differant types of fans. Tri blade standing on floor ones (We also call Table fans) move air from one direction to others at very good accuracy. Whereas normal cieling fans airflow is spread across room in circular manner.

For great accuracy more power is required, if you see industrial quality fans from Delta, Panaflo used in electrical components, they have huge motor compared to normal case fans we have in PCs from which you n I are posting online. Higher static fans purpose is to cool specific part/component/side/target with maximum potential.

In above Maps case, they assumed amount of static pressure according to weather forecast, speed of wind and direction.

 

[LeGenD]

Radiation leaks from Japan's quake-hit nuclear plant

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - Radiation leaked from Japan's earthquake-crippled nuclear plant on Saturday after a blast blew the roof off, and authorities prepared to distribute iodine to people in the vicinity to protect them from exposure.

The government insisted radiation levels were low because although the explosion severely damaged the main building of the plant, it had not affected the reactor core container.

Local media said three workers suffered radiation exposure at the plant in the wake of Friday's massive earthquake, which sent a 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast.

Kyodo news agency said more than 1,700 people were killed or missing as a result of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the biggest in Japan since records began in the nineteenth century.

Later it said 9,500 people in one town were unreachable, but gave no other details.

The blast raised fears of a meltdown at the power facility, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, as officials scrambled to contain what could be the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 that shocked the world.

However, experts said Japan should not expect a repeat of Chernobyl. They said pictures of mist above the plant suggested only small amounts of radiation had been expelled as part of measures to ensure its stability, far from the radioactive clouds Chernobyl spewed out 25 years ago.

Valeriy Hlyhalo, deputy director of the Chernobyl nuclear safety center, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying Japanese reactors were better protected than Chernobyl.

"Apart from that, these reactors are designed to work at a high seismicity zone, although what has happened is beyond the impact the plants were designed to withstand," Hlyhalo said.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters the nuclear reaction facility was surrounded by a steel storage machine, which was itself surrounded by a concrete building.

"This concrete building collapsed. We learnt that the storage machine inside did not explode," he said.

Edano initially said an evacuation radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the stricken 40-year-old Daiichi 1 reactor plant in Fukushima prefecture was adequate, but then an hour later the boundary was extended to 20 km (13 miles). TV footage showed vapor rising from the plant.

Japanese officials told the U.N.'s atomic watchdog they were making preparations to distribute iodine to people living near nuclear power plants affected by the quake, the Vienna-based agency said. Iodine can be used to help protect the body from radioactive exposure.

The wind at the disabled plant was blowing from the south, which could affect residents north of the facility, Japan's national weather forecaster said, adding the direction may shift later so that it blows from the north-west toward the sea.

The direction of the wind is a key factor in judging possible damage on the environment from radiation.

DAZED PEOPLE HOARD WATER

Along the northeast coast, rescue workers searched through the rubble of destroyed buildings, cars and boats, looking for survivors in hardest-hit areas such as the city of Sendai, 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo.

Dazed residents hoarded water and huddled in makeshift shelters in near-freezing temperatures. Aerial footage showed buildings and trains strewn over mudflats like children's toys.

"All the shops are closed, this is one of the few still open. I came to buy and stock up on diapers, drinking water and food," Kunio Iwatsuki, 68, told Reuters in Mito city, where residents queued outside a damaged supermarket for supplies.

Across the coastline, survivors clambered over nearly impassable roads. In Iwanuma, not far from Sendai, people spelled S.O.S. out on the roof of a hospital surrounded by water, one of many desperate scenes.

The earthquake and tsunami, and now the radiation leak, present Japan's government with its biggest challenge in a generation.

The blast at the nuclear facility came as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) was working desperately to reduce pressures in the core of the reactor.

The company has had a rocky past in an industry plagued by scandal. In 2002, the president of the country's largest power utility was forced to resign along with four other senior executives, taking responsibility for suspected falsification of nuclear plant safety records.

Earlier the operator released what it said was a tiny amount of radioactive steam to reduce the pressure and the danger was minimal because tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated from the vicinity.

Reuters journalists were in Fukushima prefecture, about 70 km (40 miles) from the plant. Other media reported police roadblocks in the area to prevent people getting closer.

INTERNATIONAL RELIEF EFFORT

Friday's tremor was so huge that thousands fled their homes from coastlines around the Pacific Rim, as far away as North and South America, fearful of a tsunami.

Most appeared to have been spared anything more serious than some high waves, unlike Japan's northeast coastline which was hammered by the huge tsunami that turned houses and ships into floating debris as it surged into cities and villages, sweeping aside everything in its path.

"I thought I was going to die," said Wataru Fujimura, a 38-year-old sales representative in Koriyama, Fukushima, north of Tokyo and close to the area worst hit by the quake.

"Our furniture and shelves had all fallen over and there were cracks in the apartment building, so we spent the whole night in the car ... Now we're back home trying to clean."

In one of the worst-hit residential areas, people buried under rubble could be heard calling out for rescue, Kyodo news agency reported earlier.

The international community started to send disaster relief teams on Saturday to help Japan, with the United Nations sending a group to help coordinate work.

The disaster struck as the world's third-largest economy had been showing signs of reviving from an economic contraction in the final quarter of last year. It raised the prospect of major disruptions for many key businesses and a massive repair bill running into tens of billions of dollars.

Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said the earth's axis shifted 25 cm as a result of the earthquake, and the U.S. Geological Survey said the main island of Japan had shifted 2.4 metres.

The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. It surpassed the Great Kant quake of September 1, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area.

(Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Dean Yates)

Source: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/w...on.leaks.from.Japan's.quake-hit.nuclear.plant

 

[Capt.Popeye]

Just to add some information available at the present time:
The Nuclear Reactors in the power station were of the BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) design of the 70s vintage. The cooling system which was by pump driven cooling water failed after the power outage and subsequently backup systems failed also. The damage was to the structure holding the cooling water system. As of now the reactor containment is undamaged. Right now, in very simple terms; the damage seems to be worse than the "Three Mile Island" incident but much less than "Chernobyl".

 

[hembo]

Russian experts on Chernobyl scenario in Japan
Vladimir Radyuhin
MOSCOW, March 12, 2011

Russian nuclear authorities said a Chernobyl-type disaster was unlikely to happen at the stricken nuclear plant in Japan, but experts refused to rule out this scenario.

“There can be no replay of Chernobyl at the Fukushima nuclear plant,” said Sergei Novikov, official spokesman for the Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom. “The worst case scenario in Japan is what happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the U.S. in 1979, where fuel melted down but stayed inside the reactor.”

The spokesman explained that at Chernobyl in 1986 it was the nuclear reactor that exploded sending clouds of radioactive material all over Europe, whereas at the Fukushima plant explosion was caused by overheated radioactive steam while the reactor appeared to be intact.

However, independent experts said there was still a risk of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

“If there was a fuel meltdown in the reactor active zone and the situation is not brought under control then the reactor may explode as in Chernobyl,” said Vladimir Slivyak of the Eco-Defence environment group.

“If the reactor is not cooled down in coming hours the situation may develop along the Chernobyl scenario, when a core meltdown caused a massive radioactive release,” agreed Chemistry Prof. Leonid Rikhvanov of the Tomsk Polytechnic University.