8.9 Earthquake has struck Japan

[Greg Campbell]

Tokyo resident with internet weather / radiation monitor on his roof.

http://park18.wakwak.com/~weather/geiger_index.html


I'm running Linux temporarily and don't have plug-ins to view the graph. See anything?

(Edit)
Wow, yea, I guess you ARE seeing something! Harmless, yes, but alarming.
Is this possibly from the reactors? Perhaps one of the parcels that was blown out to sea earlier has come full circle?

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Looks like a background state graph from last December. CPM is around and just below 20. Graph for present time is attached below.

 

[Darren Addy]

This also purports to be a Tokyo geiger counter: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/geiger-counter-tokyo

The background state graph Aaron refers to had a mean value of 14.0

 

[Greg Campbell]

NEWS ADVISORY: Radiation amount in Chiba Pref. twice to 4 times normal level
NEWS ADVISORY: Radiation 33 times normal level measured in Utsunomiya, Tochigi

Given the distance from the plant (~50 miles) and the wind speeds, the politicians that spoke about an hour ago must have known this was on the way.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Yeah, they're declaring a no-fly zone over the plants now, too. You'd think they'd have done that a while ago? Perhaps they left the airspace open for rescue operations.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Radiation levels shoot up in Tokyo, vicinity.

In Tokyo, small amounts of radioactive substances, such as iodine and cesium, were detected, the metropolitan government said.

 

[MGrondski]

RSOE EDIS ALERTMAIL



Situation Update No. 30

Posted:2011-03-11, 12:38:52 [UTC]

Ref.no.: NC-20110311-29877-JPN

Situation Update No. 30
On 2011-03-15 at 04:41:15 [UTC]

Event: Nuclear Event
Location: Japan Fukushima Prefecture Fukushima Nucelar Power Plant


Number of Deads: 2 person(s)
Number of Injured: 33 person(s)
Number of Evacuated: 170000 person(s)


Situation:

1. A fire at the fourth reactor of the Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant resulted in a leak of highly concentrated radiation, the Japanese premier said on Tuesday. Prime Minister Naoto Kan called on the citizens residing within the 20-km (13 miles) distance from the reactor to immediately leave this zone and those living more than 20-30 km (13-17 miles) from the NPP to stay in their houses, but to shut windows and doors. "I sincerely ask all citizens within the 20-km distance from the reactor to leave this zone," he said in a televised address.

2. A blast caused by the build-up of hydrogen hit the 4th reactor of the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan on Tuesday. Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan said earlier that the fire at the 4th reactor resulted in the leak of highly concentrated radiation and urged all people residing within the 20-km (13 miles) distance from the reactor to immediately leave the zone.



__________


RSOE EDIS ALERTMAIL



Situation Update No. 33

Posted:2011-03-11, 06:12:37 [UTC]

Ref.no.: EQ-20110311-29849-JPN

Situation Update No. 33
On 2011-03-15 at 04:19:12 [UTC]

Event: Earthquake
Location: Japan Statewide


Number of Deads: >30000 person(s)
Number of Missing: 88000 person(s)
Number of Evacuated: 590000 person(s)


Situation:

Rescue operations have begun but some areas are still cut off by road damage and flood waters. There are 70,000 people that have been evacuated to shelters in Sendai, one of the towns hardest hit by the tsunami and earthquake. Forty-two survivors have been pulled from the rubble in the flattened town of Minami Sanrik, where up to 10,000 people are feared to have perished. Around half the town's 18,000 residents are still missing. Search and rescue teams are still working desperately through the rubble to try and find more people. In addition, police are also trying to stop people from returning to their homes. According to CNN, despite the first tsunami warning being issued to the town that lies two miles from the coastline, some residents decided to stay in their homes instead of fleeing - leading to the high number of missing people. Two thousand bodies were reportedly found on the shores of Miyagi prefecture. Around 1,000 people were washed up on the shores of Ojika Peninsulain Miyagi, while another 1,000 were seen in the town of Minamisanriku, Kyodo News reported. Authorities have been unable to contact 10,000 people in Minamisanriku - more than half of the population living there. Officials are hopeful that many of the town's residents were uncountable because they had been evacuated to nearby Tome city, Kyodo reported. In Minami Sanriku alone, 10,000 people could have died - more than half of the city's population. Some of the aftershocks have been as powerful as 6.8-magnitude, and it is feared that if an aftershock of a magnitude over 7 occurs, it could cause another tsunami. According to the USGS National Earthquake Information Center, Japan has experienced between 12 and 15 aftershocks per hour since Friday's quake, and it is not known when they will stop. To add to the already insurmountable problems, there has been a spate of panic buying as most gas stations and supermarkets are out of service. At least a million households had gone without water since the quake, and food and gasoline were quickly running out across the coastal regions hit by the tsunami.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

1422: China is organising a mass evacuation of its citizens from north-east Japan, the Associated Press reports. The Chinese embassy said it was sending buses to collect its nationals from Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki and Iwate prefectures, "due to the seriousness of and uncertainty surrounding the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant at present".

Also, the #4 spent fuel pool may be boiling again.

 

[Darren Addy]

Apparently very shallow mag. 6.0 earthquake under Shizuoka (home of dormant Mt. Fuji). I'm just sayin'. (I hate it when people say, "I'm just sayin'.")

Mt. Fuji is an active volcano that last erupted in 1707. They say that on a geologic time scale (to say, statistically) Mt. Fuji erupts every 30 years.

Expecting NASA to announce tomorrow that an asteroid is heading for NE Japan.

(none of the above is "news" except the reality of the shallow 6.0 quake under Shizuoka). Christchurch, NZ last destructive quake was 6.2 under the city.) The majority of aftershocks have been out at sea. This one was not.

This animation of aftershocks (up until about 24 hours ago, as I type this) is pretty amazing. Played fast, it appears to be looking at a pot of boiling water:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42037498/ns/world_news-asia-pacific/

EDIT: NHK World is now calling it a 6.4 (Shizuoka). Either that or there has been another very recent one. Depth now stated as 14km. They also stated this particular earthquake is geologically separate from the 8.9 (different plates involved).

 

[Steve Miller]

Here is a consistently good live feed out of Japan. Currently they are discussing the new Shizuoka earthquake: http://jibtv.com/program/?page=0

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

I think they just revised that aftershock to a 6.4.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Heh, oh, the things reporters overhear...

 

[Dan Robinson]

Here is a good educational resource going into the physics and behavior of earthquakes. Helps to give an understanding of what is happening with aftershocks, etc. http://www.data.scec.org/Module/TableofC.html

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

The interesting thing about the recent 6.4 quake is that the Japan Meteorological Agency (also responsible for earthquakes in that country) doesn't think this is an aftershock, but rather a separate quake on a different fault. I think they're a bit nervous since they're still waiting for the next Tokai quake (which is in the area where this earthquake happened), which is what Japan calls "The Big One". This quake has a fairly regular period and is due within our lifetimes:

July 26, 1361 M8.5
September 11, 1498 M8.4
February 3, 1605 M7.9
October 28, 1707 M8.4
December 23, 1854 M8.4

The news conference guy said that they don't think this is related to anticipated the Tokai quake, citing the direction of the fault thrust or somesuch.

 

[Darren Addy]

US Geological upgraded the quake under Shizuoka to 6.2 from original 6.0 (Japan says 6.4).
The Shizuoka quake is 291.4537 statute miles from the coordinate of the 8.9/9.0 quake.

EDIT: Fukushima incident rating has been changed to a "6" from the previous "4". Three Mile Island was rated a "5" and Chernobyl was a "7".