8.9 Earthquake has struck Japan

[MClarkson]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2011/03/17/homson.japan.quake.kamaishi.itn?hpt=C2

a video showing a seawall, perhaps 20 feet above sea level, that has been torn apart and overtopped, the town behind it wiped clean.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

...Getting to 75 feet from the radiation source would mean a dose of around 1,400 millisieverts per hour. Rather impossible to safely get inside those buildings.

One Sv (Seivert) is equal to 100 REM. 1,400 mSV (1.4 Sv) is roughly 140 REM per hour as stated above. So 45 minutes begin with mild radiation sickness, and a mere 3-4 hours causes a 500 RAD dose which is usually lethal (50% mortality).

Basically, 5 Sv (or 5,000 mSv) over a short time span (hours or days) will kill most people.

 

[Benjamin Smith]

Anybody have any updates today on what's going on with the reactors? What about the spent rod pool at @ # 4?

I've been coming here to get the latest as the major networks have watered down info for the most part.

 

[Darren Addy]

Closest look you are going to get, without getting irradiated:



Note: It is all japanese, but the Unit number being shown is captioned.

My expert commentary: What a MESS!

EDIT: 5 workers at the plant are now reported/confirmed dead. Causes of deaths not yet revealed.

 

[Robert Dewey]

EDIT: 5 workers at the plant are now reported/confirmed dead. Causes of deaths not yet revealed.

What's the source for this?

 

[Darren Addy]

What's the source for this?

http://bit.ly/hIfGXR
Swedish newspaper article. Antedotal evidence confirmed by TEPCO.

Also interesting:
Gunther Oettinger, the EU's energy commissioner, contributed to the value of world markets falling by $430 billion in the 15 minutes after his remarks ("Chernobyl on steroids") went over the wires. -Economist Buttonwood blogpost www.economist.com

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Video to naval families at Naval Air Station Atsugi

Full family evacuation from the NAS. They are being taken to Korea for 1 or 2 days then transfer to US or elsewhere. Yet they are telling them 3-4 days of clothing. They figure they can only get out about 10,000 a day. I assume they just have no space to move more than the people and a bag each.



I read it as don't panic, we already are for you. They are throwing this together so fast they didn't even know where they were going after Korea.

I think at Chernobyl they were told a few days and all of their stuff has rotted out in their houses.

After the videos and the reports of the smell of decay in the cities in which they thought the sea walls would protect them so they didn't evacuate and this report telling us that they aren't even counted unless they are registered by someone as missing:

Japanese police have issued the latest figures on the number of people who died in Friday's quake and the tsunami it triggered - a total of 5,692 deaths have been confirmed. 9,506 people are still missing. But the number of missing people reflects only the number actually registered with the police,

and if this becomes a radiation hot zone I am thinking they will never know the true death toll.

 

[Darren Addy]

I am thinking they will never know the true death toll.

Similar to Katrina, only this is far worse, of course.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Similar to Katrina, only this is far worse, of course.

Yep, Funny how many keep saying no radiation has made it to Tokyo but other countries are sure reporting it on incoming passengers and now the US.

Radiation detectors at Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago O’Hare airports were triggered when passengers from flights that started in Tokyo passed through customs, the New York Post reported.

Tests at Dallas-Fort Worth indicated low radiation levels in travelers’ luggage and in the aircraft’s cabin filtration system

 

[N Parker]

That video got removed of the skipper. Really begining to get concerned about what we "don't" know....

 

[Darren Addy]

It is now getting light in Fukushima. Here is a live web cam (still shot). You have to manually reload the page to see a new image.
http://cs2.town.yanaizu.fukushima.jp/-wvhttp-01-/GetOneShot?REQUEST_ID=

Not sure which Unit is really steaming/smoking at the moment, but it appears that it just got going. Two consecutive images showed a lot more smoke/steam on the 2nd one. Third reload even more. I think they've got another fire going. If so, it should be reported soon.

 

[Chip Redmond]

It is now getting light in Fukushima. Here is a live web cam (still shot). You have to manually reload the page to see a new image.
http://cs2.town.yanaizu.fukushima.jp/-wvhttp-01-/GetOneShot?REQUEST_ID=

Not sure which Unit is really steaming/smoking at the moment, but it appears that it just got going. Two consecutive images showed a lot more smoke/steam on the 2nd one. Third reload even more. I think they've got another fire going. If so, it should be reported soon.

If that really is the plant, it seems like a ton of steam! Which would be considerably different than smoke however. Although, the surrounding terrain don't seem to quite match up to the scenery I have seen around the plant from other images/video...



Chip

 

[Benjamin Smith]

If that really is the plant, it seems like a ton of steam! Which would be considerably different than smoke however. Although, the surrounding terrain don't seem to quite match up to the scenery I have seen around the plant from other images/video...



Chip

Yeah I just saw some snow covered mountain scenery. No plant to speak of.


EDIT:

It is now showing the plant. Obviously the cam can pan around somehow.

 

[Darren Addy]

Power line apparently reconnected to Unit 2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12779512
Have heard no specs on how much power it carries (or needs to).

I'm wondering about that webcam, as well. The domain name would appear to come from Fukushima and I have no idea why anyone would have a webcam pointed at anything else, but it just doesn't appear that wooded around the Di-ichi facility.

 

[David Wolfson]

It's nice that the the power company rebuilt the line to the plant, but I'm skeptical that it will do anything. There has been plenty of time and resources to get a boatload of mobile generating capacity to the site, which they didn't do. After all the whole thing started when around a dozen emergency diesel generators on-site were flooded out. The pumping control systems were likely trashed by some combination of electrical shorts, salt water, explosion, and collapse. And last I heard the control rooms were inaccessable. I don't think you can just plug the water circulation systems into a wall socket and throw a switch. That's why they were using fire pumpers for a week. But I sure hope I'm wrong!....