Japan shook with 8.8 Quake and Hit By Tsunami

Toolfan66

The world is changing so fast on it's own. Very Scary!!!

Glad you guys are OK!!!! Thoughts and prayers to everyone everywhere!!

disneyjoe7

Such a sad day for Japan, I hope for a quick recovery for them.

doggie750

Sherardp wrote: »

Checking in, I'm ok out here so far. Thanks guys.

ur the first thing that came into my mind......praying 4 all of u over there...GODspeed.

Danny Tse

inspiredsports wrote: »

China just a "good drive and a nine iron away" remains mute. Where will the money for rebuilding come from over the 10 year timeframe they are already predicting it will take.

Despite having numerous earthquakes of its own, including a 5.8 at its border with Burma 2 days ago, China is still incapable of providing much earthquake search-and-rescue assistance besides money.

The 10 year time frame, I hope, is doable in Japan. More than 20 years after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake here in the Bay Area, we still haven't finish building a new eastern section of the San Francisco Bay Bridge to replace the old seismically unsafe one. :mad:

megasat16

Ron-P wrote: »

Move? HA! No way, not going to run in fear. Something, somewhere will get all of us. Nothing you can do against the power of the mother.

I totally expect that from a coastal and beach dweller. I know the feeling since I used to live in Santa Monica at one time.

True you can't do anything against the power of mother nature. But I decided I can run for cover or higher ground (i.e. 4000ft above sea level). :biggrin:

Danny Tse

Video of tsunami rolling through the harbor of Santa Cruz, California

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/category/watch-listen/video-on-demand/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=5652025&flvUri=&partnerclipid=

megasat16

Danny Tse wrote: »

Video of tsunami rolling through the harbor of Santa Cruz, California

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/category/watch-listen/video-on-demand/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=5652025&flvUri=&partnerclipid=

Well, it's gonna be one hell of expensive insurance claims for them. All these boats are swept away by the waves like RC boats in a small pond.

apphd

Prayers for all those effected. Amazing destruction. Thankfully Japan's knowledge of its vulnerability has made it probably as well prepared as any country could be. I can't imagine what the devastation would have been like if they did not engineer as much anti quake and tsunami strength into their building. I read (can't confirm accuracy) one of the problems with the nuke plant that has everyone worried is that the quake took out the off site cooling power, then the tsunami took out the back up generators.

Not saying this has anything to do with it but interesting read on something I never even heard of before. http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/astronomy/story/46417/extreme-super-full-moon-to-cause-chaos.asp

Polkersince85

It may be time to start sourcing some Iodine tablets if they can't get the plants under control. I'm good to go due to the two plants near me.

Mike Reeter

Glad to hear that our club members in these devistated areas seem to be o.k.

Thoughts and prayers for everyone affected by this tragedy.

obieone

Mike Reeter wrote: »

Glad to hear that our club members in these devistated areas seem to be o.k.

Thoughts and prayers for everyone affected by this tragedy.

+1, exactly.:frown:

treitz3

The video coming out from Japan shows some almost unbelievably devastating damage. My thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Japan.

Sherardp, glad to hear you are OK.

slammin86

It seems the world and climate are rapidly changing. 2012 anyone?

Jstas

slammin86 wrote: »

It seems the world and climate are rapidly changing. 2012 anyone?

An earthquake in an area prone to earthquakes has nothing to do with the end of the world. An 8.8 earthquake in, say, Delaware where there is no major fault line and then you might have something.

An earthquake in Japan is nothing new. It sucks, yes but only the sanity impaired and cranialy deficient would think to associate this with doomsday prophecies.

greyford1979

Jstas wrote: »

An earthquake in an area prone to earthquakes has nothing to do with the end of the world. An 8.8 earthquake in, say, Delaware where there is no major fault line and then you might have something.

An earthquake in Japan is nothing new. It sucks, yes but only the sanity impaired and cranialy deficient would think to associate this with doomsday prophecies.

Didn't the world end in 2000?

drknyht

Also, and I apologize if this is already posted, if you text "redcross" to 90999, you can donate $10 to Redcross towards helping Japan recover.

megasat16

Our Federal Reserve Chairman and Our Treasury Secretary would know the exact date for doomsday if there will be any.

mrbigbluelight

Erik Tracy wrote: »

That was in the past.
Cumbre Vieja on La Palma in the Canary Islands is the one that is in danger of letting go *today* - the US East Coast will be a gonner if that happens - no running from that one.

Thanks, Erik, for that reference. Was checking that out last night on the InterWebs and found that there's a bit of a controversy regarding the Cumbre Vieja and the science behind its possible collapse. Almost as heated as a cable/wire discussion.

Found a few mentions of a fault line on Mt. Kilahoula .. lahela .... lakanaka ..... oh, okay, I can't remember the name.
But whereas the Cumbre Vieja would affect the East Coast, this Hawaiian fault line would affect the West Coast.

mrbigbluelight

Jstas wrote: »

An earthquake in Japan is nothing new. It sucks, yes but only the sanity impaired and cranialy deficient would think to associate this with doomsday prophecies.

5th worse earthquake in recorded history, for reference purposes.

As a suggestion, one might choose to do a little googling for information about doomsday prophecies and what's occuring in this period in time.
Many reputable sources (USGS, NASA, etc) discuss many factors that are "aligning" that may strongly suggest periods of vastly increased seismological activity.

BTW: when the poles shift, the North Pole will be off of Argentina.
(source was not tinfoilhats.com)

Jstas

mrbigbluelight wrote: »

5th worse earthquake in recorded history, for reference purposes.

As a suggestion, one might choose to do a little googling for information about doomsday prophecies and what's occuring in this period in time.
Many reputable sources (USGS, NASA, etc) discuss many factors that are "aligning" that may strongly suggest periods of vastly increased seismological activity.

BTW: when the poles shift, the North Pole will be off of Argentina.
(source was not tinfoilhats.com)

I am aware of all of this and I still don't consider seismic activity in a seismically active zone to be any kind of precursor to fulfillment of a prophecy.

Poles have shifted multiple times in the past.

Earthquakes have been happening since the dawn of time.

When the average global temperature rises and the ocean levels increase (this has also happened multiple times in the past), tsunamis become more prevalent because the conditions seem to be better for it all to happen. Scientists are not really sure why yet.

Nothing that is going on now is any different from the millions of years previously that it's been happening.

There are only two differences. We, as humans, have built way more expensive stuff and put it places at risk to seismic activity and tidal forces. The other difference is that we have the Internet where many people several lacking in the cranial horsepower necessary to make the conclusions that they do are still making them, regardless of their education/intelligence level. Since humans, in general, behave like sheep, when one crackpot starts squawking and making noise, the rest pay attention while the rest of the much more reasonable and realistic scientific community is exasperated at the idiocy of it all they they are involuntarily in a perpetual state of "face-palm" and at a loss of where to start re-educating the masses.

Thanks Internet, you're the best!

mrbigbluelight

Jstas wrote: »

Nothing that is going on now is any different from the millions of years previously that it's been happening.

To a certain degree, true. Some things may be repeating, however.

Jstas wrote:

Thanks mrbigbluelight, you're the best!

Well, I can't take ALL the credit ! But I graciously accept your

DAD !!
Uh ........ what ?
STOP IT !
But ... oh, okay .... sons of

Jstas wrote:

Thanks Internet, you're the best!

:frown:

megasat16

Well, it's not good.

The core meltdown may be imminent.

Send your thoughts and prayers, Folks! Thanks!

Ron-P

bobman1235 wrote: »

Uhh, not quite.

My point being, the earth beneath our feet, no matter where you are is unstable.

Ron-P

megasat16 wrote: »

Well, it's not good.

The core meltdown may be imminent.

Send your thoughts and prayers, Folks! Thanks!

Maybe a bit more thought, or safety precautions should have been put in place before designing a nuke plant and it's location. I'm sure these bright-eyed engineers were very aware of tsunami's and earthquakes long before these things were built. Let's hope this is a lesson for all those other nuke plants, especially the one that's about 100 miles from me.

bobman1235

Meh, this isn't a thread for debate, but I can pretty confidently say I'm not worried about Earthquakes in New England, so the ground here feels pretty stable to me.

JustinHEMI

A lot of bad information in the media, being repeated here, about the status of that reactor and what the concerns with it are.

I happen to be a senior reactor operator at a reactor very similar to the one in peril in Japan. If anyone has any specific questions, I would be more than happy to try to answer them in laymens terms.

A couple of myths to dispel off the bat;
1) The reactor had adequate core cooling at all times. They may have uncovered some fuel, but that doesn't mean the reactor wasn't cooled. A boiling water reactor is designed to be sufficiently cooled with 1/3 of the fuel uncovered. In fact, we train for it all the time.
2) Although they may have damaged a portion of the fuel, they are not "melting down" as the media hysteria would have you believe.
3) The major concern the entire time was the secondary containment gassing, which led to an explosion, as you know. However, the primary containment is intact and therefore, no fission products have been released to the environment (assuming some fuel was damaged).
4) This "1000 times normal" people are throwing around is meaningless. Normal for the areas they mentioned is about .01 mrem/hr, hence, 1000 times normal is only 10mrem/hr. To put that in perspective, you get several times that per day walking across concrete or being out in the sun. We worry about rads starting at around 10000 times normal.

Sure, they aren't in a good situation, but to me, this speaks volumes about the robustness of the design. Yes, they do design these plants to withstand about an 8 magnitude earth quake, AKA design basis earth quake. The fact that they were able to maintain adequate core cooling throughout this disaster is a testament to the safety of nuclear power, IMO.

Hope that helps.

Justin

JustinHEMI

Here is the latest update, from the company that operates those units;

There is no update from the release issued at 1:00 am

Unit 1 (shut down at 2:48pm on March 11th)
- Reactor is shut down and reactor water level is stable.
- Offsite power is available.
- At 8:19am, there was an alarm indicating that one of the control rods was
not properly inserted, however, at 10:43am the alarm was spontaneously
called off. Other control rods has been confirmed that they are fully
inserted (reactor is in subcritical status)
- Status of main steam isolation valve: closed
- Injection of water into the reactor is done by Make-up Water Condensate
System.
- At 6:08pm, we announced the increase in reactor containment vessel
pressure, assumed to be due to leakage of reactor coolant. However, we
do not believe there is leakage of reactor coolant in the containment
vessel at this moment.
- At 5:22am, the temperature of the suppression chamber exceeded 100
degrees. As the reactor pressure suppression function was lost, at 5:22am,
it was determined that a specific incident stipulated in article 15,
clause 1 has occurred.
- We decided to prepare implementing measures to reduce the pressure of the
reactor containment vessel (partial discharge of air containing
radioactive materials) in order to fully secure safety. This preparation
work started at around 9:43am and finished at 6:00pm.
- Restoration work in reactor cooling function is in progress to achieve
reactor cold shutdown.

Unit 2 (shut down at 2:48pm on March 11th)
- Reactor is shut down and reactor water level is stable.
- Offsite power is available.
- Control rods are fully inserted (reactor is in subcritical status)
- Status of main steam isolation valve: closed
- Injection of water into the reactor is done by Make-up Water Condensate
System.
- We do not believe there is leakage of reactor coolant in the containment
vessel.
- At 5:32am, the temperature of the suppression chamber exceeded 100
degrees. As the reactor pressure suppression function was lost, at 5:32am,
it was determined that a specific incident stipulated in article 15,
clause 1 has occurred.
- We decided to prepare implementing measures to reduce the pressure of the
reactor containment vessel (partial discharge of air containing
radioactive materials) in order to fully secure safety. This preparation
work started at around 10:33am and finished at 10:58pm.
- Restoration work in reactor cooling function is in progress to achieve
reactor cold shutdown.


Unit 3 (shut down at 2:48pm on March 11th)
- Reactor is shut down and reactor water level is stable.
- Offsite power is available.
- Control rods are fully inserted (reactor is in subcritical status)
- Status of main steam isolation valve: closed
- We do not believe there is leakage of reactor coolant in the containment
vessel.
- We decided to prepare implementing measures to reduce the pressure of the
reactor containment vessel (partial discharge of air containing
radioactive materials) in order to fully secure safety. The preparation
woke started at around 12:08pm and finished at 12:13pm.
- Reactor cold shutdown at 12:15pm

Unit 4 (shut down at 2:48pm on March 11th)
- Reactor is shut down and reactor water level is stable.
- Offsite power is available.
- Control rods are fully inserted (reactor is in subcritical status)
- Status of main steam isolation valve: closed
- Injection of water into the reactor is done by Make-up Water Condensate
System.
- We do not believe there is leakage of reactor coolant in the containment
vessel.
- In order to cool down the reactor, injection of water into the reactor
had been done by the Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System, however, At
6:07am, the temperature of the suppression chamber exceeded 100 degrees.
As the reactor pressure suppression function was lost, at 6:07am, it was
determined that a specific incident stipulated in article 15, clause 1
has occurred.
- We decided to prepare implementing measures to reduce the pressure of the
reactor containment vessel (partial discharge of air containing
radioactive materials) in order to fully secure safety. The preparation
woke started at around 11:44am and finished at around 11:52am.
- Restoration work in reactor cooling function is in progress to achieve
reactor cold shutdown.

Indication from monitoring posts installed at the site boundary did not
show any difference from ordinary level.
No radiation impact to the external environment has been confirmed. We will
continue to monitor in detail the possibility of radioactive material being
discharged from exhaust stack or discharge canal.

JustinHEMI

Finally, you can get the actual status first hand, without some media **** that doesn't know what they are talking about putting their hysteria into it.

Here is the press release site from the company;

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/

And here is the Internation Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) site;

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

If you would like me to translate any of the technical jargon, I would be happy to help.

What you can get out of the status report that I posted, though, is;

1) The reactors are all shutdown.
2) They are all intact.
3) Containment is challenged.

However, now that they have power, they should be able to remove the heat and pressure from inside containment to prevent any further failures.

Justin

george daniel

thanks for posting that,,so in language that I understand--should I loose any sleep over this? BTW__thank you for taking the time to post .

JustinHEMI

george daniel wrote: »

thanks for posting that,,so in language that I understand--should I loose any sleep over this? BTW__thank you for taking the time to post .

It is a serious situation, for sure, but you can rest assured that you won't have fuel in your cereal in the morning.

Nor do you need to worry about a US plant. By all indications, US operators are far better trained than they were. At least, that is what my colleagues and I are debating.

Simply put, if they truly had all the systems they reported having in that status update, there is absolutely no reason they should have damaged any fuel. Therefore, I am led to believe that operator knowledge and ability, or lack thereof, contributed to the degrading conditions.

Justin