Another 6.2 just hit near Nagano…
EDIT - Some are saying it’s 6.6
My heart goes out to the people of Japan. My thoughts and prayers are for you. Also for anyone who got family or knows anyone there.
Watching NHK World now, looks like the situation at the nuclear plant in Fukushima is becoming quite serious. They’re saying the pressure has risen, and an evactuation advisory is in place for the immediate area. Right now, they say the effects should not be significant, but some radiation may leak out.
Also, the plant is said to be about 40 years old. This certainly doesn’t help matters.
Most nuclear plants are that old though… Just like Indian Point’s two reactors, Fukushima I’s reactors were all built in the 70’s… it doesn’t mean much as long as they’re maintained… However…
If you would like a very biased take on the situation, here’s “Anti-Nuclear Expert” Kevin Kamp explaining your worst case scenario…
It may be a worst case scenario from a person against nuclear power… but the radiation levels in the area are still 1000x normal…
Not good… this could be very bad…
I’m just concerned because the Fukushima I plant (reactor #1) is one of the oldest in Japan, according to http://www.japannuclear.com/nuclearpower/program/location.html (Fukushima Daiichi, unit 1). I agree that if it is well-maintained, disasters like this can be more easily averted, but older facilities in general are more at risk in my opinion.
Age isn’t the issue here though… The cooling pumps aren’t working right. At any rate, all of this is leading up to one of the current issues, which is the immense amount of pressure building up inside the containment building… It has to be vented, which will potentially release some radiation… a whole lot less than whatever amount would be released if the reactor were to explode, but still… the wind is apparently blowing out to sea at the moment, or at least it was an hour ago…
Despite warnings to stay away from the harbor and various beaches in CA, people still showed up early this morning to take watch and take pictures…
So far the estimated radiation to be released would not be harmful to humans or any other living thing. I am sure they are double checking to make that is accurate. However, the words radiation release never sit well with the populace. We really need Cold Fusion reactors fast.
So apparently one of the cesium rods was showing signs of melting… potentially they did have a meltdown to an extent… but they’re saying that the rest of the fuel is cooled so there is no cause for alarm at the moment. They’re apparently dumping water into the reactor to keep it from melting.
So…what part of that sounds good? 'Cause I’m having trouble finding it.
Well, part of the building blew, but the radiation level is now decreasing. The temperature is now going down. No risk of meltdown, but it is going to take awhile to fix that plant.
Yep, they’re saying that a hydrogen explosion caused the outer structure of the reactor to collapse. They’re saying that reactor container is still intact. However, they were saying a while ago that the hourly radiation from the plant is equivalent to that allowable for ordinary people in one year…
They’re going to cool the reactor now with sea water, and boric acid, and it will take 5-10 hours to fill the reactor, and then it will require cooling with sea water for another 10 days.
Oh, they’re also saying that some people were exposed to radiation at a hospital, or something like that…
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth/index.html (full story in the link)
Anime Network is one of the only anime websites thats not giving info how to help!
I just donated $25, $20 to American Red Cross and $5 through Crunchyroll.
uh…
http://www.theanimenetwork.com/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,65/catid,11/func,view/id,78267/
Like most would find that.
You know, chris, it would have been much more constructive to do this:
I did hear some of this on CNN. They said that some of the land mass had dropped with the quake, so that when the tsunami receded, not all of the water left, but created new, permanent water basins. They also said that the coastline changed as well and that maps would have to be changed, but I didn’t realize the entire island moved. Or the axis for that matter!
I keep watching the news and each image is worse than the one before. It will be a very long recovery and my thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese people.
Just for comparison, here are the before and after satellite images from NASA in the Sendai area. This was posted on CNN earlier as part of the article Mystic mentioned.
http://i1082.photobucket.com/albums/j370/Scott_Bitzer/t1larg_japan_nasa_afp_gi.jpg
Still having a hard time believing it 8.9 is massive