Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster!!!

[Mulboyne]

Yup, just had another one 5 mins ago, seems like JR won't be running until mid-afternoon at least, shitty situation all 'round

JR East say services will start at 7:00am but no more than 30-50% of normal capacity. The Yamanote will probably start at 8:00am because they are still working on the line between Shinjuku and Shin-Okubo.

[Taka-Okami]

You might like this map,

http://www.oe-files.de/gmaps/eqmashup.html

[waruta]

Anyone try riding the train? The company peoples say to try and delay the time as much as possible since theres so many ppl trying to get home...Shit there's another aftershock.

[Mulboyne]

Anyone try riding the train? The company peoples say to try and delay the time as much as possible since theres so many ppl trying to get home...Shit there's another aftershock.

Some JR people are asking passengers at the stations to consider using the subway network instead.

[ChargerCarl]

so like...chernobyl v.2?

[Longname]

Unbelievably sleazy and opportunistic craigslist posting in Tokyo about 4 hours after the disaster.

DOMAIN NAME JAPANESE TSUNAMI RELIEF - JPY10000 (USA)

TO BE CLEAR - THIS IS NOT MY Craigslist POSTING - I THINK THIS SCUMBAG SHOULD BE PUT AGAINST A WALL.

[omae mona]

Unbelievably sleazy and opportunistic craigslist posting in Tokyo about 4 hours after the disaster.

DOMAIN NAME JAPANESE TSUNAMI RELIEF - JPY10000 (USA)

My gosh! That's awful! Well, if you would lower your asking price to 5000, I might be game. I plan to link the domain name to my commercial porn site.

[rooboy]

Damn, hope all of you and your mates and family are okay. Anybody got an email from Yokohammer, CanMan and whoever else is in the areas in the direct hit line?:(

[Coligny]

Not such niceties on my walk home. A bunch of the convenience stores closed their bathrooms as did office buildings. I had to walk a good 45 minutes till I found one I could use.

Might not fly well with previous governement guidelines of using combinis as safeshelters in case of... well... this...

[Coligny]

so like...chernobyl v.2?

Nope, Chernobyl was aboot some bozo disabling the safety system and joyriding the plant to see how it would cope. Followed by over heating and explosing of the reactor.

Here it's a failure of the safety system... (so, in a way, worse, like in -people deserve to lose their job over this screw up- worse) With for what we know, some leak, but no explosion yet (so better in a -we're not that fucked yet- kind of way). And without enough data diving to back my statement, the kind of technology used in Tchernobyl was inherently a wreck waiting to happen while normal more modern reactor are more well behaved in case of failure.

[Coligny]

Not that (...) but some of youz got news from Greji ?

No post since 1:21Pm yesturday.

[Doctor Stop]

Not that (...) but some of youz got news from Greji ?

No post since 1:21Pm yesturday.

I hope he's just busy stocking up on disaster goats.

[Sarutaro]

I'm working as a journalist. If you know anyone from Sendai who witnessed the destruction and can talk about his/her experience via Skype or phone let me know. Email: polestarjapan (at) gmail.com

[matsuki]

Ehhhh.....

The previous record was an 8.6 magnitude earthquake that struck near the Chubu region near southwestern Honshu on October 28, 1707, that may have killed 5,000 people, said CNN meteorologist Sean Morris.

That quake generated a 33-foot (10-meter) tsunami, and some scientists believe the quake may have triggered the eruption of Mount Fuji 49 days later, Morris said.

[matsuki]

I'm working as a journalist. If you know anyone from Sendai who witnessed the destruction and can talk about his/her experience via Skype or phone let me know. Email: polestarjapan (at) gmail.com

Post it on here. Already got a call from LA to do a live interview tomorrow....but we got it easy in tokyo, would be nice hear more from people in Sendai, Ibaraki, etc.

[Coligny]

Beeb report crap brewing at the Miyagi Onagawa nuke powerplant.

Live wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunami

[Catoneinutica]

I'm very glad everyone's okay, apart from some epic commutes. Now, while we're dusting ourselves off: imagine if the epicenter had been closer to land, or nearer to Kanto. It's obviously still a possibility. Grim stuff.

[Coligny]

I'm very glad everyone's okay, apart from some epic commutes. Now, while we're dusting ourselves off: imagine if the epicenter had been closer to land, or nearer to Kanto. It's obviously still a possibility. Grim stuff.

Not to rain on the party... but as long as the powerplant situation is not stable we don't know if what just hit was the 'good' or the 'bad' part on this event.

The Beeb seems really nervous aboot this. We're talking aboot people who didn't stop drinking their tea when the krauts were firebombing them.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Not to rain on the party... but as long as the powerplant situation is not stable we don't know if what just hit was the 'good' or the 'bad' part on this event.

The Beeb seems really nervous aboot this. We're talking aboot people who didn't stop drinking their tea when the krauts were firebombing them.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_quake_power_plant

[quote]Japan declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability in the aftermath of Friday's powerful earthquake. Thousands of residents were evacuated as workers struggled to get the reactors under control to prevent meltdowns.

Operators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's Unit 1 scrambled ferociously to tamp down heat and pressure inside the reactor after the 8.9 magnitude quake and the tsunami that followed cut off electricity to the site and disabled emergency generators, knocking out the main cooling system.

Some 3,000 people within two miles (three kilometers) of the plant were urged to leave their homes, but the evacuation zone was more than tripled to 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) after authorities detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.

The government declared a state of emergency at the Daiichi unit &#8212]

[ichigo partygirl]

Hey All - After the recent quake here, everyone in New Zealand is just in total shock. I can't imagine how awful it is there at the moment. I literally felt sick to my stomach watching the tsunami roll in as it happened. Thank goodness for Twitter and other sites which allow us to check in with each other. I'm wishing you all the best and hoping the aftershocks stop coming. Be safe my friends! Ichigo xx

[Greji]

We vacated our office building at the big tremor and were all standing on the street when the boss (kaicho) came back. He being the nice employer and employee minded man that he is said "What the fuck are you doing standing out here? Show's over, get back inside an go to work." We did and immediately there after the second big one hit and took off the facade on the side of the building. The Kaicho was the first one outside and was heard to yell "I'm going over to the Land Ministry to see what's going on!" as he rode out of sight. Never saw him again. I got in my car and left the office parking lot at 1730. I arrived home at 0215 this morn somewhat worse the wear. It took almost two hours to get down Atago dori in front of the Imperial Palace alone. Anyway all's well here and the goats are a grazing in the rubble....

[FG Lurker]

Anyway all's well here and the goats are a grazing in the rubble....

Good to hear that you're ok Greji!!

Really hope we hear from Canman, Yokohammer, and any other northerly FGs soon...

[Mock Cockpit]

BBC, quoting Kyodo and Jiji, reporting one of the reactors in meltdown now.

[Tsuru]

Haven't seen any news of a meltdown, but it seems the situation is still critical. NISA reported one reactor has lost so much coolant that fuel rods are now exposed. Apparenty the only way they currently have to remedy the situation is by using makeshift pumps and ducts to try and keep the reactor submerged.

If the reactor loses its coolant it's very possible it will melt down.

[ChargerCarl]

what exactly does a meltdown mean?

[Tsuru]

A nuclear reactor is a metal structure, when cooling is completely lost the temperatures in the structure may become so high that the metal simply melts and collects in a puddle of radioactive lava at the bottom of the containment vessel. I should stress that a western reactor is designed to cope with this eventuality and keep all the really nasty stuff inside the reactor containment vessel.
Chernobyl did not have a concrete containment vessel, except for some concrete hastily poured after the fact. What that looks like you can find here. The lava you see is the actual nuclear fuel and structure, melted. As bad as Chernobyl was, what the Russians saved us from was a secondary, much larger explosion when this lava would have come into contact with water collected under the reactor from fire fighting and failed cooling systems.

[MrUltimateGaijin]

what exactly does a meltdown mean?

from wiki

"in a modern reactor, a nuclear meltdown, whether partial or total, should be contained inside the reactor's containment structure. Thus (assuming that no other major disasters occur) while the meltdown will severely damage the reactor itself, possibly contaminating the whole structure with highly radioactive material, a meltdown alone will generally not lead to significant radiation release or danger to the public. The effects are therefore primarily economic."

[Osakadave]

And the very bad news is:

Japanese nuclear authorities said that there was a high possibility that nuclear fuel rods at a reactor at Tokyo Electric Power's Daiichi plant may be melting or have melted, Jiji news agency reported on Saturday.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2011/03/20113124353222667.html

[matsuki]

Meltdown...shit, after the initial dip, the yen is going to get stronger with the massive recovery effort.

[Taka-Okami]

A nuclear reactor is a metal structure, when cooling is completely lost the temperatures in the structure may become so high that the metal simply melts and collects in a puddle of radioactive lava at the bottom of the containment vessel. I should stress that a western reactor is designed to cope with this eventuality and keep all the really nasty stuff inside the reactor containment vessel.
Chernobyl did not have a concrete containment vessel, except for some concrete hastily poured after the fact. What that looks like you can find here. The lava you see is the actual nuclear fuel and structure, melted. As bad as Chernobyl was, what the Russians saved us from was a secondary, much larger explosion when this lava would have come into contact with water collected under the reactor from fire fighting and failed cooling systems.

Lets hope the engineers got their calcs right when they designed the reactor!