Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster!!!

[dimwit]

Oh, yes! welcome back Yokohammer. Glad to here that the combis up there still have food in them, or at least the squid flavored equivalent.

[AlbertSiegel]

Yokohammer, I'm very relieved to hear you are okay and still have a place to call home.

You have no water, but are you able to get any drinking water? How is the food and fuel situation for you?

[Yokohammer]

[GomiGirl]

I knew that we were really lucky here in Tokyo and hearing Yokohammer's stories, just confirms it.

Great to hear you and yours are well and working with your community. Any suggestions as to what would make it easier for you or those around you, just say the word.

We have a spare room here in Tokyo if anybody needs it. Plus lots of my friends have left and have left word to use their places if needed. Lots of couch surfing with working bathrooms if it gets too much up there.

[FG Lurker]

I don't usually watch the quake situation very closely so it's tough to say how out of the ordinary this is, but there is a lot of activity going on under and around Fuji right now. Had that one M6 / JMA6+ quake around 22:40, then a few smaller quakes, then another M6 / JMA6+ quake at 23:34:
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/20110315233441391-152231.html

[pheyton]

Listening to radio with nuclear physicists on, pay attention to the spent fuel pools, not the cores. The fuckin spent fuel sits on top of the reactors in giant pools. Those pools hold much more material than the reactors and if they are not cooled they can explode and catch fire just like the core.

""This is definitely in the Chernobyl league now," says Frank von Hippel, a nuclear physicist at Princeton University. "If the reactors go, that's bad, of course. But the real concern at this point is if those ... spent-fuel pools catch fire. There are many Chernobyls' worth of radioactive material in there."
"
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0315/Japan-nuclear-crisis-eclipses-Three-Mile-Island-nears-Chernobyl-league

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-nuclear-pools-idUSTRE72E6OL20110315

[ChargerCarl]

Fucking shit this keeps getting worse and worse.

[pheyton]

I'm not trying to be a sensationalist, I just want people to know what other experts are saying and take care.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-chernobyl-clean-up-expert-slams-japan-idUSTRE72E7AL20110315

Lost an aunt in Hachioji last night, probably because of all the stress. Fuckin nicest woman you could know. Was a second mother to me an my wife when we lived there.

Just take care over there. If we can send supplies, $$ or anything to help people out let me know.

[fast_dave]

Seal yourself in a 747

[fast_dave]

OK - The French are the first to officially retreat from Japan!

Link: http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78343.html

[pheyton]

I think the Chinese beat them.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/China-Begins-Evacuation-of-Nationals-from-Japan-118024354.html

[Mike Oxlong]

Assorted links:

The Idiocy and Hubris of Engineers: Will GE Get Whacked for the Catastrophic Failure of its Nuke Plants in Fukushima?

Two Workers Missing, Roof Cracked at Fukushima Power Plant

[ChargerCarl]

Assorted links:

The Idiocy and Hubris of Engineers: Will GE Get Whacked for the Catastrophic Failure of its Nuke Plants in Fukushima?

Really? I think the fact that everything is still being contained is testament to how well the reactors were built to survive such a disaster.

[John Dillinger]

In regard to consuming iodine via tablets or natural sources like sea weed to block radiation absorption, I feel really bad for the people like me who are allergic to shellfish and sea weed because it contains iodine. I hope to God, the radiation problem isn't as bad as some have reported, because those people are going to be in a really bad way.

Glad to see all of you folks are holding up all right. I wish I could help you guys out somehow. Hang in there,
Alan

[Bucky]

[canman]

Hammer welcome back to the land of the living, or those of us trying to. I can't imagine what you went through and how you feel now, but know that we are all very happy that you and your family survived.
Things are getting really testy here in Hachinohe, without gas, or kerosene, and no sign of it. There are rumors that gas stations have gas and people are lining up for hours, and tempers are really starting to flare. Add on top of that the never ending aftershocks, the real worry of radiation fallout, and I worry that some people are getting close to the breaking point.
We got 10cm of snow last night which just adds to people's woes, and makes it even more difficult to get around on foot or by bicycle.
It really is a bizarre situation, and all I can do is sit around in the cold, wait for either the highways to open, the trains to start running, and fuel and food to be delivered. Fortunately we were excluded from the Tohoku Denryoku's rolling blackouts, thank god for little mercies.

[Iraira]

[Doctor Stop]

OK - The French are the first to officially retreat from Japan!

[rooboy]

Fuck a flying fruitbat! - Yokohammer's back. Thats great mate, we were all worried, sucks about your relative. RIP. Pheyton's relative too. RIP.

Good to hear more from Canman, sorry there's nothing we can do cept give to local funds, Red Cross etc. Damn, wish there was a way to get some fucking food and water up to ya, hope you get some supplies soon.

[Yokohammer]

Hammer welcome back to the land of the living, or those of us trying to. I can't imagine what you went through and how you feel now, but know that we are all very happy that you and your family survived.
Things are getting really testy here in Hachinohe, without gas, or kerosene, and no sign of it. There are rumors that gas stations have gas and people are lining up for hours, and tempers are really starting to flare. Add on top of that the never ending aftershocks, the real worry of radiation fallout, and I worry that some people are getting close to the breaking point.
We got 10cm of snow last night which just adds to people's woes, and makes it even more difficult to get around on foot or by bicycle.
It really is a bizarre situation, and all I can do is sit around in the cold, wait for either the highways to open, the trains to start running, and fuel and food to be delivered. Fortunately we were excluded from the Tohoku Denryoku's rolling blackouts, thank god for little mercies.

Thanks Canman. Glad to hear that you're OK too.

The fuel situation has me a bit worried. The car's gas tank is still half full, and I'm not planning on going anywhere for a while so we'll just sit tight and wait. I'm pretty sure that the situation will get straightened out over time. Kerosine for heating was getting low, but since the power is back on (finally) and we have a couple of air conditioning units, we can avoid freezing without having to rely on the kerosine. The real problem is gasoline to transport relief goods and kerosine to keep evacuees warm. I really hope they get that straightened out as soon as possible.

And the radiation ... yeah, that's a bit worrying too.

I know it's trivial under the current circumstances, but I would really like to take a bath ...

[Osakadave]

All my neighbors here in Seattle seem to be moving into panic mode and buying Iodide supplements like they are going out of style.

Drudge Report (I know ) has gone into full blown panic mode, carrying a huge screaming headline claiming the Surgeon General says everyone needs to buy iodide pills.

[cstaylor]

Those losers still can't keep their site up with anything more than nominal traffic.

[Coligny]

Really? I think the fact that everything is still being contained is testament to how well the reactors were built to survive such a disaster.

Nothing spells more 'brilliant engineering' than this:



As for the containement part... It's like a car falling from a cliff, before reaching the bottom you can still say... "everything is fine for now"...

[cstaylor]

Why did TEPCO only leave 50 people on site to deal with 6 reactors? Suit up the CEO and everyone above kacho level and get them down there.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Why did TEPCO only leave 50 people on site to deal with 6 reactors? Suit up the CEO and everyone above kacho level and get them down there.

Can't do that...Who's gonna bow down and apologize when they nuke us all?

[IkemenTommy]

I want to create a list of companies that fucked up and failed during this crisis. Just to start off:
TEPCO
JR East
Softbank

Feel free to add more to this list if you wish.

[cstaylor]

Can't do that...Who's gonna bow down and apologize when they nuke us all?

When they tried to throw in the towel yesterday.

[noodles]

Here's my newbie offering: Chinasmack, a site that features translations into English of Chinese netizens blathering on much as you do on burning (drowning, shaking, exploding) issues of the day. On this thread they admire the orderliness and high moral behavior of the Japanese
http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/chinese-netizens-admire-japanese-post-earthquake-behavior.html

If you go to the site top page you will find a thread that better fits the Japan-hating nationalist meme of young Chinese online - buy hey we get enough of that crap.

[canman]

Some professor from Tokyo Kogyo Daigaku, said they should call in the self defense force to water bomb the towers right now, the longer they wait the greater the chance of a huge leak in radiation. I don't know if this is the answer, but they were complaining that PM Kan won't ask the self defense force to do this. Any reason why he wouldn't ask them for help in this case.
Also I heard that even though TEPCO owns the site, it is run by a bunch of subcontractors, and that there is a real breakdown in information. This from my student who works for Tohoku Denryoku, who said the same situation goes on at all nuclear plants.

[cstaylor]

Basically reprocessed plutonium.