Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster!!!

[Taro Toporific]

Holly cow, that was quite big!

Earthquake Information (Seismic Intensity Information)
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/
Issued at 19:00 JST 19 Mar 2011

Occurred at (JST) Latitude
(degree) Longitude
(degree) Depth Magnitude Region Name
18:56 JST 19 Mar 2011 36.7N 140.7E 20km 6.1 Ibaraki-ken Hokubu

Occurred at 18:57 JST 19 Mar 2011

JMA Seismic Intensity Region Name
IBARAKI 5+ Ibaraki-ken Hokubu
5- Ibaraki-ken Nambu
FUKUSHIMA 4 Fukushima-ken Hamadori
3 Fukushima-ken Nakadori
TOCHIGI 4 Tochigi-ken Nambu

[Coligny]

French governement advice not based on science...

http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/03/19/british-government-french-advice-is-not-based-on-science/

Geez... who would have suspected that...

(I didun't vote for that clown, so at least on this, give me a break...)

[FG Lurker]

French governement advice not based on science...

http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/03/19/british-government-french-advice-is-not-based-on-science/

Geez... who would have suspected that...

(I didun't vote for that clown, so at least on this, give me a break...)

Man, the reactor buildings are looking pretty fucked up in the photo at the top of that article. Here's hoping things get under better control soon.

[Iraira]

Man, the reactor buildings are looking pretty fucked up in the photo at the top of that article. Here's hoping things get under better control soon.

I lived in a monthly mansion in Nishi-Koyama that kinda looked the way the reactor does. Cockroaches would wake me up in the morning demanding breakfast.

[2triky]

Ken Watanabe launches website to help disaster victims.

http://www.kizuna311.com

[Caustic Saint]

I was just down by yokota for lunch and I didn't see many gaijin outside. Usually there are a lot of base family members out and about especially on a nice day like today. Something up?

They're halfway to a NEO (Noncombatant Evacuation Operation) situation now. Pacific Command has not given them the order to do so, so US Naval Forces Japan is prepping just in case. They're preparing for a worst-case scenario that isn't likely to happen, but they want their asses covered just in case.

[maraboutslim]

Saw a pretty impressive press conference by Tomioka of the Tokyo Shouboucho this morning (midnight Japan time) on NHK thanks to ustream link (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-gtv). Because of the human drama (I won't spoil it for you) I'm sure parts of it are going to get replayed a million times, but the explanation before all that by Tomioka was clear and interesting and should have been understandable by all. Well done. I know it's their job and they are supposed to do it, but those guys are putting themselves on the line and totally earned my respect.

[Christoff]

another one in Ibaraki-ken? 5.9?

[Coligny]

http://www.lepoint.fr/monde/tokyo-exige-le-retour-des-sauveteurs-francais-a-sendai-19-03-2011-1308662_24.php

aww... shit...

The French don't want their rescue team anywhere near the pseudo radioactive zone... Tokyo say get back there or get the fuck out... I'm not sure this pissing contest is really smart...
Sure the French are surrendering as usual... but after being responsible for this whole clusterfark... maybe the japanese governement could... i don't know... maybe chill out a bit... They got around 30 years to fix that plant after all...

Sidenote, if the J-gov wanted to send the message "we don't control anything anymore and we are panicking" that would be the good way to say it... inadvertantly...

[ttjereth]

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20110320-00000017-jij-soci

Approx. 250 cases of reported looting in Miyagi.

And also now the news has stooped to reporting local panic rumors along the lines of "a person was stabbed in an alleyway in an unnamed city" and "there are wandering groups of muggers about".


In other news, Rush Limbaugh is an asshole (surprise?).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/16/rush-limbaugh-mocks-japan-refugees_n_836384.html


Also, anyone else tired of articles with titles like "English teacher living in Japan describes quake experience"?

[Coligny]

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20110320-00000017-jij-soci

Approx. 250 cases of reported looting in Miyagi.

Or, "Saturday afternoon" as we call it in Paris...

[Not Invented Here]

I haven't posted here in a long time, and I'm sure most don't know me. First off, I want to send my best to everyone in the northeast, everyone with family in the northeast, everyone who has ever been in the northeast.

I had a family friend offer me cash to get my girlfriend on a plane out of Japan today...

It was a little bit embarrassing to have to explain that my girlfriend lives in Okinawa, and that she's about as far removed from the disaster as you can be while still being in Japan.

Then I got a wall of text explaining how Fukushima is bound to be the next Chernobyl, airplanes are getting fried flying over Tokyo, and how heroic the workers at the plant are for selflessly dying in order to save everyone else... Not a mention, however, of what to do about my girlfriend's family, or any hint of support for disaster recovery. Just, "Hey, Japan is burning!"

Oh, and to further illustrate, said person's facebook avatar:

[canman]

Also, anyone else tired of articles with titles like "English teacher living in Japan describes quake experience"?

I think ttjereth, newspapers and media are just looking for any story they can get to put a human face on it. and since there are many English teachers who live in Japan, and can speak the desired language, they are interviewing them. Not a lot of investment bankers were working in Kesunuma village when the earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck.
As long as it is factual and not overblown I have no problem with it. But if it is anything like that article the Sun in England printed with the desperate house wife in ghost town Tokyo who had no food and was afraid for her life, well I'll take a pass on that.

[Yokohammer]

Really.

There's no denying that we have a difficult situation on our hands. We are living through one of the most widespread, devastating disasters in recorded history. But the way it gets pushed to panicky proportions by the media is just idiotic. Even people in Tokyo are panicking!

The people who are going about their business up here in the midst of it all, admittedly facing the need to rebuild their lives to one degree or another, (Canman and myself included) simply aren't panicking. There's no need to. It's simply a "get on with it" type situation. There's a bit more radiation than normal floating around, but nowhere near enough to be a real threat at the moment. I'm confident that the Fukushima situation will be brought under control sooner than later, and so is everyone around me. We have to be confident. I suppose we could all run around screaming and waving our arms, but that wouldn't accomplish much, would it.

People in the affected areas have a huge job ahead of them and need to be able to focus. All the fear-mongering is not helping. The self-centered panic-buying in unaffected areas is not helping. It's counter-productive and it needs to stop.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Great post 'Hammer.
Kudos to you, canman and all the other punters up there getting on with in under unimaginably adverse circumstances.
As for any of those offers from outsiders for unnecessary cash, I'm more than willing to do my bit for Japan and accept them unconditionally after having gone through a natural disaster of my own a while back.
Shite, plutonium rods look positively enticing compared to the rods it looks like I'm gonna have to deal with if I want to make any money to survive...

[canman]

Yokohammer, wonderfully stated! I have been told by a few people that I am fooling myself, trying to remain calm, and not panic about what is going on. I never said we shouldn't be prepared for anything, but as you stated what good is accomplished scaring yourself and others around you. And maybe that is what it is, some people are rightly scared, but they only feel better if others feel the same way around them.
And that is the problem I have with Western media, they want people to be scared, and they have done a great job with my Mom and Dad back in Canada. They watch the news and really fear for my life. When my Mom calls, on a daily basis, I have to continually reassure her, we aren't getting irradiated, that while things are bad, we are ok. It is cold and still little or no gas, but he the roads are all closed so there is nowhere to go. I try to make light of it, just for their sake, so they will stop worrying, but then they turn on the news again and they hear the British gov't is giving out Iodide pills, and the panic goes up again.

[GomiGirl]

Great posts guys.

Perhaps the reason there are so many stories in the press as the press have been trolling SNS and BB's like this one for any one who is wanting to tell their story. For example, I got this note on my twitter the other day.

HuffPoster The Huff Poster
@keitaigoddess The Huff Post wants to chat with people in Japan. Contact jake@huffingtonpost.com or @jbialer if you're interested

I ignored it.

Cyka somehow was met in the arrivals hall by a TV crew when she touched down in Denmark. She ignored them.

I think we have had a few requests on FG as well.

Tis all kinda dull so I hope that the important stories get out soon. Enough disaster porn already.

[Coligny]

I ignored it.

Cyka somehow was met in the arrivals hall by a TV crew when she touched down in Denmark. She ignored them.

I thought she went all Tchechnya on their asses...

Can you stop ruining my daydreamings ?

[CrankyBastard]

One of Japan's best-known foreign TV personalities posted a video on YouTube last week pleading with overseas media to "stop stirring up hysteria". "You're freaking out the foreign community, and it is taking people's efforts from where they need to be ... up north," said Daniel Kahl. Possibly he had in mind The Sun, which this week quoted British ex-pats saying Tokyo had become a ghost town resembling a zombie movie, with no food, fuel or water.

This was news to most residents of the city, where, despite power cuts and shortages, millions have been going to work, shopping for food and drinking in bars.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/exodus-its-women-and-children-first-on-the-trains-out-of-tokyo-2247064.html

[Coligny]

Meanwhile (stay classy japan):

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2011/03/20/hotels-discriminating-against-quake-victims/

[TL/DR] hostel are refusing people from Fukushima for phe4r of th3 radiashiun...


Their lecturing aboot eco-shit recycle and other crap will be even more delicious now that they have a nuke plant shitting explosive radioactive diahrea (ok, albeit limited) on the planet...

[Iraira]

Tepco was reluctant to use seawater because it worried about hurting its long-term investment in the complex, say people involved with the efforts. Seawater, which can render a nuclear reactor permanently inoperable, now is at the center of efforts to keep the plant under control.

Tepco "hesitated because it tried to protect its assets," said Akira Omoto, a former Tepco executive and a member of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, an official advisory body involved in the effort to tame the plant. Both Tepco and government officials had good reason not to use saltwater, Mr. Omoto added. Early on, nuclear fuel rods were still under cooling water and undamaged, he said, adding, "it's understandable because injecting seawater into the fuel vessel renders it unusable."

Most fun quote of the WSJ article;

"This disaster is 60% man-made," said one government official. "They failed in their initial response. It's like Tepco dropped and lost a 100 yen coin while trying to pick up a 10 yen coin."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608504576207912642629904.html

[Not Invented Here]

So, basically Omoto is either trying to give out a weak defense of TEPCO, or more likely everyone in the government has already written out their epitaph. I really wonder how much reality is going to be left intact when the music stops and everyone who can has covered their asses.

When all is said and done, there's a lot of "responsibility" to be spread around. Not just for Fukushima, but each and every place where things didn't go perfectly as expected in the wake of the disaster. I'm guessing it will take place in the likely order of Fukushima, the systemic shortages of food and water at evacuation sites, then possibly the blackouts, and then so on from there. Not to mention the beating the DPJ may or may not eat depending on the weather and to whatever extent people under the age of 60 actually care about or acknowledge the existence of Naoto Kan.

Who gets hung out to dry? As far as TEPCO goes, I'd bet whoever wasn't watching the pumps that time will get a less public lashing than the men in front of the TV cameras, but in the end the suits will fare as well as they can fade into the background while the guys on the scene will get their shit handed to them in spades.

EDIT:

Ah, CNN is trying to make sense, and teaching us about neurology all at once.

Aftershocks continue to rock the nation, some 1 million people are homeless, either because their homes are gone or they've been evacuated, the nation's economy is in a tailspin and hundreds of thousands of Japanese are trying to find and help their friends and relatives. It seems trivial, given all this, that the H5N1 bird flu virus has broken out in chicken flocks across the country.

This is not a population that will benefit from worst-case scenario radiation speculation.

I do not know what exclusive information Jaczko possesses that leads him to signal to the people of Japan that they cannot trust their prime minister, that their government is lying to them, and that in the nation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the citizenry should reject the voice of Tokyo in favor of the cries from Washington.

If the NRC has unique information or scientific analysis that exceeds available Japanese wisdom, it is unfortunate they could not share that urgency in a more discreet fashion with Tokyo. Instead, the NRC has succeeded in further distancing the Japanese people from their own government, raising their amygdala-driven anxiety levels to new highs, and dragging people all over the globalized world into a collective moment of acute fear.

This is most unfortunate.

Say it with me now... Amygdala.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/17/garrett.japan.panic.amygdala/index.html

[Coligny]

Not just for Fukushima, but each and every place where things didn't go perfectly as expected in the wake of the disaster.

This accident is more or less a testimony on the safety of nukular power. 30 year old plant without necessary upgrade, everything that could go wrong did and we're still alive...

Not bad i'd say...

The last BP offshore spill seems to have been more destructive for the environment... (and both triggered by penny pinching companies...)

[Coligny]

Tepco was reluctant to use seawater because it worried about hurting its long-term investment in the complex, say people involved with the efforts. Seawater, which can render a nuclear reactor permanently inoperable, now is at the center of efforts to keep the plant under control.
l

Maybe... But wasn't this plant at the end of it's life anyway ?

[Iraira]

This accident is more or less a testimony on the safety of nukular power. 30 year old plant without necessary upgrade, everything that could go wrong did and we're still alive...

Not bad i'd say...

The last BP offshore spill seems to have been more destructive for the environment... (and both triggered by penny pinching companies...)

Like it, borrowing it. Will return it later.
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Coligny again

[Not Invented Here]

This accident is more or less a testimony on the safety of nukular power. 30 year old plant without necessary upgrade, everything that could go wrong did and we're still alive...

Not bad i'd say...

The last BP offshore spill seems to have been more destructive for the environment... (and both triggered by penny pinching companies...)

I agree, but you know that the media is riding this pony as far as they can. Kan probably saw the writing on the wall and that's when he started getting aggressive with TEPCO, and once Akio Komiri started to break into tears it was even more obvious that this thing was out of everyone's hands in terms of the political implications. To say nothing of the real problems, which everyone is hopefully more concerned about there.

It's possible to discern by how much effort goes into quieting issues like the bucket criticality in Tokaimura back in '99, that there are some hard and fast rules about the nuclear industry in Japan. You can't have nuclear accidents in Japan, and at the very least you can't have nuclear accidents that actually pose a threat to people outside the periphery, even if it's just 25km. Now that the media is harping about finding so much as 1.5 Bq/kg* of radioactive iodine in Tokyo water supplies, it's inevitable that there is a menu being prepared for the public, and on that menu is a lot of ass to be chewed off.

*This is such a small number it is incredible in its insignificance. It literally is describing 3 decays of I-131 every 2 seconds out of the roughly 1x10^26 atoms contained in a liter of water.

[Coligny]

Japan's Self-Defense forces showed up that day, though a spokesman said some of their personnel and equipment waited 15 miles away. "We have to wait for Tepco to come to us and request help," said Tetsuya Kono, a ministry of defense spokesman.

This one is absolutely unbelievable...

And the j-gov is not doing anything to help people trust them...

http://www.suasnews.com/2011/03/4703/japan-reluctant-to-disclose-footage-of-power-plant-taken-by-u-s-drone/

[Tsuru]

If we could learn just only one lesson from this debacle it would appear to be that corporations that are in it for the money have no business running things like nuclear powerplants (or utilities in general, or hospitals, or.... well you get my drift....)

[Not Invented Here]

This one is absolutely unbelievable...

And the j-gov is not doing anything to help people trust them...

http://www.suasnews.com/2011/03/4703/japan-reluctant-to-disclose-footage-of-power-plant-taken-by-u-s-drone/

Don't worry about the drone feed, some guys in a shack in Afghanistan are getting it all on TiVo with a pair of bunny ear antennas, some tin foil, and a digital TV converter they got with one of those coupons. They'll put it up on Youtube after they get done watching pirated Blu-rays of 24.

Where the hell is Jack Bauer when Japan needs him?

[canman]

Just got off the phone with a nice lady from Foreign Affairs in Ottawa asking me if there is anything she can do for me, and to tell me about the free bus from Senddi to Tokyo for Canadians. I politely informed her that the bus was very nice but since we were cut off from Sendai it wouldn't be of much help. She apologized and told me that in the case of an evacuation they would fly all my family to Canada, even though my wife and kids are Japanese citizens. Which I thought was very nice of them. She was very concerned and kept apologizing that there was nothing they could do for me.