Massive Quake Hits NE Japan

[Dinner]

MM, good pictures. Well, bad, but very good in a graphic sense of the scale of damage.

[Docfeelgood]

I hope they are telling the truth.

[BlackCat]

.

Scary

Just a minor problem : Japan’s Nuclear Safety Board DID NOT Confirm Meltdown

[Hauldren Collider]

Doc is like halflotus, only about one tenth as intelligent. Seriously doc, how did you even learn to read?

[The Mad Monk]

More pics.

Save our souls: Stranded people wait to be rescued from the roof of a building in Miyagi Prefecture


Saviour: A little child is held by rescue workers after being pulled from a collapsed building at Kesennuma, northeastern Japan today while right, an elderly woman is helped across the rubble as all around her homes have been reduced to rubble


Catastrophe: A soldier carries an elderly man on his back to a shelter in Natori city, Miyagi prefecture
Airlift: A woman is rescued from the devastation by a helicopter in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture


Loss: Eiji Kanno, left, and his wife Matsuko are comforted rescue workers after finding out their 18-year-old daughter Mizuki is dead in Yamamoto, south of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture


Carnage: Amidst tsunami flood waters burning houses and ships are piled in a mass of debris in Kisenuma city, Miyagi prefecture


Damage control: Firefighting ships spray water over burning oil refinery tanks in Ichihara in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo


What's going on? A toddler is checked for signs of radiation by officials in protective gear after thousands of residents were evacuated from the area near the Fukushima Daini nuclear plant in Koriyama



Aftermath: Evacuees walk through the rubble of collapsed houses in Sendai, Miyagi today while right a derailed train carriage and piles of debris litter the landscape that will be scarred by the devastation for years to come


Cataclysm: Local residents look at debris brought by the huge tsunami in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture


Blaze: Thick black smoke rises from burning buildings in a factory zone in Sendai, north-eastern Japan


Duty: Self-Defense Force officers rescue people from the flood waters by boat in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture


Disbelief: A man takes a photo of a car swept on to the roof of a building by the tsunami in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture
Comfort: Survivors hug each other in an evacuation center set up in a school gym in Rikuzentakata City, Iwate Prefecture

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365546/Japan-earthquake-pictures-Devastation-rescue-workers-fight-fires-search-survivors.html

These are people like us.

[Hauldren Collider]

Reminds me of Katrina. At least there isn't looting going on, that we know of anyways.

[Dinner]

I think the Japanese people wouldn't devolve into looting unless it was a serious life threatening situation. It would go against all of their cultural traditions.

[BlackCat]

Sattelite pics from the area before and after. Ignore the danish text and scroll down to pic 3 and 4 - note the smooth coastline in #3 and compare to the rugged in #4

http://ing.dk/artikel/117335-satelli...trofen-i-japan

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/inf...in-that-region

Alright. So venting was used and that would explain were the radiation came from. During the power outages (or what not) cooling systems were not cooling the reactor fast enough so a steam cap was forming inside the reactor core as the water the rods were sitting in started to boil away.

Fukishhima 1 is BWR it always should be partial steam voided.

So it has been confirmed that it was a hydrogen gas explosion.

Have they given the source of hydrogen? Zircaloy rxn or hydrogen tank rupture for the turbines/generator? nvm

water in the reactor got so low (because it was boiling off and becoming steam) that the rods themselves were in contact with oxygen.

Nvm zircaloy rxn

[BlackCat]

TEPCO's status :

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp...1031301-e.html

[The Mad Monk]

Sounds like they might be able to get three of the reactors working, since they were shut down for maintenance.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Most likely not for a long time. If the diesels were taken out due to tsunami most likely the transmission yard was wiped as well.

[BlackCat]

Most likely not for a long time. If the diesels were taken out due to tsunami most likely the transmission yard was wiped as well.

That is one problem, but I'm pretty sure that there will be a check for structural damages before they start the three closest sites.

[Dinner]

Ogie, the link I posted did not say what the source of the hydrogen was but CNN had some talking head claiming that hydrogen gas isn't normally made as long as the rods are immersed in their normal water bath. Supposedly, the problem occurs when when the water bath boils away and part of the rods are exposed to the air/steam mixture.

[Guynemer]

Given that a 8.9 trembler is rather unlikely in the Midwest, I'm wondering how a run-of-the-mill aging American nuke plant would stand up to a F5 tornado?