Earth Shakes
It's been one of the mysteries of Japan's ongoing nuclear disaster: How much of the damage did the March 11 earthquake inflict on Fukushima Daiichi's reactors in the 40 minutes before the devastating tsunami arrived? The stakes are high: If the quake alone structurally compromised the plant and the safety of its nuclear fuel, then every other similar reactor in Japan is at risk. "I personally saw pipes that came apart and I assume that there were many more that had been broken throughout the plant. There's no doubt that the earthquake did a lot of damage inside the plant. There were definitely leaking pipes, but we don't know which pipes — that has to be investigated. I also saw that part of the wall of the turbine building for Unit 1 had come away. That crack might have affected the reactor."
It's been more than two months since 8.9 magnitude earthquakes struck Japan and took a toll on Japanese people and crippled the economy. Various relief measures are underway at various stages to restore normalcy in the ravaged island nation with aid flowing in from various quarters and volunteers pledging their support to restore the lives.
The ocean floor shifted sideways by 79 feet in the Japanese earthquake in March - much further than scientists originally predicted. And researchers are warning that immense amounts of seismic stress remain stored in the area, putting it at risk of further devastating earthquakes.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) admitted for the first time on May 15 that most of the fuel in one of its nuclear reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant had melted only about 16 hours after the March 11 earthquake struck a wide swath of northeastern Japan and triggered a devastating tsunami.
One of the reactors at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant likely suffered a substantial meltdown of its core, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday, offering a fresh assessment of the reactor that suggests it came closer than the operator had previously revealed to a catastrophic meltdown. ... more than half melted...
Researchers examining the San Andreas Fault in central California have found evidence that distant earthquakes can trigger episodes of accelerated (but still very slow) slip motion, deep on the fault.
Tragedy at the copper mine of Rudna, Poland 3 miners were killed in the KGHM copper mine at Rudna, a village in the vicinity of Glogow. Rudna has 1,300 inhabitants. 10 of them were slightly injured and 2 miners had to be hospitalized. Other miners were safely evacuated. The copper mine is about 15 km from the epicenter of the earthquake (mining shafts might have been drilled towards the epicenter location). Scientist will have to study the origin of this earthquake. As this is a mining area, there is a very big possibility that the origin will be mining related.
The feeble 75-year-old was discovered stranded alone in his small farmhouse on Friday, surrounded by fallen trees, dead pigs and garbage strewn by the deadly March 11 tsunami in Japan. He doesn't know where his wife is, and his neighbors have all fled his city of Minami Soma because it's within the 12-mile zone of a radiation-leaking plant. Authorities had ordered evacuations but Shiga, who has trouble walking, and was unable to leave... 'The tsunami came right up to my doorstep," he recounted. "I don't know what happened to my wife. She was here, but now she's gone."... "I'm old," he said from his home. 'I don't know if I could leave here. Who would take care of me?"
"Some will go toward Hawaiian beaches, and other parts will slip between islands and return to the garbage patch, to return the next time," Maximenko said in an interview. "It is safe to say after five years Hawaii will be the main coastline impacted by this debris." ... Its longer-term destination will be the garbage patch, an area of light winds perhaps twice the size of Texas....
A vast field of debris, swept out to sea following the Japan earthquake and tsunami, is floating towards the U.S. West Coast... cars, tractor-trailers, capsized ships and even whole houses... predictions of... human feet, still in their shoes, to wash up on the West Coast within three years.... Members of the U.S. Navy's 7th fleet, who spotted the extraordinary floating rubbish, say they have never seen anything like it and are warning the debris now poses a threat to shipping traffic.... Scientists say the first bits of debris from Japan are due to reach the West Coast in a year's time after being carried by currents toward Washington, Oregon and California.They will then turn toward Hawaii and back again toward Asia, circulating in what is known as the North Pacific gyre
TOKYO - The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant said it had reduced the flow of highly radioactive water out of a reactor, a possible sign of progress in an almost month-long battle to contain the world's biggest nuclear disaster in quarter of a century.
Workers at the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan say they expect to die from radiation sickness as a result of their efforts to bring the reactors under control, the mother of one of the men told Fox News.
Lasting nearly four minutes, it was the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. and North American history, and the second most powerful ever measured by seismograph.
The catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan's east coast March 11 have left 10,151 people dead, and at least 17,053 were still unaccounted for till Saturday.
Authorities in Japan raised the prospect Friday of a likely breach in the all-important containment vessel of the No. 3 reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a potentially ominous development in the race to prevent a large-scale release of radiation.
As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology. A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation. Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has observed a neutron beam, a kind of radioactive ray, 13 times on the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after it was crippled by the massive March 11 quake-tsunami disaster. TEPCO, the operator of the nuclear plant, said the neutron beam measured about 1.5 kilometers southwest of the plant's No. 1 and 2 reactors over three days from March 13 and is equivalent to 0.01 to 0.02 microsieverts per hour and that this is not a dangerous level.
The government said Wednesday that it estimates the damage to houses, roads, utilities and businesses could range from at least $198 billion to the $309 billion figure. Either total would easily top the cost of the previous worst disaster, the vast destruction Hurricane Katrina wreaked on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region of the United States in 2005. The insurance industry estimates Katrina caused $125 billion worth of damage. The Japan damage total could go higher because the government's estimate did not include possible wider effects on the country's economy, such as reduced factory production caused by planned power outages, or the effect of nuclear radiation leaks on the nation's food and water supply. One financial analyst, Bank of Japan board member Ryuzo Miyao, said the stress on the world's third largest economy "could linger for some time" and that the short-term effects "are not insignificant."
the last time Cascadia let go? Just 311 years ago. We know the time and date precisely, thanks to records kept by diligent Japanese officials on the far side of the Pacific. On January 26th 1700, between nine and ten o'clock at night, the Cascadia fault ruptured along its length, unleashing a megaquake of magnitude 9.0 or more. While the shaking was not felt across the Pacific, the Japanese were alarmed enough by the "orphan tsunami" that inundated their coastal villages to record the details. Knowing the distance and the speed such long waves travel at (around 750 kilometres per hour), the Japanese records allow the time the megaquake struck to be known to within an hour. Numerical models suggest that a seismic event that size would have made the seafloor bounce six metres or more, causing tsunami waves to rise as high as 30 metres along the nearby coasts of Oregon and Washington. This past week Sendai looked devastated enough. Imagine how much worse Portland and Seattle would fare if hit by a tidal surge three times bigger.
"We're very close now to the point of no return," Dr. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, said. "It's gotten worse. We're talking about workers coming into the reactor perhaps as a suicide mission and we may have to abandon ship." A group of 180 workers rotate shifts working at the plant in teams of 50 men. The men have been nicknamed the "Fukushima Fifty."
A fire broke out at a nuclear reactor again Wednesday, a day after the power plant emitted a burst of radiation that panicked an already edgy Japan and left the government struggling to contain a spiraling crisis caused by last week's earthquake and tsunami.
U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin is in the Bay Area touring a peninsula hospital. NBC Bay Area reporter Damian Trujillo asked her about the run on tablets and Dr. Benjamin said although she wasn't aware of people stocking up, she did not think that would be an overreaction. She said it was right to be prepared. On the other side of the issue is Kelly Huston of the California Emergency Management Agency. Huston said state officials, along with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the California Energy Commission, were monitoring the situation and said people don't need to buy the pills.
SEATTLE - Fears of transpacific nuclear fallout from Japan's reactor crisis have sent consumers scrambling for radiation antidotes across the ocean on the west coast of the United States and
Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.
Amid scenes of unimaginable carnage, desperate survivors were today battling for survival as the official death toll soared above 3,300.
Aerial photos taken over Japan have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses. Hover over each satellite photo to view the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.
Until we see whether they get the pumps running again, or emergency power becomes available, lets not panic about this. It sounds like they are doing all the right things I would expect in such an emergency. The situation is serious. But so is a tsunami that wipes out a couple of towns with over 77,000 people gone in just one of those towns. The radiation isn't a problem in this yet. Let the Japanese military and civil defense folks do their jobs, and help them out wherever we can. That is all we can hope to do anyway.
A tide of bodies washed up along Japan's coastline Monday, overwhelming crematoriums, exhausting supplies of body bags and adding to the spiraling humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis after the massive earthquake and tsunami. Millions of people faced a fourth night without water, food or heating in near-freezing temperatures along the northeast coast devastated by Friday's disasters. Meanwhile, a third reactor at a nuclear power plant lost its cooling capacity and its fuel rods were fully exposed, raising fears of a meltdown. The stock market plunged over the likelihood of huge losses by Japanese industries including big names such as Toyota and Honda.
The following reactions are not ones we'd characterize as "appropriate."
Rescuers spot 60-year-old from Fukushima prefecture clinging to the roof of his home two days after the tsunami struck Live coverage of Japan earthquake and tsunami
Pages
Top 25 Blog-Heap-o'Links Headers
Mindful Webworks for art's own sake (and some for fun). The art and wonder of it all await your scrutiny.
Webworks dedicated to getting people and property from here to there in an intelligent and automated way, and all the history and means of transportation.
Webworks directly concerning (as opposed to merely inspired by) the Urantia Papers.
Subscribe to Urantiana
Webworks regarding human liberties and similar social and legal fundamentals.
Presented in illustrated documentary, what we know of his story, and the history of our community he inspired.
LEGAL AND SAFE! But your mother might not approve.