8.9 magnitude quake hits Japan...edit: 6.5 quake hits (3/27)

[Predicto]

Many....The majority of people in San Francisco don't even own or use cars.

Well, maybe not the majority, but it is true that there are less cars per person here than elsewhere. Likewise, there are more bicyclists, and the cars that do exist tend to be a lot of hybrids.

Oh, and 380,000 people ride BART daily, but it is a commuter train system. Useless for getting around the City. That's why we have the MUNI subway, buses and cable cars.

:geek:

[Sikbug]

You know what's crazy is the main area that got hit is still getting large 5-6.0 after shocks. There was also a 6.8 hit on the other side of the island. 6.8 is the biggest one I ever felt and that one scared the hell out of me alone.

---------- Post added March-11th-2011 at 04:29 PM ----------

I also really hope the Japanese gov't doesn't **** up the search and rescue like they did with Kobe.

[Spec138]

I think earthquakes are going to be found to be very complicated with multiple interacting and contributing factors.

I wouldn't be shocked if solar flares played a role.

The Earth's magnetic field is mostly due to the molten core of the Earth with probably some interactions and contributions from ocean currents. I wouldn't be at all surprised if solar flares through interactions with Earth's magentic field altered core and ocean currents and therefore plate tectonics and earthquakes via electromagnetic interactions as well as pressure based interactions.

I think it is most likely more direct affects related to changes in ocean currents, tides and other gravitational affects and basic plate tectonics are the major govenoring forces in my opinion.

It's hard for me to believe that a magnetic disturbance could cause an earthquake simply because our magnetic field is so weak.

[Toe Jam]

CNN: Radiation levels around plant 1000 times higher than normal.

[TradeTheBeal!]

CNN: Radiation levels around plant 1000 times higher than normal.

Fox: 3K evacuation extended to 10K.

[thehogs]

confirmed on BBC that reports are coming out that radiation levels outside the reactor are increasing rapidly!

[NavyDave]

Seeing the video of large areas where there should be houses but there are only foundations and high points of bridge with the rest submerged with a Scientific spokesman saying as of right now there are no signs of the waters receding to go along with reports of radiation levels around the Reactors or oil prices on the market dropping because the devastation is to the point that Japan will not be needing certain types of oil for a while is really disheartening.

[Predicto]

CNN: Radiation levels around plant 1000 times higher than normal.

Fox: 3K evacuation extended to 10K.

confirmed on BBC that reports are coming out that radiation levels outside the reactor are increasing rapidly!

This is going to set back nuclear power in the US a couple more decades.

[GoSkins561]

With the radiation levels so high, do people stay in the reactors to fix the problem or does everyone jump ship and hope for the best?

[Prosperity]

I just left some friends who were camping at a beach near Big Sur... I hope the tsunami didn't make it all the way there..

[PeterMP]

It's hard for me to believe that a magnetic disturbance could cause an earthquake simply because our magnetic field is so weak.

Well, I certainly wouldn't use the word cause.

I'd say potentially a minor contributing factor behind, things like basic plate tectonics, tides, ocean currents, etc.

[nuposse87]

With the radiation levels so high, do people stay in the reactors to fix the problem or does everyone jump ship and hope for the best?

I think even 1000X the norm for radiation levels isn't enough to kill a person. Definitely not wise to stick around in it for an extended period of time, but given proper safety equipment for the staff there they should be able to manage. Radiation levels are ridiculously low as is if I remember right.

[thehogs]

BBC reporting ANOTHER plant is also losing coolant capability, doesnt name it though

[Mickalino]

I also really hope the Japanese gov't doesn't **** up the search and rescue like they did with Kobe.

Kobe is an arrogant prick, so they better not spend millions of dollars of government money on searching for him, when he makes millions, himself.

[Thiebear]

This Earthquake being so close to shore is amazing how many people were able to get out of the way.

Watching CNN live they are saying its a miracle it was daylight and they took it serious.

[Mickalino]

That inferno at the oil refinery was surreal and unreal.

I bet you could burn you skin from a couple miles away from that.

[thehogs]

not sure about that. CNN seemed to have ignored the number of cars and trucks you could see on motorways getting bulldozed by the wave, people running up roads trying to get away. A lot of coastal villages and at least one major town have been devastated. Right now, no one knows the number of dead and missing. They always take earthquakes seriously too, getting it in to peoples heads from a very young age.

[Koolblue13]

As someone who is currently under a state of emergency, because of a flood, I feel so awful for the people of Japan.

[Stadium-Armory]

The issues with the nuclear plants are scary, but it looks like the Japanese have it under control.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110311/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_quake_power_plant

Radiation levels surge outside Japan nuke plant

TOKYO – Japanese nuclear officials say radiation levels inside a nuclear power plant have surged to 1,000 times their normal levels after the cooling system failed.

The nuclear safety agency said early Saturday that some radiation has also seeped outside the plant, prompting calls for further evacuations of the area. Some 3,000 people have already been urged to leave their homes.

The cooling system for a reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant failed on Friday after a massive earthquake caused a power outage.

The continued loss of electricity has also delayed the planned release of vapor from inside the reactor to ease pressure. Pressure inside one of the reactors had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's massive earthquake caused a power outage that disabled a nuclear reactor's cooling system, triggering evacuation orders for about 3,000 residents as the government declared its first-ever state of emergency at a nuclear plant.

Japan's nuclear safety agency said pressure inside one of six boiling water reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal. Hours after the evacuation order, the government announced that the plant in northeastern Japan will release slightly radioactive vapor from the unit to lower the pressure in an effort to protect it from a possible meltdown.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the amount of radioactive element in the vapor would be "very small" and would not affect the environment or human health. "With evacuation in place and the ocean-bound wind, we can ensure the safety," he said at a televised news conference early Saturday.

Click image to see photos of tsunami, quake damage

AP/NHK TV

After the quake triggered a power outage, a backup generator also failed and the cooling system was unable to supply water to cool the 460-megawatt No. 1 reactor, though at least one backup cooling system was being used. The reactor core remains hot even after a shutdown.

The agency said plant workers are scrambling to restore cooling water supply at the plant but there is no prospect for immediate success.

Edano said the 40-year-old plant was not leaking radiation. The plant is in Onahama city, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

If the outage in the cooling system persists, eventually radiation could leak out into the environment, and, in the worst case, could cause a reactor meltdown, a nuclear safety agency official said on condition of anonymity, citing sensitivity of the issue.

Another official at the nuclear safety agency, Yuji Kakizaki, said that plant workers were cooling the reactor with a secondary cooling system, which is not as effective as the regular cooling method.

Kakizaki said officials have confirmed that the emergency cooling system — the last-ditch cooling measure to prevent the reactor from the meltdown — is intact and could kick in if needed.

"That's as a last resort, and we have not reached that stage yet," Kakizaki added.

Japan's nuclear safety agency said the evacuation, ordered by the local government of Fukushima, affects at least 2,800 people. Edano said residents were told to stay at least two miles (three kilometers) from the plant and to stay inside buildings.

He said both the state of emergency and evacuation order are precautionary measures.

"We launched the measure so we can be fully prepared for the worst scenario," he said. "We are using all our might to deal with the situation."

Defense Ministry official Ippo Maeyama said the ministry has dispatched dozens of troops trained for chemical disasters to the Fukushima plant in case of a radiation leak, along with four vehicles designed for use in atomic, biological and chemical warfare.

Pineville, La., resident Janie Eudy said her husband, Danny, was working at Fukushima No. 1 when the earthquake struck. After a harrowing evacuation, he called her several hours later from the parking lot of his quake-ravaged hotel.

He and other American plant workers are "waiting to be rescued, and they're in bad shape," she said in a telephone interview.

Danny Eudy, 52, a technician employed by Pasadena, Texas-based Atlantic Plant Maintenance, told his wife that the quake violently shook the plant building he was in. "Everything was falling from the ceiling," she said.

Eudy told his wife that he and other workers were evacuating the plant when the tsunami swept through the area, carrying away homes and vehicles. They retreated so they wouldn't get caught up in the raging water.

"He walked through so much glass that his feet were cut. It slowed him down," she said.

After the water started to recede, Eudy and other workers drove to their hotel, only to find it in shambles.

"Most of the hotel was gone," she said. "He said the roads were torn up and everything was a mess."

His hotel room was demolished along with all of his belongings, so Eudy had to borrow a resident's phone to call his wife early Friday morning. The workers were waiting for daylight but contemplating seeking higher ground in case another big wave hit.

"He sounded like he was in shock. He was scared," Janie Eudy said. "They're totally on their own, trying to just make it."

Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said staff were trying to collect more information on what was happening.

At the Fukushima Daiichi site, "They are busy trying to get coolant to the core area," Sheehan said. "The big thing is trying to get power to the cooling systems."

Speaking at the White House, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also said U.S. Air Force planes were carrying "some really important coolant" to the site, but administration officials later said she misspoke. The U.S. offered to send Japan coolant to help with the reactor but the Japanese declined, saying they already had the necessary supplies, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said it also stands ready to provide any technical assistance Japan needs.

High-pressure pumps can temporarily cool a reactor in this state with battery power, even when electricity is down, according to Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who used to work in the U.S. nuclear industry. Batteries would go dead within hours but could be replaced.

The nuclear reactor was among 10 in Japan shut down because of the earthquake.

The Fukushima plant is just south of the worst-hit Miyagi prefecture, where a fire broke out at another nuclear plant. The blaze was in a turbine building at one of the Onagawa power plants. Smoke could be seen coming out of the building, which is separate from the plant's reactor, Tohoku Electric Power Co. said. The fire has since been extinguished.

Another reactor at Onagawa was experiencing a water leak.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 2:46 p.m. quake was a magnitude 8.9, the biggest earthquake to hit Japan since officials began keeping records in the late 1800s.

A tsunami warning was issued for a number of Pacific, Southeast Asian and Latin American nations.

At the two-reactor Diablo Canyon plant at Avila Beach, Calif., an "unusual event" — the lowest level of alert — was declared in connection with a West Coast tsunami warning. The plant remained stable, though, and kept running, according to the NRC.

[Mickalino]

The nuclear reactor issues are scary, but it looks like the Japanese have it under control.

Nice.....there's nothing worse than a Premature Reaction, shooting out and spilling everywhere.

[Stadium-Armory]

Hah, I see what you did there.

[aREDSKIN]

Oh ****!!

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.

A single reactor in northeastern Japan had been the focus of much of the concern in the initial hours after the 8.9 magnitude quake, but the government declared new states of emergency at four other reactors in the area Saturday morning.

The earthquake knocked out power at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and because a backup generator failed, the cooling system was unable to supply water to cool the 460-megawatt No. 1 reactor. Although a backup cooling system is being used, Japan's nuclear safety agency said pressure inside the reactor had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal.

Authorities said radiation levels had jumped 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1 and were measured at eight times normal outside the plant. They expanded an earlier evacuation zone more than threefold, from 3 to 10 kilometers (2 miles to 6.2 miles). Some 3,000 people had been urged to leave their homes in the first announcement.

The government declared a state of emergency, its first ever at a nuclear plant. And plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. warned of power shortages and an "extremely challenging situation in power supply for a while."

continues....http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/market_news/article.jsp?content=D9LTBHRO0

Three of Fukushima Daiichi's six reactors were in operation when yesterday's quake hit, at which point they shut down automatically and commenced removal of residual heat with the help of emergency diesel generators. However, these suddenly stopped about an hour later for reasons as yet unknown.

This led the plant owners Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to notify the government of a technical emergency situation, which allows officials to take additional precautionary measures.

Even now, the primary focus of work at the site remains to connect enough portable power modules to fully replace the diesels and enable the full operation of cooling systems.

continues.......http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Battle_to_stabilise_earthquake_reactors_1203111.html

Better upgrade it to 9.1 WOW.

The Japan earthquake was the fourth most powerful ever recorded with a magnitude of 9.1, twice more powerful than the initial estimate of 8.9, Gerard Fryer, geophysicist of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said this morning.

Three others that were more powerful since the late 1800s when seismometers started measuring ground motions were in 9.5 in Chile in 1960, 9.2 in Alaska in 1964 and 9.1 in Sumatra in 2004, according to Fryer.

The new magnitude was adjusted based on the impact of the quake throughout the Pacific, he said. "It fits all measurements, including in Hawaii," Fryer said.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimate of the quake's magnitude is still 8.9.

It is not uncommon for scientists to estimate different magnitudes immediately after an earthquake.

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/Tsunami_warning_center_raises_magnitude_of_Japan_quake_to_91.html

[Predicto]

Hah, I see what you did there.

That's what she said.

[DallasCowboyFan156]

I'm scheduled to travel to Japan this summer and stay there for 4 months. Kinda second guessing that now...

[Toe Jam]

Explosion reported at nuclear power plant...