http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698)
ouch
tsunami warning for most pacific basin nations
I'm inland, so no problem, but they have shut off parts of San Fran I see.
The news showed surfers already out there waiting.
If that earthquake had been anywhere but Japan the damage would have been much worse. Japan has safer buildings.
Well no doubt Japan has worked on the earthquake safe buildings. But it's not an exact science, lots of different design concepts, no doubt I think people on the West Coast, California in particular pay very careful attention to earthquakes. It doesn't look like the tsunami is going to hit anywhere else with any force, but it was devastating in Japan and no amount of earthquake engineering can help that stuff.
Some of the videos coming show even the best engineering won't help the clueless.
One video showed people standing on a bridge watching the waters below them rising rapidly as cars and boats rushed underneath. Within less than a minute the boats were being smashed against the bottom of the bridge. Suddenly the gapers started rushing to their cars to get off the bridge as the bridge started breaking apart and falling into the rapids. Curiosity overcomes common sense.
even the best engineering won't help the clueless
I used to tell my engineering students that they could never design anything that was foolproof because fools were very clever. Now I pretty much live with that every day.
My heart goes out to the people in Japan effected by this.
Japan is probably one of the best prepared countries for this kind of event but so many people have died and so much damage has been done.
I visited Kobe two years ago and I couldn't even tell that there had been an earthquake there.
I just hope things are not as bad as the videos make them seem.
Watching the video just made me physically ill to my stomach
Some things are just far too fascinating for our own good. My girlfriend and I are rather shocked about the missing train... Along with everything else that has and is being reported.
Latest reports says no damage in the Aleutian chain, 7' swell along the California coast. Video shows some loose boats in a CA marina.
Special coolant for the downed nuclear reactor in Japan has been flown in from the U.S. already. Japan is asking for help, very unusal for that country.
The people on the bridge reminds me of the black and white image from the 1960 tsunami in Hilo, HI. It showed people looking out over the water waiting for the "tidal wave" at a dock area. They all died. We have people who go out and lookie-loo at a tornado in the area and get injured by the flying debris.
Joelene
Don't worry, at the same time as the wave was hitting people were out walking on the beach.
It didn't take long. A report out of northern CA near the Klamath River has 3 men that were washed away while taking pictures. Two swam back, the other is missing according to the Coast Guard. Damage in Crescent City, CA was heavier than previously reported.
Radiation was released into the air to prevent a pressure blowout from the downed reactor in Japan.
Joelene
I've been following the news stories throughout the day and am absolutely amazed at the devastating forces of nature
My heart goes out to the Japanese people
Actually, compared to recent disasters Japan should do well. It's not like Haiti or where the last tsunami hit - it's a first world nation with lots and lots of resources and it's highly (like beyond highly) organized. It's going to be a how-to manual about how to handle natural disasters.
Quote from: tekla on March 12, 2011, 01:26:26 AM
Actually, compared to recent disasters Japan should do well. It's not like Haiti or where the last tsunami hit - it's a first world nation with lots and lots of resources and it's highly (like beyond highly) organized. It's going to be a how-to manual about how to handle natural disasters.
Hopefully, but they also owe a lot of money.
Quote from: tekla on March 12, 2011, 01:26:26 AM
Actually, compared to recent disasters Japan should do well. It's not like Haiti or where the last tsunami hit - it's a first world nation with lots and lots of resources and it's highly (like beyond highly) organized. It's going to be a how-to manual about how to handle natural disasters.
The dead are still dead and their love ones still grieve. The injured are still injured and their pain is no less. The homeless are still homeless. The people who watched their friends, relatives and family sucked back into the sea, have those memories for ever.
Organisation will help. But the humanity will always be stained.
I feel for them.
Cindy
I agree with Cindy, no matter how inventive the buildings in Japan are made, the deads will still be dead and there is a lot of grieve by the people who lost the people they loved.
they have my sympathy
annette
I will be praying for the death, injured, and suffering victim's of the Tsunami everywhere. I wish all the Japanese people a quick recovery.
Courage,
Kate
It gets worse. The Daiichi nuclear plant had a major explosion. Japanese officials say the core is still intact. Apparently the building surrounding the core building is what blew. They've been fighting to cool down the core but things don't look too promising. They now have extended the evacuation from 6 to 20 miles of the plant.
"it appears that Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant is moving towards a core meltdown as it has lost control of the cooling system. An explosion has blown the wall of one of the buildings there and radioactive iodine and caesium has been vented from the plant. The Fukushima Daini plant, about 10 km from the Daiichi plant, is also moving in the same direction with a similar loss of control of the cooling system, but without release of radio activity as yet."
LINK (http://newsclick.in/international/fukushima-nuclear-accident-warning-jaitapur)
Explosion rocks Japan nuclear plant (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eofr1Js6nLg#ws)
We may be about to witness the worst part of the aftermath of this earthquake.
I'm waiting to hear more about the plants and everything else that's going on. I have a sister stationed in Japan, near where the earthquake happened and where the second earthquake happened, and I was flipping the f*** out because I had no idea what the hell was going on...and I'm still worried for her because of the situation, though she assures me that she's fine. What can I say? She's my younger sister and I'm going to keep on worrying for her.
I hope everything can get sorted out in due time in Japan.
I hope for the best for your sister Lynn.
hugs
annette
@ Annette: Thanks. :)
I'm praying for everyone affected by this disaster. I haven't managed to get in touch with anyone but one person from my family who lives in Sendai, and now with the threat of radioactive contamination in Fukushima things just get scarier and scarier :(
The pictures of the damage look just as bad if not worse than a war zone
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake)
Quote from: artur on March 13, 2011, 01:25:14 PM
I'm praying for everyone affected by this disaster. I haven't managed to get in touch with anyone but one person from my family who lives in Sendai, and now with the threat of radioactive contamination in Fukushima things just get scarier and scarier :(
Thinking of you.
Love
Cindy
What scares me is that mankind seems to be compounding already bad situations and making them worse. I always feel for people in huge natural disasters because we all have that in common, we're all puny humans on this planet and there are some major forces running around it that create major havoc on us. I have a particular feeling for people in earthquakes because that's living where I live and thinking about them a lot. Sisters and brothers on the Ring of Fire.
But the end story here might well end up like Katrina, where the natural problems were bad enough, but the real disaster, the even worse than a Cat4 hurricane, or a 8.9 earthquake and resulting tsunami was a man-made failure. When you're pumping seawater into a reactor that's running away that thing is already way past toast. Hopefully - as designed - the containment vessel will contain it, but that patch of land - off limits for hundreds of thousands of years now. Like TMI or Chernobyl.
If only there had been people at the time those power plants were built who might have said: Hey, bad enough building huge nuclear reactors in the first place*, but you really should not site them adjacent to major fault lines or on an active volcano. Nah, all those voices were dismissed as a bunch of neo-Luddite, tree-huggin' hippie crap. And it's not like they didn't know that the fault lines were right there, and they were just the perfect type to make tsunamis - in fact such things were so common that they invented a word for it.
So love, strength & sympathy to the survivors of the quake and the tsunami. For the power plants, a whole lot less.
* - it's the most major example of an area where economy of scale (building things bigger so they do more cheaper - like buying toilet paper at Costco by the case) does not work. The bigger a nuclear reactor the more uncontrollable it is, the greater the risk of catastrophic failure.
Here's A couple of befores and afters satellite image sets using mouse sliders:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm)
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html)
The devastation was total in some areas, complete erasure in other areas.
Joelene
Quote from: tekla on March 13, 2011, 03:47:45 PM
What scares me is that mankind seems to be compounding already bad situations and making them worse. I always feel for people in huge natural disasters because we all have that in common, we're all puny humans on this planet and there are some major forces running around it that create major havoc on us. I have a particular feeling for people in earthquakes because that's living where I live and thinking about them a lot. Sisters and brothers on the Ring of Fire.
But the end story here might well end up like Katrina, where the natural problems were bad enough, but the real disaster, the even worse than a Cat4 hurricane, or a 8.9 earthquake and resulting tsunami was a man-made failure. When you're pumping seawater into a reactor that's running away that thing is already way past toast. Hopefully - as designed - the containment vessel will contain it, but that patch of land - off limits for hundreds of thousands of years now. Like TMI or Chernobyl.
If only there had been people at the time those power plants were built who might have said: Hey, bad enough building huge nuclear reactors in the first place*, but you really should not site them adjacent to major fault lines or on an active volcano. Nah, all those voices were dismissed as a bunch of neo-Luddite, tree-huggin' hippie crap. And it's not like they didn't know that the fault lines were right there, and they were just the perfect type to make tsunamis - in fact such things were so common that they invented a word for it.
So love, strength & sympathy to the survivors of the quake and the tsunami. For the power plants, a whole lot less.
* - it's the most major example of an area where economy of scale (building things bigger so they do more cheaper - like buying toilet paper at Costco by the case) does not work. The bigger a nuclear reactor the more uncontrollable it is, the greater the risk of catastrophic failure.
So very true Tekla. Everyone who stands up and says this isn't progress is cast as a fool. There has been a campaign to build NR in Australia to supply power. The question most people ask is why? We don't need them. The answer is because we can, there safe, they will make the builders a big profit, and who cares what you plebs think anyway.
I'm just hoping that this plate readjustment is over and doesn't travel around the rest of the plate. I'm not sure if anyone had a clue about how bad the effect of a very big quake could be on a place that has the highest 'quake building codes anywhere.
I suppose like most people, in these massive disasters, you feel so helpless in how to help. And yet feel such concern for those poor people affected by the unstoppable.
Hugs Kat.
Cindy
Getting off topic here but...
Taking this rare incident (a 9.0 quake followed by a massive tsunami and the subsequent power outages that led to the nuclear reactor problems) and trying to make a case against nuclear power is like saying we should outlaw GRS because there has been a few people who have regretted it. We can't protect everyone from everything and still give everyone what they want. While you're trashing the nukes, think about the pollution from fossil fuels, not to mention depletion.
Obviously solar and hydro are the better choices but we just can't feed the nation with what we can generate from those sources. Today's nuke technology is better than ever and we don't have to worry fossil fuels, foreign oil or air pollution. Yeah, radiation is scary but if you add up all the health problems from nuke plant radiation and compare it to the health problems created by fossil fuel plants, my guess is the former would be a drop in the ocean.
Japan's situation is horrific and the nuke plant crisis isn't helping things but using this highly unusual natural disaster to point out the problems with nuke plants is, like I said, just like taking that rare person who regretted having GRS and using that as prrof the procedure should be outlawed.
I suppose we could always go back to manpower alone to get things done but we'd have to then deal with the trash dumps filled with electrical appliances, power tools, computers, heating and cooling equipment....
QuoteObviously solar and hydro are the better choices
No it is not obvious and highly debatable. Those technologies have just as many problems and more. That is why the are not economically viable.
:police:
Lets argue about pros and cons of nuclear power in a separate thread, and anyone feel free to start it; there is nothing wrong with the discussion but I think we should keep this one for people wanting to talk about the disaster and how it has affected them and their families and friends.
I think we are all in a bit of shock over this terrible catastrophe. I know there are members who have not had contact with family and friends. Lets support them in this thread.
I realise I have posted about nuclear power in this thread but I'd be happier for people to use it to reflect on the humanity aspect rather than technology.
Thank You, and my heart felt wishes to those who have lost or cannot communicate with loved ones.
Cindy
:police:
This one brought me to tears...
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/15/miracles-in-japan-four-month-old-baby-70-year-old-woman-found-alive/?xid=rss-fullworld-yahoo (http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/15/miracles-in-japan-four-month-old-baby-70-year-old-woman-found-alive/?xid=rss-fullworld-yahoo)
just adding that phones are working again as of yesterday in sendai, and i managed to get in touch with everybody :)) i wish i could be with them.
Hi Artur
Thankfully, they survived the tsunami, I hope you're a bit reassured.
Lynn, did you have any contact with your sister?
And let us not forget about the 50 Japanese HERO's who are hard working in the nuclear area to try to prevent the world from a nuclear disaster.
I have so much respect for those people. They know they are getting a lot of radiation with all consequences but they keep on going, trying to safe what can be safed.
I hope for the best outcome.
hugs
annette
They know they are getting a lot of radiation dead.
They won't let anyone in the control room for more than ten minutes and it's shielded. Those guys, and I think it's down to 15 now, are like the NYFD/NYPD/PAP on 9-11, props to them.
The thing that I have not seen commented upon at all is that less than half a mile away
there are two more reactors that have apparently been shut down safely.
The four reactors in the news just go from bad to worse.
Obviously, there will be an extensive analysis of the failure afterwards.
Having all the diesel generators swamped was clearly an enormous problem.
In the 8 hours of time left with battery support if the urgency of the situation
had been acknowledged, could drastic efforts have gotten power in somehow?
The Japanese government hasn't been as forthcoming on what the situation really is. America shouldn't talk because the government does the same thing-misinformation and double speak. Radiation can carry thousand of miles. The radiation from the Chernobyl accident found to be in California not too long after. The same thing could happen again. Couple talk with four nuclear plants in souther n California built near the faultlines and you have the makings of a major disaster waiting to happen.
Here in New York, the Indian Point power plant is about a 1/2 hour from the city. It's had leaks as has many of the plants in the country. A major accident will affect everyone within proximity of the plant
The accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 was underreported. There were many many deaths including many babies born around that time. It's still unsafe to live there.
Gennee
Quote from: tekla on March 16, 2011, 10:36:48 AM
They know they are getting a lot of radiation dead.
They won't let anyone in the control room for more than ten minutes and it's shielded. Those guys, and I think it's down to 15 now, are like the NYFD/NYPD/PAP on 9-11, props to them.
They are incredibly brave. They know exactly what it is doing to them and they are sacrificing their lives for the rest of us. If those reactors go off we will all know about it. The pictures of people in the snow with nothing, it is heart wrenching
Cindy
Quote from: tekla on March 16, 2011, 10:36:48 AM
They know they are getting a lot of radiation dead.
They won't let anyone in the control room for more than ten minutes and it's shielded. Those guys, and I think it's down to 15 now, are like the NYFD/NYPD/PAP on 9-11, props to them.
Ditto, the same thing happened at the Chernobyl plant as well. A lot of Ukrainian, Russian and other people died doing the same thing. They did this for years afterward!
Quote from: CindyJames on March 17, 2011, 02:12:46 AM
They are incredibly brave. They know exactly what it is doing to them and they are sacrificing their lives for the rest of us. If those reactors go off we will all know about it. The pictures of people in the snow with nothing, it is heart wrenching
Cindy
I hope one day we will learn who these people are. True heros.
They don't 'go off' - they are reactors, not bombs - they melt, and maybe catch fire. It's the melting that's problematic.
QuoteI hope one day we will learn who these people are. True heros.
Be careful about media manipulation. They are only risking a 26% possible risk of cancer over their life time. That is not a hero, just doing what needs to be done.
Smokers are doing more risk.
Here is another update...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110318/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake_devastation (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110318/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake_devastation)
Here's a very good Hall of Shame wiki for sensationalist/bad reporting of the Japanese situation (with links to better on-the-ground reporting too):
http://jpquake.wikispaces.com/Journalist+Wall+of+Shame (http://jpquake.wikispaces.com/Journalist+Wall+of+Shame)