Japan hit by powerful earthquake

[Corrderio]

I hope for some good news soon, reading Hyan's post just made me sick to my stomach at how bad the nuclear issue is getting ><

[wop]

Levels of radiation in Tokyo spiked on Wednesday morning to around 20 times normal levels, according a spokesman for Tokyo's Metropolitan Government, quoted by the Japan Times.

Just cancelled my flights to Tokyo in April. oh well.

[Olo401]

TEPCO is now reporting that the fire near Reactor #4 is out. Seawater is still being pumped into reactor #2 to bring the levels back up, while #1 and #3 are stabilized for the moment.

[dejet]

TEPCO is now reporting that the fire near Reactor #4 is out. Seawater is still being pumped into reactor #2 to bring the levels back up, while #1 and #3 are stabilized for the moment.

The real thing that needs to be looked at is that they stopped pumping water into #4, Right?

[Kerberoz]

"20 times normal levels" is a meaningless statistic, especially without context.

[dejet]

"20 times normal levels" is a meaningless statistic, especially without context.

ya 20x normal lvls is still 1000 times less then the needed levels to do any real harm to a human.

[arshesney]

There is a big difference between Chernobyl and Fukushima plants, Chernobyl was a military installation: the reactor core had to be readily accessed and it is correct that didn't use water as cooling system. Fukushima is a civilian installation, the recator cores are better sealed off the environment. Not that this is going to make things anything better for the people in the area , but a disaster of Chernobyl scale is highly unlikely to happen (again..?).

[Osede]

The real thing that needs to be looked at is that they stopped pumping water into #4, Right?

seems like. But it is too strange. Because no.4 has been stopped for a while (since before the quake happened) due to maintenance, together with no.5 and no.6. Maybe the no.3 or no.2 blast yesterday has anything to do with this cause?

Also a finnish news site reports that JP radio channels haven't given much new info at all regarding the reactor today, only listing safety measures in case of a meltdown as well as playing considerably more pop music than the day before >_>. Trying to avoid mass-panicing? That kind of shit would only make me more worried tbh.

It just kind of typical any asian government and basically they are all in kind of panic, but nobody wants to take the responsibility. Simply that there is no anyone willing to take the risk for any blame from either people or those company (like TEPCO). Especially when it comes to something that cost over billions dollar stuff.

[wop]

ya 20x normal lvls is still 1000 times less then the needed levels to do any real harm to a human.

Not taking any chances.

[MaachaQ]

seems like. But it is too strange. Because no.4 has been stopped for a while (since before the quake happened) due to maintenance, together with no.5 and no.6. Maybe the no.3 or no.2 blast yesterday has anything to do with this cause?

I heard that the blast in #3 shook #4, causing some of the spent rods in #4 to touch each other and start reacting, eventually causing the fire. Probably there wasn't pumping equipment on #4 right away because they were using it on one of the other 3 that were having issues (why leave equipment unused nearby when you have potential disaster getting worse by the minute...).

[dejet]

Not taking any chances.

not saying you should lol, id stay the hell away myself. I love playing number games, just not with my life.

[Olo401]

The real thing that needs to be looked at is that they stopped pumping water into #4, Right?

I heard that the blast in #3 shook #4, causing some of the spent rods in #4 to touch each other and start reacting, eventually causing the fire. Probably there wasn't pumping equipment on #4 right away because they were using it on one of the other 3 that were having issues (why leave equipment unused nearby when you have potential disaster getting worse by the minute...).

Was a combination of these two - the water stopped circulating in #4 where the spent rods were cooling, and then the explosion next door shook everything up and moved the containers with the spent rods too close together so they started reacting, which raised the temps and burned off some water to the point where the rod containers ignited.

Also This just in from Fox News - secret Japanese nuke plant discovered in downtown Tokyo disco club!

[Rubett]

Some numbers for those who can make some sense of them (a few hours old):

http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/betu...es/110315g.pdf

正門 means the entrance. I don't know what MP-X is, but it must be the vicinity.

[dejet]

ya at the gate it hit 11,000 for a short period of time. Its gone down to under 1000 in the time after.

11,000 is very close to the safe amount a human can deal with in a full year. all the numbers are based off being there for an hour. so your yearly amount in an hour is kida scary.

[Yuri-G]

Was a combination of these two - the water stopped circulating in #4 where the spent rods were cooling, and then the explosion next door shook everything up and moved the containers with the spent rods too close together so they started reacting, which raised the temps and burned off some water to the point where the rod containers ignited.

Also This just in from Fox News - secret Japanese nuke plant discovered in downtown Tokyo disco club!

good lord, look at the name of the club... Eggman! looks like Sonic's nemesis is up to his old tricks... I bet he's using nuclear power to turn animals into robots and steal the world's chaos emeralds!

edit: someone in the comments also pointed out that Sendai is on the way south end of Japan in that pic... nice job, fox. nice job indeed.

[friedfunk]

edit: someone in the comments also pointed out that Sendai is on the way south end of Japan in that pic... nice job, fox. nice job indeed.

Umm Sendai Nuclear Power Plant is in the south...

[Yuri-G]

oh, didn't know that. well the rest of my post still stands, Dr. Robotnik is up to no good.

[Restrat]

yeah, those comments are confusing Sendai City with the sendai nuclear facility

[The Stig]

One of the British oldschool (that i'm a dear fan of) comics, Sonic the Comic, to be exact, theorised that's how Sonic and Robotnik came to be!

Basically Sonic was some brown ordinary hedgehog... as a result of some explosion, Sonic was born with the super powers. Robotnik was a good guy then as well, close friends with Sonic. But later, a similar explosion happened and resulted in the Robotnik we know today.

EDIT: Found a wiki link XD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Comic

Sonic the Comic began its run with a series of fairly inconsequential one-shot stories, and only established its identity and ongoing storyline and setting with issue 8's "The Origin of Sonic". The comic adopted a version of the "Kintobor origin" of Sonic and Doctor Robotnik, which had originally been featured in a promotional comic for the first Sonic game printed in Disney Adventures and had been elaborated upon in Mike Pattenden's book Stay Sonic. Like other UK Sonic publications, STC used the Stay Sonic version as its basis.[2] This origin story established that Sonic was originally a normal brown hedgehog, who burrowed his way into the underground laboratory of Dr. Ovi Kintobor, a scientist who wished to rid the planet Mobius of all evil through the use of powerful gems called the Chaos Emeralds. In addition, he helped Sonic increase his running speed with the gift of red shoes designed to handle the incredible friction he generated, until the hedgehog eventually broke the sound barrier with a sonic boom which turned him blue. However, an accident involving the unstable Chaos Emeralds and a rotten egg transformed Kintobor into the evil Dr Ivo Robotnik, leading to the events of the games Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

[aduidarnenye]

Just watched a story on CNN about a guy who had a company of 50 employees and is going around trying to find them. I've never had CNN made me cry so much as it has in the last couple of days.