Japan hit by powerful earthquake

[*Shinzon*]

Apparently radiation levels by the front gate are fluctuating again and it may be related to the white steam being seen coming from the plant. Sounds bad.

[aduidarnenye]

I thought this story about a Japanese student in California trying to learn what happened to her family to be uplifting.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/03/15...pan/index.html

[*Shinzon*]

According to this press conference they are also speculating that the containment vessel in no.4 reactor is also possibly cracked now and that it is what is triggering the higher radiation levels. So that makes all 4 reactors compromised in some way or another doesn't it?

[Vuitton]

i thought of the 6 reactors 3 were never online for maintenance purposes on the rods at the time of the quake/tsunami. that means a fourth one was turned on at some point?

[Caiyuo]

Anyway, we've run out of iodine tablets here. It sure sucks eating 5kg of sea salt a day but what can ya do.

What is this about btw? Seems totally unrelated but I'm assuming you're in Japan?

[Vuitton]

Hyan is in Finland.

[*Shinzon*]

Maybe reactor no.4 was active some time recently? they did say it was being used for storage but it's apparently heated up after the fire, so I dunno what the truth is at this point.

edit: they cleared it up, the smoke was coming from no.3

[Eliseos]

Think its from this?

"Disposed rods of reactor Unit 4 were stored outside of the reactor in a separate pool which ran dry, yielding fire and risk of massive contamination."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/wo...ef=global-home

[Outlaw]

CNN just said they heard from a new conference the 50 workers left at the plant are going to "suspend operations"?! Are they full of it? I am watching the NHK live stream also. Is that what they are talking about? I didn't hear that.

Edit: They just replayed part of it where he said it. I must have missed it on NHK. This is not good.

[Plow]

number 4 was definitely down for maintenance, but there's been a fire in there, and I don't know at all but I'm assuming it's quite possible it wasn't fully cooled when the cooling failed

[Tymon]

If they really did suspend all operations then they're probably preparing for something to happen that they can't stop.

Stuff like this develops fast, we'll probably know what's going on in a couple hours.

[aduidarnenye]

HOLY SHIT Anderson Cooper just showed the scariest first hand video from the tsunami I have seen yet. My heart was in my throat. Some people were running up a hill to where others had fled. Someone fell or something and the others stopped to help. Then finally they picked them up and literally got away from the water by a couple seconds.

I just saw that. Heart was in my throat. The people running down to help them were amazing.

[Vajra]

So...is there really no way to stop this...I've never seen anything like this before...

[*Shinzon*]

They are now warning of another high powered earthquake. They've received warning signals and asking people to prepare for another quake.

[Corrderio]

Every time they catch a break something else happens ><

[Dimmauk]

HOLY SHIT Anderson Cooper just showed the scariest first hand video from the tsunami I have seen yet. My heart was in my throat. Some people were running up a hill to where others had fled. Someone fell or something and the others stopped to help. Then finally they picked them up and literally got away from the water by a couple seconds.

Yeah I saw that too. I was wondering what was taking them so long to get the hell up that hill.

[Asai]

I just saw that. Heart was in my throat. The people running down to help them were amazing.

Is there a link to this video?

[Vajra]

According to this New York Times blog: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...ews-conference (look at the 11:13 P.M. update)

There's a small group of workers that still remain at the plant...so all hope is not lost...The Government did suspend operations so maybe the ones left behind are about to try something risky, or they're going down with the ship even if their remaining efforts are futile...idk man, wish I was Superman, I would use freeze breath to freeze the whole area...

[TacoTaru]

Apologize if this has been posted before, but a friend sent me the link to this today. Is this actually accurate? 1:17 is the 8.9, and following that it's insane. Time lapse is 1sec=1hr

[Kaylia]

HOLY SHIT Anderson Cooper just showed the scariest first hand video from the tsunami I have seen yet. My heart was in my throat. Some people were running up a hill to where others had fled. Someone fell or something and the others stopped to help. Then finally they picked them up and literally got away from the water by a couple seconds.

Didn't one of them got washed away? They were kinda freaking out.


Were they with kids or something, or they were just moving really slow? I know I would burst a 9.2sec 100 meters if that wall of water was after me.