Japan hit by powerful earthquake

[The Stig]

I wonder if this is true. It was 180 yesterday. Now it's ... 300.

Source: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/858441-f...icide-fighters

The team, known as the Fukushima 50, were described as ‘suicide fighters’ as they worked round the clock with little sleep and food and exposed to deadly levels of radiation to bring the damaged reactors under control.

One message on Twitter, apparently from the daughter of a Fukushima worker, said: ‘My dad went to the nuclear plant. I never heard my mother cry so hard. Please dad come back alive.’

Another worker’s daughter said in an e-mail: ‘My father is still working at the plant. They are running out of food. He says he’s accepted his fate… much like a death sentence’

Expert Keiichi Nakagawa said: ‘I don’t know any other way to say it but this is like suicide fighters in a war.’

There are actually 300 of them on the site, working in shifts of 50.

One has been exposed to five times the annual radiation limit.

Former atomic energy official Gennady Pshakin said: ‘They are like the Spartans, standing up against all that’s thrown against them.’

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/858441-f...#ixzz1GwPEq4Jo

EDIT: Must.. resist .. minor urge ... 300 ...

[miokomioko]

Tonight we dine in Fukushima?

[Plow]

our fallout will blot out the sun


THEN WE WILL MUTATE IN THE SHADE

[aduidarnenye]

I suppose it was inevitable that Glenn Beck would weigh in at some point:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...Iw0W_blog.html

[Olo401]

our fallout will blot out the sun


THEN WE WILL MUTATE IN THE SHADE

ok that's fucking' hilarious i'm stealing it.

[Corrderio]

So has there been any truth in Japan considering burying the 3rd reactor?

[Zethren]

Heard this from my Boss: He was saying that originally when GE was building this plant it wasn't being built to spec and therefore GE pulled out. That's when the Tokyo Energy company came in and completed the project(not built to spec). Is there any truth to this? It is the first I've actually heard it. I'm kind of speculating where he got this info from(take a guess), just want to be sure.

[Eanae]

I believe they said that it's a possibility and they're not ruling it out, but they really want to salvage what they can.

[Boyiee]

I suppose it was inevitable that Glenn Beck would weigh in at some point:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...Iw0W_blog.html

I knew I shouldn't have clicked it. Read about 5 seconds worth and had to close it.

[Thunder]

Jon Stewart is going to have a lot of material when he returns. The terrible Pearl Harbour jokes, the Gilbert Gottfried thing, the potassium iodide tablets run, the media nuclear fear-mongering. It's a bloody Stewartian comedic schmorgesborg.

Maybe it's because something crazy happens every week. But whenever daily show/colbert report are on vacation some crazy shit happens.

[Kurokikaze]

I knew I shouldn't have clicked it. Read about 5 seconds worth and had to close it.

^ this. My god he practically said what that God bitch on youtube said in a less asinine way...

[Gwynplaine]

So nuclear power is the devil all of a sudden yet everyone overlooks that US Aircraft Carriers are pretty much all nuclear powered. >_>

I think it's time someone finally spoke out against the real problem in all this. It's time for people to protest earthquakes, who's with me?

[Acevalefor]

you gotto get a huge lobbyist firm to back your idea...then we can rally the world population against tyrannical earthquakes!

DOWN WITH MOTHER NATURE! WE WANT TO GOVERN OURSELVES!

[Kaslo]

I think it's time someone finally spoke out against the real problem in all this. It's time for people to protest earthquakes, who's with me?

You just made me wanna photoshop a protest picture's protest signs...

[Yuri-G]

what a fucking pathetic two-faced worthless little worm glenn beck is. if you're going to say shit, then say it. don't hide behind semantics and wordplay. this "I'm not saying the earthquake was caused by god, but I'm not not saying it" shit is fucking stupid doubletalk. obviously he's afraid of what would happen if he just came out and spoke his mind, and he's too much of a coward to do so despite the possible consequences.

ahem. sorry. he pisses me off.

also, wtf @ his "I don't care if you call it Gaia or Jesus" comment

[The Stig]

Gaia?

CAPTAIN PLANET!!!

[Silenka]

Ooh, he would be able to clean that up np, quick guys we need an annoying white kid, a black guy, a russian bitch...
Er, on second thought, I'm pretty sure Voltron wouldn't stand for that.

[The Stig]

Preliminary draft for our Planeteers team:

Morgan Freeman
Bruce Willis
Sophie Marceau (is she french or russian lol)
Lucy Liu
Kal Penn

Think i covered by bases otherwise.

[aduidarnenye]

Cat Island survived the earthquake:

http://news.discovery.com/animals/ja...es-110315.html

Tashirojima, otherwise known as Japan's "Cat Island" due to its numerous feline inhabitants, is intact after the recent devastating 9-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami, according to Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support. However, like so many others devastated by the disaster, both the human and feline residents of the island need help.

The small island in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, is home to at least 100, mostly elderly, people and many more cats, which are valued for their beauty, companionship, and ability to keep the rodent population down in this fishing area. A shrine dedicated to cats exists in the middle of the island -- a favorite of tourists and feline lovers worldwide.

You can see some of the residents and cats in the below footage, captured by Thai television reporters before the quake.

There was concern that the island and its residents did not survive the earthquake, aftershocks, and tsunami, but Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support posted this at Facebook yesterday:

Just to give everyone an update on Tashirojima, the cat island. The people and cats are safe but short of food. A volunteer looked into transporting food by boat, but there is too much debris in the water. A helicopter is the only way. The army will probably get a helicopter ready soon so we are looking into the possibility of asking them to take cat food too.

Teaming up with another organization, Animal Friends Niigata, workers with the Japanese rescue and support team are now in Sendai, near where the earthquake was centered.

If you do a search on Google Maps for "Tashirojima near Japan" you will see how bloody close this island was. Amazing that it escaped at all.

[aduidarnenye]

Oh joy, the panic is going to get ramped up again:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72H1Q620110318

VIENNA, March 18 (Reuters) - Minuscule amounts of radioactive particles believed to have come from Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant have been detected on the U.S. west coast, two diplomatic sources said on Friday.

The level of radiation was far too low to cause any harm to humans, they said. One diplomat, citing information from a network of international monitoring stations, described the material as "ever so slight", consisting of only a few particles.

"They are irrelevant," the diplomat added.

Another diplomatic source also said the level was "very low".

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), a Vienna-based independent body for monitoring possible breaches of the test ban, has more than 60 stations around the world, including one in Sacramento in California.

They can pick up very small amounts of radioactive particles such as iodine isotopes.

"Even a single radioactive atom can cause them to measure something and this is more or less what we have seen in the Sacramento station," said the first diplomat, who declined to be named.

Asked if they were believed to originate from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, which has leaked radioactivity since being damaged by last week's massive earthquake and tsunami, he said: "That is the obvious assumption."

The CTBTO continuously provides data to its member states, but does not make the details public.

A Swedish official, also citing CTBTO data, told Reuters on Thursday that low concentrations of radioactive particles were heading eastwards and expected to reach North America in days.

Also on Thursday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said radioactivity would disperse over the long distance and it did not expect any harmful amounts to reach the country.

The New York Times earlier said a CTBTO forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume showed it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting southern California late on Friday.

Radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the west coast of the United States in 10 days, its levels measurable but minuscule.