Japan hit by powerful earthquake

[MaachaQ]

Why do the Japanese people always walk around with those masks? Whenever I see a Japanese tourist in Sweden, they always wear those masks and a camera. It's like those are the two things the people of Japan are born with.

They also tend to carry around pocket packs of kleenex wherever they go. Tribal customs, etc. Folks get scared of an inhaled threat, even if it's not significant, they'll pull out the masks. They're common during cold/flu/allergy season, and sup start of spring.

In Korea the masks are quite common as well, for much the same reasons. The biggest time I see the masks though is when we get big dust clouds blowing in from China, the dust can get quite bad sometimes. Of course now you have the potential of radioactive particles in the air, so pretty much everyone is wearing them nowadays...

[Kerberoz]

I thought the idea was to wear them when you're sick, to prevent spreading mucus around.

[Maaglin]

I thought the idea was to wear them when you're sick, to prevent spreading mucus around.

It is.

[fussel]

P.s.- how do you not know what a meter is? Google "radioactivity meters" for more info.

I don't want to put oil in the flames, but this just fits. Spoilered to prevent table breaking.

Spoiler: show

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/future_timeline.png

[Ponto]

I haven't been keeping up with the recent developments in Japan in the past few weeks, however my girlfriend just got accepted onto the JET program and has been asked to go teach, housing etc paid, in Japan. Her mom is going crazy over how dangerous she thinks it is to her health with the radiation and all. I highly doubt that JET will situate anyone close to that area and risk their health, however I was considering the current living condition in Japan atm. Anyone currently living there from various regions have any input on the current situation there? Trying to get as much info as possible before accepting to go.

[archibaldcrane]

Where in Japan will she be located?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S 4G using Tapatalk

[Maaglin]

Anywhere starting from Tokyo and heading south is fine. In fact 99% of Japan isn't a problem.

Most places here are fine, with only small inconvieneces such as reduced train schedules, vending machines not being re-stocked (they are sending these items to the victims), etc. Rolling blackouts stopped weeks ago, so there's not even that anymore.

[Chicomagiko]

Lots of escalators are out as well. I know Interac is on a hiring frenzy at the moment since a lot of their staff broke contract and left(lolFLYJIN).

[aduidarnenye]

[Boyiee]

Well that ruined my day thanks a lot

[MaachaQ]

Glad the fearmongering is coming to an end, here's what seems to be a good article about the real radiation risks: http://health.msn.com/health-topics/...7&imageindex=1

I was most interested in this one:

Cigarette Smoking
Dose: 1,300 mrem per year

The 20 percent of Americans (about 43 million) who smoke are increasing more than just their risk of lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke.

They inhale small amounts of radioactive material—from both natural sources and the fertilizer used on the tobacco plants—each time they take a puff. And tar from tobacco smoke traps some of these materials, in particular lead 210 and polonium 210, in their lung passages.

[Salodin]

Any one know how the plants are doing?

[Minions]

Fuuu, just watched part of that pet video. Shit makes me feel horrible. Especially when the pets go back to where they were trained to live. bawwww.

[Olo401]

Any one know how the plants are doing?

Lesse.. Here's an update on Unit 1:

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it is moving ahead with plans to bring the Unit 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant to "cold shutdown" within the week, Japan Times reported today.

If that happened, it would be a major shift from the nuclear plant's current status, which the International Atomic Energy Agency still lists as "very serious." Cold shutdown means bringing the temperature inside the reactor down below the boiling point of water, so no steam pressure is being produced – a significant step if it happens, US experts said.

Before the temperature can be reduced, the building must be vented of radioactive air to allow operators to approach the reactor. In addition, American and British scientists have expressed concerns about the proposed step and newly discovered evidence of an ongoing radiation leak into the Pacific Ocean.
....
Will the primary containment structure be able to hold the many tons of water that will fill it – or will it leak or split because it is damaged? Will a new quake or aftershock damage a containment structure that is far heavier because it is full of water?

"They're basically getting ready to run a big experiment," says Edwin Lyman, a nuclear reactor expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear industry watchdog group that is closely monitoring the situation in Japan. "It sounds like they're assuming that the structural issues [with the primary containment structure] aren't that serious – and there's debate over that."

....

Concern is also bubbling over radiation levels in the ocean near the plant – apparently due to an undiscovered leak from a damaged reactor. Ocean radiation readings taken Friday from the seabed near the plant were 100-1,000 times usual levels, TEPCO told the Mainichi Times.

Video of the air filters that have been installed at Unit 1 (no sound):



Here's a video that was just taken of the fuel pool inside Unit #4. The pool walls are intact but there's all kinds of debris that fell in. Doesn't look like rods themselves are damaged. The water here is about 84˚C so you'll notice a little bit of bubbling - yes that's a very slight boil from the hotspots in the pool.

[Salodin]

Cool, thanks for the update. Those rods don't look anything like I imagined they would lol.

[Olo401]

New video of the fuel pool inside Unit 3.. I think I saw maybe the top of ONE fuel rod through all the debris from the explosion.



Also Unit 3's reactor temp is spiking above 200C which is really not good..

[Olo401]

Tokyo Electric Power Company says the No.1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is believed to be in a state of "meltdown".

The utility company said on Thursday that most of the fuel rods are likely to have melted and fallen to the bottom of the reactor. Earlier in the day, it found that the coolant water in the reactor is at a level which would completely expose nuclear fuel rods if they were in their normal position.

The company believes the melted fuel has cooled down, judging from the reactor's surface temperature.

But it suspects the meltdown created a hole or holes in the bottom of the reactor causing water to leak into the containment vessel.

It also suspects the water is leaking into the reactor building.

The company is planning to fully fill the containment vessel with water by increasing the amount injected.

The company says, however, it must review the plan in light of the latest finding.

Video at http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_03.html

[*Shinzon*]

Geez, I didn't realize they hadn't stabilized the situation yet. I was guilty of hooking on to the media buzz, and then not checking back in. I guess this means that they'll scrap that entire site and seal it?

Edit: Saw this on Gizmodo

Sam Biddle —It's Official: Fukushima Was Hit With a Nuclear MeltdownThe flow of bad news (and radiation) out of Fukushima's reactors has diminished to a trickle over the past several weeks, as rescue work has proceeded. Not today. TEPCO's admitted for the first time that Fukushima experienced a grave meltdown.

What exactly is a meltdown, you might ask? There's a lot of confusion as to what constitutes a "full" or "partial" meltdown—neither is a strictly technical term, though in the popular usage of the word, today's revelation leans more towards the former. David Brenner, director of the Columbia University Center for Radiological Research, describes a "partial meltdown" as "fuel that's been damaged and partially melted. Some of the fuel has probably been oxidized and breached and melted at the top of the core where the heat rises."

MIT nuclear scientist Ron Ballinger describes a "full meltdown" as when fuel "would melt into the bottom of the vessel. Then you get to this theoretical point where if they can't cool it, then eventually the vessel itself, the steel, would melt, and you'd end up with a bunch of melted fuel and steel on the bottom of the concrete faceplate of the plant, in the containment vessel. And then it would have to get out of there."

Today's news indicates something much closer to the latter scenario.

The possibility of a meltdown has been floating in the air since the earthquake and subsequent explosions first rocked the roof off of Fukushima, spreading radiation, confusion, and displacement across the local populace (and beyond). Since then, TEPCO workers and the Japanese government have desperately struggled to keep the nuclear fuel rods inside the reactors cool—if they don't, the scorching material will melt into a pool of radioactive lava, further damaging the facility. That's the scenario everyone's been aiming to avoid—and that's the scenario we now know had actually occurred all along. Underneath all that dumped seawater has been lying a blob of melted fuel. And it could be melting its way out.

This admittance goes against every assurance TEPCO has handed the world in the midst of Japan's nuclear crisis—that the situation was bad, but that with emergency work, the plant would be mostly stable, and could be safely shutdown within the year. The worry now, beyond the fact that the damage to the reactor is far worse than imagined, is that a hole in the facility will lead incredibly contaminated water leak out like a faucet. A scalding, radioactive faucet.

So now what? "We will have to revise our plans," Junichi Matsumoto, a TEPCO rep, told The Telegraph. To say the least. [The Telegraph and Kyodo News]

So basically does this mean all the reports and stuff that Kryssan had been giving us were basically based only on information that TEPCO gave? And they never actually got to conduct or investigate the situation themselves? They did their entire industry a disservice if that's the case.

[Olo401]

Well I imagine they were making the best conclusion based on the available facts & evidence at any given time. Now that they've finally been able to re-enter Unit 1 & investigate further the facts have changed and/or been clarified. I wouldn't call it a disservice, but once again they are guilty of presenting a rosier situation than what actually was happening.

[Salodin]

That was pretty much Tagus's point earlier in the thread.