# The Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Crises Thread *Updates*



## The Space Cowboy (Mar 15, 2011)

Here you can post relevant news items relating to the current situation in Japan.  


What to post

Additional developments regarding:
-Damage from the Quakes
-The ongoing situation with the Nuclear Power Plant
-International Developments
-More quakes

A lot of news items are timestamped, so check to make sure you're not posting out of date news

What not to post
1)  Celebrity/Person of Import said BLAH BLAH BLAH.  If someone important made an insensitive comment about the situation, there's really no good reason to repeat what they say.

2)  Alarmist OMGWEREALLGONNADIE stuff.  First off, we're not all going to die.  Try to keep the discussion realistic.  Additionally this is a mostly English-language board about cartoon ninjas.  If you're using this as a reliable news source to keep friends and family in Japan updated, you are being most unwise.

Where to look -- These are just suggestions


The BBC

 <-- Has a good chronological breakdown of events


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## Inuhanyou (Mar 15, 2011)

What does "we are all going to die" entail,  Space? Realistic discussion or plain "everything's sunshine and daisies" 

An update on the fire

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12754883



> Fire has again broken out at the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northern Japan.
> 
> The blaze has struck reactor four, where spent fuel rods are kept. The plant has already been hit by four explosions, triggering radiation leaks and sparking health concerns.
> 
> ...


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## stream (Mar 15, 2011)

As for new challenges to Japan, I believe that the still-smoldering nuclear cores or whatever is burning is a tiny small part of their problems. Thousands of people have died in the tsunami, and tens of thousands of people have lost their homes. According to reports, over a million homes do not have running water.

Whatever trouble is caused by the release of radiation in the atmosphere is likely to be the least of their worries. Especially since nothing can be done about it.


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## -Dargor- (Mar 15, 2011)

The Space Cowboy said:


> First off, we're not all going to die



Well not all of us anyway.

Point 1) reminded me of one of chapelle's standups about how people worship celebrities so much that they'll cash in on whatever they say about anything 

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-ddYhXAZc[/YOUTUBE]

On another note, I hear they're in cruel need of outside help right now, with only 50 people working on the reactors night and day since saturday, they're bound to start making mistakes due to fatigue soon.


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## Jin-E (Mar 15, 2011)

-Dargor- said:


> On another note, I hear they're in cruel need of outside help right now, with only 50 people working on the reactors night and day since saturday, they're bound to start making mistakes due to fatigue soon.



Are all working at the same time? Could be that they work in shifts.


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## Qhorin Halfhand (Mar 15, 2011)

stream said:


> As for new challenges to Japan, I believe that the still-smoldering nuclear cores or whatever is burning is a tiny small part of their problems. Thousands of people have died in the tsunami, and tens of thousands of people have lost their homes. According to reports, over a million homes do not have running water.
> 
> Whatever trouble is caused by the release of radiation in the atmosphere is likely to be the least of their worries. Especially since nothing can be done about it.



Well said.


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## assddrago (Mar 15, 2011)

well heres a story

and a semi crazy as it may seem
weekly manga did come out as usual

also it looks like america's finally stepping in on the nuclear front

"U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that his department was dispatching a team of 34 experts and 17,000 pounds of equipment to help with the crisis. The team also will help the Obama administration decide what to tell Americans in Japan and at home about the crisis, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. In response to questions about whether Japanese officials were providing complete information, Carney said American teams on the ground will make independent assessments of the situation.
"


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 15, 2011)

all efforts on the reactors has stopped due to overwhelming radiation.


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## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 15, 2011)

Source or it didn't happen.


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 15, 2011)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> Source or it didn't happen.





> Workers at Japan's damaged nuclear power plant have suspended operations and evacuated, chief Cabinet secretary says.



 lol


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## assddrago (Mar 15, 2011)

^
yes i heard about that so what now?
they cant just leave it


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 15, 2011)

assddrago said:


> ^
> yes i heard about that so what now?
> they cant just leave it



yes they are just leaving it.  nothing left to do, the final efforts has failed.


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## assddrago (Mar 15, 2011)

FapperWocky said:


> yes they are just leaving it.  nothing left to do, the final efforts has failed.



I meant the citizens around the area and in places liek tokyo they have to evacuate or do something


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 15, 2011)

assddrago said:


> I meant the citizens around the area and in places liek tokyo they have to evacuate or do something



sendai is far from tokyo (even though radiation is reaching tokyo).  it's hard to tell what people in tokyo will have to do, maybe leave tokyo too.


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## The Space Cowboy (Mar 15, 2011)

From the BBC



> A spike in radiation levels at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has forced workers to suspend their operation, a government spokesman says.
> 
> He was speaking after smoke was seen rising from reactor three. Earlier, a blaze struck reactor four for the second time in two days.
> 
> ...



Shit very well may have just hit the fan.  Hopefully not though


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 15, 2011)

The Space Cowboy said:


> From the BBC
> 
> 
> 
> Shit very well may have just hit the fan.  Hopefully not though



they are talking about cesium releases now on cnn.  could be that workers were experiencing symptoms of high sudden intense radiation like hair loss.  that's my speculation.

could be going to level 7 if that's the case.


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## Qhorin Halfhand (Mar 15, 2011)

Posting it with cautiousness that always is associated with any source/link on the Internet. Take it with some cautiousness and skepticism. 


Health Effect of Radiation Poisoning: Questions and Answers


> March 15 (Bloomberg) -- The danger of radiation leaks from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant is rising after explosions at the site caused by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said today.
> 
> As of 10:22 a.m. local time, radiation as high as 400 millisieverts was detected at the plant’s No. 3 reactor, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a briefing. That’s 20 times the annual limit for nuclear industry employees and uranium miners, according to the World Nuclear Association, a London-based advocate for the nuclear energy industry. A radiation dose of 100 millisieverts a year is the lowest level at which any increase in cancer is evident, the London-based WNA said on its website.
> 
> ...


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## The Space Cowboy (Mar 15, 2011)

I really think we ought to avoid paying too much attention to the 0-7 incident scale.  In the face of specific facts and developments its largely a meaningless factoid.


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## BassGS (Mar 15, 2011)

Some interesting information. Didn't know that the Earth gave off radiation. I knew the Sun did. It seems like everything can give you cancer.


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## stream (Mar 15, 2011)

There is radiation coming from everywhere in small amounts. Everything is radioactive to a very small degree because it contains trace amounts of radioactive material.

But this would not give you cancer, the same way that ambient noises in the street would not make you deaf, even though a very loud noise will.


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## BassGS (Mar 16, 2011)

Yet people with healthy lifestyle develop cancer early or late. I wonder why. Did cancer always exist or did it come up when we became more advance?


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

BassGS said:


> Yet people with healthy lifestyle develop cancer early or late. I wonder why. Did cancer always exist or did it come up when we became more advance?



it's said that cancer is a new developement due to our "advance" lifestyle.  there aren't even treatments for it in ancient writings cause it didn't hardly exist prior to industrialization.


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## Syed (Mar 16, 2011)

BassGS said:


> Yet people with healthy lifestyle develop cancer early or late. I wonder why. Did cancer always exist or did it come up when we became more advance?



Cancer can happen to anyone, even the most healthiest of people. Though I believe the rate of acquiring it is higher now than it was centuries before the industrial revolution etc.
Cancer always existed. People just didn't know what it was and or the sickness was caused by it. Like in the 11th century a guy has a high fever and swelling in his stomach. Could have been a tumor but they just wrote it off as a fever. Also note that in the past people didn't live long. 50 was usually the highest one could live (still is in some underdeveloped countries) and since the older you are the more likely you will get cancer, some people died before ever getting it.


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## The Space Cowboy (Mar 16, 2011)

Can we talk about further important developments in the land of schoolgirls & naughty tentacles, and not about cancer?


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## BassGS (Mar 16, 2011)

FapperWocky said:


> it's said that cancer is a new developement due to our "advance" lifestyle.  there aren't even treatments for it in ancient writings cause it didn't hardly exist prior to industrialization.


I had a feeling about that. Seems like everyt



Syed said:


> Cancer can happen to anyone, even the most healthiest of people. Though I believe the rate of acquiring it is higher now than it was centuries before the industrial revolution etc.
> Cancer always existed. People just didn't know what it was and or the sickness was caused by it. Like in the 11th century a guy has a high fever and swelling in his stomach. Could have been a tumor but they just wrote it off as a fever. Also note that in the past people didn't live long. 50 was usually the highest one could (still is in some underdeveloped countries). and since the older you are the more likely you will get cancer, some people died before ever getting it.



That could be true, but I bet the rate was not as high today. Its like 33% percent people die from cancer. Also how come doctors ask you if you have close family memebrs that have or had cancer. They might not have it but someone down the line could have and thus increase your chance of getting it.

Also I wonder when they will make a vaccine so your body can grow cancer cells.

They mostly died young because of poor hygiene and not poor cleaning methods. They were expected to start families early on. But that is true.


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## stream (Mar 16, 2011)

Good news! (kinda)
Workers were allowed back after radiation levels fell, 30 minutes ago.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-japan-quake-smoke-idUSTRE72F0AW20110316


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## BassGS (Mar 16, 2011)

How long do you predict till we can relax about Japan?


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## Syed (Mar 16, 2011)

stream said:


> Good news! (kinda)
> Workers were allowed back after radiation levels fell, 30 minutes ago.
> 
> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-japan-quake-smoke-idUSTRE72F0AW20110316



Yay some good news at least.


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## BassGS (Mar 16, 2011)

Has anyone had a discussion with anyone outside the board about the events in Japan? For me it seems like no one is discussing it outside of message boards and videos and normal everyday liife is continuing.


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## stream (Mar 16, 2011)

I predict that if by this week-end there was no big massive catastrophe, we can forget about that and just worry about the unknown quantities of radioactivity that will have been released up to then.

...And about the millions of people without water, natch.


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## Ennoea (Mar 16, 2011)

> it's said that cancer is a new developement due to our "advance" lifestyle. there aren't even treatments for it in ancient writings cause it didn't hardly exist prior to industrialization.



It did exist, it was just rarer.


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## psycheofthewoods (Mar 16, 2011)

BassGS said:


> Has anyone had a discussion with anyone outside the board about the events in Japan? For me it seems like no one is discussing it outside of message boards and videos and normal everyday liife is continuing.



I've had discussions about what's going on in Japan with my family and friends.  Although you're right that we're all living our everyday lives.


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## Jeαnne (Mar 16, 2011)

wait...all evacuated? no one left there??


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## serger989 (Mar 16, 2011)

Jeαnne said:


> wait...all evacuated? no one left there??



If you are referring to the workers, they returned to the plant an hour (or a few) after they evacuated in order to wait for the levels of radiation to lower in the area. To my understanding? I believe they are already back at the plant working their heroic asses off.


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## Jeαnne (Mar 16, 2011)

serger989 said:


> If you are referring to the workers, they returned to the plant an hour (or a few) after they evacuated in order to wait for the levels of radiation to lower in the area. To my understanding? I believe they are already back at the plant working their heroic asses off.


ok good D:...if they left it would mean that things got 100% out of hand


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## Kαrin (Mar 16, 2011)

stream said:


> Good news! (kinda)
> Workers were allowed back after radiation levels fell, 30 minutes ago.
> 
> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-japan-quake-smoke-idUSTRE72F0AW20110316



Phew, I was scared for a moment.


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

> 6.30am (3.30pm JST): As miwa points out in the comments below, Sir John Beddington - the UK's chief scientific adviser - has briefed British expatriates that the Japanese government's measures (a 20km exclusion zone round the plant and a warning to stay indoors if 20-30km away) are "entirely proportionate and appropriate to the risk". More information is available at the British embassy's website.
> 
> China is evacuating its nationals from the north-east - ie closer to the stricken facility - citing its concerns about the plant and France has recommended that its citizens leave Tokyo. The Austrian embassy announced yesterday that it was moving to Osaka due to radiation fears.
> *
> But like many more countries, the UK is not recommending that nationals leave the capital. Radiation levels there are slightly higher than normal, but nowhere near a level of concern, say experts.*


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## Wolfarus (Mar 16, 2011)

BassGS said:


> Has anyone had a discussion with anyone outside the board about the events in Japan? For me it seems like no one is discussing it outside of message boards and videos and normal everyday liife is continuing.



Ive tried talking about it to co-workers and friends. Nobody seems that interested in it, at least not compared to us. The expected response, to be honest. Most people just dont care about crap that happens to anybody else but themselves/friends/family.

And im sure that since most of us have varying levels of interest in anime / japanese culture, thats prodding our continued interest in the topic/aftermath.


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## DremolitoX (Mar 16, 2011)

I wonder how accurate this forecast is. I think I might get pwnt by hundreds of delicious rads in the coming days


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## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 16, 2011)

That map's already been disproven. Its still a local only event.


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## Kαrin (Mar 16, 2011)

I just read some news, and it seems like the reactor 4 is the biggest problem at the moment. They say they're more optimistic about reactors 1, 2 and 3.


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

> Kyodo news has a slightly worrying update, in a breaking news item on its website – the military helicopters seen over the Fukushima nuclear plant (8.06am) have been unable to drop any water "due to high radiation".



guardian live blog



> NEWS ADVISORY: Radiation of 1,500 microsievert per hour as of 4 p.m. near nuke plant: Edano (18:12) KYODO


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## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

.5 percent is as much radiation as you get in an X-ray.

2 Microsievert is how much you get in a year.

5 microsievert is the absolute highest recommended for safety.


1,500 microsievert can kill a human being within five hours without any radiation protection.

US army detected radiation around the Tokyo area on their humanitarian drops, low level but its still reaching the city

Most governments evacuating their people from the area







> TOKYO - China became the first government to organize a mass evacuation of its citizens from Japan's stricken northeast Tuesday.
> 
> Austria said it was moving its embassy from Tokyo to Osaka, 250 miles away, because of radiation concerns amid the troubles at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. France recommended that its citizens leave the Japanese capital.
> 
> ...


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Inuhanyou said:


> .5 percent is as much radiation as you get in an X-ray.
> 
> 2 Microsievert is how much you get in a year.
> 
> ...



No i think something is wrong here...

1000 millisieverts are dangerous...

1000 millisieverts = 1,000,000 microsieverts

something wrong with the news info somewhere....

yesterday there was a spike to 

400,000 microsieverts and people were working there 

and now helicopters are not able to put water because of high radiation... but measured ratiation is 1.3 millisieverts (1300 microsieverts)

*



			Radiation dose 	Effect

Source: World Nuclear Association

2 mSv/yr (millisieverts per year)


Typical background radiation experienced by everyone (average 1.5 mSv in Australia, 3 mSv in North America)

9 mSv/yr


Exposure by airline crew flying New York-Tokyo polar route

20 mSv/yr


Current limit (averaged) for nuclear industry employees

50 mSv/yr


Former routine limit for nuclear industry employees. It is also the dose rate which arises from natural background levels in several places in Iran, India and Europe

100 mSv/yr


Lowest level at which any increase in cancer is clearly evident.

350 mSv/lifetime


Criterion for relocating people after Chernobyl accident

1,000 mSv single dose


Causes (temporary) radiation sickness such as nausea and decreased white blood cell count, but not death. Above this, severity of illness increases with dose

5,000 mSv single dose


Would kill about half those receiving it within a month
		
Click to expand...

*

A very nice comment i found in one live blog



> The comments in defense of nuclear power, or in defense of de-emphasizing the news on nuclear power, are rather weird. They concentrate on telling us that this is not Chernobyl. Or they concentrate on panic mongering in the press. They do not, however, concentrate on the only thing that really counts: how to improvise a mechanism to contain and eliminate the potential meltdown and the radiation releases now ongoing at four nuclear power plants. In fact, they offer no suggestion or enlightenment as to what is happening or should happen.
> Whether this is like or not like Chernobyl is irrelevant, save as the eventual fate of the reactor at Chernobyl – its encasement in cement – seems to be the best method to use with the plants at Fukushima. Surely it is time to put the aggrieved defense of nuclear power to bed, or the concern trolling about the real disaster – for instance, the disaster striking the refugees, who are undergoing freezing conditions in the encampments into which they have been put. They are undergoing those conditions because the power is spotty or non-existent. The power is spotty or non-existent because the nuclear power plants have failed. All the parts of this disaster fit together.
> 
> It was evident from the moment that the announcement was made that seawater was going to be used to cool the fuel rods that we were no longer in territory where the ‘experts’ and ‘engineers’ could give us indisputable advice, since, in fact, the mechanism here was being made up as it went along. Thus, the predictions about what was going to happen, or the scolding tone about those who were worried about what was happening, was totally unwarranted. As for the advocates of nuclear power who have consistently tried to lure attention to other issues, they bear a heavy responsibility: after all, they should be advocating nuclear power with a full sense of the responsibility that advocacy entails when things go wrong. Minimizing the disaster is not a plan.
> ...


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## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

Hmm, there's some kind of breakdown of information somewhere, NHK said that continious absorption of radiation just outside the plant was a much bigger consequence than what you would assume based on that chart there.

But i do know that a continuous decreased white blood cell count means you go sterile, and are much more open to diseases in the atmosphere


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Inuhanyou said:


> Hmm, there's some kind of breakdown of information somewhere, NHK said that continious absorption of radiation just outside the plant was a much bigger consequence than what you would assume based on that chart there.
> 
> But i do know that a continuous decreased white blood cell count means you go sterile, and are much more open to diseases in the atmosphere



I think it is a problem with the news sources and the situation itself...

I am trying to find a more accurate source right now ...


Correcting my previous pst ... It was 1500 milliserviets (not micro)



> In contradiction to what I flagged up from a poster earlier, and zerozero and nutstomper are discussing, the latest official announcement seems to be :
> 
> 
> "1010: More on the current nuclear situation from chief cabinet secretary Edano. He says that at 4pm local time the level of radiation at the plant was stable at about 1.5 millisieverts."
> ...





> From the NHK News Update Ticker:
> 
> * Japan's science ministry has observed radiation levels of up to 0.33 millisieverts per hour in areas about 20 km northwest of the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.*
> 
> ...


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## Sword Sage (Mar 16, 2011)

Here are some good news of today.



> Japan nuke 'cooling problem' under control, radiation level down
> 
> by Domingo B. Natividad V
> 
> ...


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## Kαrin (Mar 16, 2011)

I just read that reactors 5 and 6 cooling system stopped working, but the biggest problem is still reactor 4. 

God, this is just fucked up.


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## MrCinos (Mar 16, 2011)

> The BBC has a story which I imagine will gain a lot of prominence in the UK – a group of UK rescue workers say they have had to leave Japan because they could not get the necessary paperwork completed by the British embassy in Tokyo. It continues:
> 
> The International Rescue Corps said they were not given permission to work in Japan because it would have made the embassy legally responsible for them.
> A spokesman for the team said it was "gut-wrenching" to be stopped from helping by "your own country".
> The British ambassador to Japan said they helped them as much as they could.



Shouldn't the UK Government ordered its embassy to sign these papers? The situation seems stupid.


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## VoDe (Mar 16, 2011)

Kαrin said:


> I just read that reactors 5 and 6 cooling system stopped working, but the biggest problem is still reactor 4.
> 
> God, this is just fucked up.







> *BLIZZARDS HIT JAPAN*
> 
> THOUSANDS of people are fleeing Tokyo in a panic over radiation leaks ? as freezing blizzards heap further misery on disaster-hit north Japan.
> 
> ...





Whats next? Hurricane?


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## Ludwig The Holy Blade (Mar 16, 2011)

Some quality sensationalism there from The Sun.


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## Sword Sage (Mar 16, 2011)

Is there any other good news? Will they be able to clean out the radiations? I heard the radiation levels went down.

I'm all confused here.


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Matrix XZ said:


> Is there any other good news? Will they be able to clean out the radiations? I heard the radiation levels went down.
> 
> I'm all confused here.



Lot of mixed, confusing and contradicting news from different sources ....


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## masamune1 (Mar 16, 2011)

VoDe said:


> Whats next? Hurricane?



No, next will be that 7.9 aftershock quake they are expecting to hit any day now.


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## -Dargor- (Mar 16, 2011)

abcd said:


> Lot of mixed, confusing and contradicting news from different sources ....



From what they're saying on cnn, they're not even sure if the team that went back into the reactors aren't suiciding up for the cause 

On another note, I came across this lulzy gem


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## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

^ They're the nuclear version of the UN 

But yeh its sad that the British had to leave :/


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

> Authorities are struggling to control the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where the situation in reactors No 3 and No 4 remains fast-moving and perilous.
> Reactor 3 is a particular worry – Japan's government said today that there a "possibility" that the reactor's primary containment vessel for radiation had been damaged after steam was seen rising into the air. Attempts to drop water from helicopters was abandoned due to radiation levels. The latest mooted plan involves a police water cannon truck.
> Staff dousing reactors with seawater were forced to evacuate part of the building for a period this morning after radiation levels surged. These later receded and staff returned.
> French government ministers have urged the country's nationals in Tokyo to leave Japan or else head south in case radiation is blown onto the capital, saying Japanese authorities had "visibly lost control".
> ...



latest update on guardian


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## -Dargor- (Mar 16, 2011)

What I find puzzling is that with all the "international" experts we got, nobody sent anyone to help with the nuclear situation.

Sure the US is sending a group of around 30 right now, but the crisis started 5 days ago...

Is the rest of the world just being selfish or is it fear that shit will hit the fan?

Either way I think it's unacceptable, everybody should have pitched in on day 2 max.


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

-Dargor- said:


> What I find puzzling is that with all the "international" experts we got, nobody sent anyone to help with the nuclear situation.
> 
> Sure the US is sending a group of around 30 right now, but the crisis started 5 days ago...
> 
> ...



Most countries had sent experts on the 2-3 days back... including india ..


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## -Dargor- (Mar 16, 2011)

abcd said:


> Most countries had sent experts on the 2-3 days back... including india ..



So it would be japan not using/allowing them near their plants then? Because most reports say it's exclusively japanese people working on it.


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## masamune1 (Mar 16, 2011)

-Dargor- said:


> So it would be japan not using/allowing them near their plants then? Because most reports say it's exclusively japanese people working on it.



I imagine they would want to prioritise the people capable of understanding the language the instruction manuals were written in.


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

-Dargor- said:


> So it would be japan not using/allowing them near their plants then? Because most reports say it's exclusively japanese people working on it.



Could be ... These experts might be giving them suggestions remotely... ( like throwing water from helicopters for instance )


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## The Weeknd (Mar 16, 2011)

It's not an Earthquake, it's Godzilla vs Bagan.


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

> A concern for the people not just of Japan but the Pan Pacific area is whether Fukushima will turn into the next Chernobyl with radiation spread over a big area. The answer is that this scenario is highly unlikely, because of the wildly different design of the two reactors.
> The reason why radiation was disseminated so widely from Chernobyl with such devastating effects was a carbon fire. Some 1,200 tonnes of carbon were in the reactor at Chernobyl and this caused the fire which projected radioactive material up into the upper atmosphere causing it to be carried across most of Europe.
> There is no carbon in the reactors at Fukushima, and this means that even if a large amount of radioactive material were to leak from the plant, it would only affect the local area.
> The Japanese authorities acted swiftly and decisively in evacuating people living within 20km of the plant, and ensuring people living within 30km of the plant remained in their homes, with windows and doors closed. _The radiation measured so far at Fukushima is 100,000 times less than that at Chernobyl._



from gurdian live blog


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## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

Simulation of the radioactive plumes according to some belgian public research institute. This is for the radioactive clouds emitted on monday, excluding the dust from yesterday's explosion. As mentioned earlier, these clouds are only slightly radioactive and pose no significant health risk. A much more important fire, or an explosion involving large releases of nuclear material, may be more significant. But this has not happened/is unlikely to happen.

The simulation is still informative of how fast the radioactive dust settles down. This simulation is for an initial altitude of 1500m, but results are "sensibly the same" for an altitude of 3000m, so there is some margin.


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## strongarm85 (Mar 16, 2011)

masamune1 said:


> I imagine they would want to prioritise the people capable of understanding the language the instruction manuals were written in.



Seeing as how Americans built the plant during the Japan's Post World War 2 Construction phase I really don't see the issue.


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

these pics


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## Psallo a Cappella (Mar 16, 2011)

BassGS said:


> Has anyone had a discussion with anyone outside the board about the events in Japan? For me it seems like no one is discussing it outside of message boards and videos and normal everyday liife is continuing.


 
The first few days of it, everybody was in deep discussion. My younger sibling as a current events class and they discussed it; my Japanese and IR classes also spent a great chunk of time on it. Our honors society chapter is also launching a relief fund and other related fundraisers. It was difficult to sit and wait for networks to go up or for friends to find methods of communication - I cannot imagine it if it were my mother or father. 

Are you social, though?


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

> *"Fukushima is a triumph for nuke power: Build more reactors now! *
> Quake + tsunami = 1 minor radiation dose so far By Lewis Page
> • Get more from this author Posted in Physics, 14th March 2011 13:58 GMT
> Analysis
> ...



A news from a different perspective ...


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## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

abcd said:


> A news from a different perspective ...



According to this guy, radiation leaks have not had _"even much impact on the area around Chernobyl"_. And he means the immediate area. The whole article is ridiculous to the point where I keep wondering whether its satire, but it seems it's not.

So there's fear mongering and its correlate fearful ignorance. And there's downplaying and its correlate dumb confidence. I propose we try to find the right, rational middle, instead of a balance of articles supporting the two idiotic views  ;-)


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## CrazyMoronX (Mar 16, 2011)

I hope the plant doesn't melt into the center of the earth like that guy said it would. 

I also hope it doesn't sour the idea of building more nuclear power plants. Those things are pretty nice. Good alternative for destroying the environment with fossil fuels for our energy needs.


----------



## Mael (Mar 16, 2011)




----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

Mael said:


>



Here was an interesting comment from that link.

If the Fukushima leaks are contained, with the evacuation of the area very few people will be exposed to radiation. However, the Chiba fire is in a very densely populated area and is exposing a lot of people to unhealthy smoke.

Here is a good set of comments on bad reactor design.



> One other stat to keep in mind: right now, the only thing available to replace nuclear power plants, on a large scale, are coal plants. Coal emissions are estimated to be responsible for about 4000x as many deaths as nuclear plant radiation, even with disasters like Three Mile Island, Windscale, and Chernobyl accounted for.
> 
> None of which is to say that there aren't serious problems with nuclear power. Unfortunately, there are serious problems with all power production. Even solar, wind, and tidal power have consequences -- though it would be great if we could actually deploy them broadly enough to allow us to get rid of coal and nuclear.





> According to this guy, radiation leaks have not had "even much impact on the area around Chernobyl". And he means the immediate area. The whole article is ridiculous to the point where I keep wondering whether its satire, but it seems it's not.
> 
> So there's fear mongering and its correlate fearful ignorance. And there's downplaying and its correlate dumb confidence. I propose we try to find the right, rational middle, instead of a balance of articles supporting the two idiotic views ;-)



There really is not middle. You either are confident on things will work out eventually or you are not confident on things working out eventually.

On the whole nuclear debate you need to consider what has happened here. These plants were struck by an disaster many times greater then the plant was designed for. These complications are going to be ridiculously hard to replicate anywhere else in the world for that reason. That doesnt mean they wont be taking the necessary precautions all across the world regardless of the possibility of it happening by region.


----------



## Pseudo (Mar 16, 2011)

So is Kishimoto still missing?


----------



## Mael (Mar 16, 2011)

^Trolling is trollish.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

ThePsuedo said:


> So is Kishimoto still missing?



They found his dead corpse a few hours ago.


----------



## stream (Mar 16, 2011)

A bit of lightness, in the form of a joke about the Japan tsunami (a guy got fired for these jokes, but I think this one is actually quite good):

Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them.


----------



## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> There really is not middle. You either are confident on things will work out eventually or you are not confident on things working out eventually.
> 
> *On the whole nuclear debate you need to consider what has happened here. These plants were struck by an disaster many times greater then the plant was designed for. *These complications are going to be ridiculously hard to replicate anywhere else in the world for that reason. That doesnt mean they wont be taking the necessary precautions all across the world regardless of the possibility of it happening by region.



The bolded part is false ....

 The reactor is designed for 7.9 on the ritcher scale.... 

The effect of earthquake at the reactor was measured to be 7.0 

All this in a region which gets 8.5 level earthquakes once in 100 years.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

stream said:


> A bit of lightness, in the form of a joke about the Japan tsunami (a guy got fired for these jokes, but I think this one is actually quite good):
> 
> Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them.



Ah jokes that are so offensive its ridiculously funny.



> The bolded part is false ....
> 
> The reactor is designed for 7.9 on the ritcher scale....
> 
> ...



Could you give me a source for this?


----------



## Animeblue (Mar 16, 2011)

*Japan?s Prime Minister Naoto Kan has stated he thinks the tsunami-induced crisis at the Fukushima nuclear reactors could in the worst case ?ruin eastern Japan,? and that he is ?incredibly knowledgeable about nuclear power.?

His comments to a cabinet advisor were reported by Jiji, Japan?s major news agency:




?In the worst case scenario possible in the current situation, we must consider the possibility of eastern Japan being ruined.?

Click to expand...


Consequently, he is said to consider Tepco to be insufficiently alarmist, saying ?their sense of crisis is extremely weak.?

Perhaps worst of all, he reportedly considers himself an expert on nuclear power ? ?I?m incredibly knowledgeable about nuclear power.?

He does hold a degree in applied physics, but has only worked as a patent attorney and then as a politician, so his level of expertise in fixing broken reactors is doubtful at best.

Tepco?s handling of the crisis has been less than reassuring, but the international consensus amongst experts on nuclear power and various nuclear energy bodies is that a nuclear explosion is impossible and Chernobyl-level contamination of a large area unthinkable.

The actual situation at the reactors has seen various explosions, fluctuating levels of radiation leakage and reactor temperature and pressure, and is evidently far from under control.

Concern generally centres on small amounts of mildly radioactive vapours being blown over a wider area ? just what would possess Kan to make such mass-hysteria inducing prognostications of a nuclear wasteland engulfing half of Japan is not clear, but it is unlikely to be common sense and good judgement.

Assuming, of course, that he and Tepco do not know something about the crisis nobody else does.*


----------



## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Animeblue said:


> -snip-



I cant read that with all that bolded blue font 



Razgriez said:


> Could you give me a source for this?


----------



## Shinigami Perv (Mar 16, 2011)

Watching Japan, I want nothing to do with nuclear power. Call it hysteria, I don't care, just don't put it anywhere near me. 

Hopefully our country will focus on wind and solar.


----------



## Mael (Mar 16, 2011)

Shinigami Perv said:


> Watching Japan, I want nothing to do with nuclear power. Call it hysteria, I don't care, just don't put it anywhere near me.
> 
> Hopefully our country will focus on wind and solar.



Or you could simply look at where your particular patch of land lies upon as far as faults and natural disasters.  If you live near earthquake or tornado-prone areas, it won't work.  Here in New England...we get blizzards.  That's the worst we get.

Don't knee-jerk, Shin.  You're smarter than that.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

abcd said:


> I cant read that with all that bolded blue font



Regardless. It wasnt the quake that fucked the plant but the tsunami.



> That the whole masterpiece was felled by a freakishly huge tsunami in the aftermath of the main quake is cruel, but that?s how nature works sometimes, unfortunately.


----------



## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> Regardless. It wasnt the quake that fucked the plant but the tsunami.



1) The plant is on the seashore
2) Earthquakes in the sea cause Tsunamis... Infact tsunami is a japanese word (they are common)
3) If there was no quake felt at the plant then the tsunami killing off the backup generator would not have affected the plant (since it would have been working and not shutting down cos of the quake.)


This is a common problem in japan 



> Tsunamis are a frequent occurrence in Japan; approximately 195 events have been recorded




So why was there no backup for such an event ?

*(hindsight is a beautiful thing )*


----------



## Shinigami Perv (Mar 16, 2011)

Mael said:


> Or you could simply look at where your particular patch of land lies upon as far as faults and natural disasters.  If you live near earthquake or tornado-prone areas, it won't work.  Here in New England...we get blizzards.  That's the worst we get.
> 
> Don't knee-jerk, Shin.  You're smarter than that.



Where I live we have a tremendous amount of generated power from dams due to all our water and rivers. 

I'm content with that. 

But California has a few nuclear power plants and they've been expecting the big one for a while. They practically live on one of the major fault lines.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

abcd said:


> 1) The plant is on the seashore
> 2) Earthquakes in the sea cause Tsunamis... Infact tsunami is a japanese word (they are common)
> 3) If there was no quake felt at the plant then the tsunami killing off the backup generator would not have affected the plant (since it would have been working and not shutting down cos of the quake.)
> 
> ...



What are you trying to prove here?



> Where I live we have a tremendous amount of generated power from dams due to all our water and rivers.
> 
> I'm content with that.
> 
> But California has a few nuclear power plants and they've been expecting the big one for a while.





*Spoiler*: __ 





> Failure hazard
> Main article: Dam failure
> See also: List of hydroelectric power station failures
> 
> ...






Better watch out SP.


----------



## Reksveks (Mar 16, 2011)

Hindsight is awesome, but yeah given japan's history of Tsunami and subsidence caused by earthquakes, a bit more planning for those possible outcomes would have been smart.

@Shin, sadly Nuclear is the quickest and most cost effective way to get off the fossil fuel dependency.


----------



## stream (Mar 16, 2011)

abcd said:


> 1) The plant is on the seashore
> 2) Earthquakes in the sea cause Tsunamis... Infact tsunami is a japanese word (they are common)
> 3) If there was no quake felt at the plant then the tsunami killing off the backup generator would not have affected the plant (since it would have been working and not shutting down cos of the quake.)
> 
> So why was there no backup for such an event ?



Well, they thought that the plant could survive the earthquake (which it mostly did, just shut down), and they thought that it was protected from tsunamis by barriers put along the shore. The problem was that the barriers were not tall enough for the size of this tsunami.

In retrospect, they should have put the diesel generators on a high point so as to be safe from a possible tsunami, but they didn't think about that...


----------



## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> There really is not middle. You either are confident on things will work out eventually or you are not confident on things working out eventually.



I think everybody accepts that things will work out eventually _at a cost_. Alarmists see this cost as utterly unacceptable, unimaginably high, with mutant babies popping up in the US and killing their parents. Others think the cost will be so low that we might as well leave the plants right now to their burning, with little to no consequences for anyone in the vicinity.

My stance, which is the only rational stance since it has the specificity of being mine, is that things will eventually workout, but with risks of long-term consequences for the immediate area, and a risk of radioactive emissions that could affect the region temporarily. 



Razgriez said:


> On the whole nuclear debate you need to consider what has happened here. These plants were struck by an disaster many times greater then the plant was designed for. These complications are going to be ridiculously hard to replicate anywhere else in the world for that reason. That doesnt mean they wont be taking the necessary precautions all across the world regardless of the possibility of it happening by region.


Time has not come yet for blaming. But I think what lots of people think at the moment is that _"even *Japan* of all nations had terrible, short-term profit, bullshit security measures"_... This will be the ecologists' argument. To be honest, I believe the real issue here is allowing private companies to manage nuclear power. There is an obvious conflict of interest between a private company and the general public.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

Private or government ran. They are all going to build these things through the lowest bidder.


----------



## Shinigami Perv (Mar 16, 2011)

Reksveks said:


> Hindsight is awesome, but yeah given japan's history of Tsunami and subsidence caused by earthquakes, a bit more planning for those possible outcomes would have been smart.
> 
> @Shin, sadly Nuclear is the quickest and most cost effective way to get off the fossil fuel dependency.



We do have some really awesome alternative sources of energy in this country, though. My state uses water power, which for years has given us dirt cheap electricity while having to export it because we can't use it all. 

The desert climate in the southwestern US makes it perfect for solar. The plains in the Dakotas are a tremendous source of energy for wind. I've heard they have enough wind to power all of the US but the infrastructure is holding them back. 

It's too bad we spent so much money on wars, that money might have funded our energy independence and created millions of jobs building wind and solar power.  Now we're too broke to even try it. 



Razgriez said:


> Better watch out SP.




LOL well most of us don't live near the dams. None have had any incidents in my lifetime. No nuclear fallout is a bonus too.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

Shinigami Perv said:


> We do have some really awesome alternative sources of energy in this country, though. My state uses water power, which for years has given us dirt cheap electricity while having to export it because we can't use it all.
> 
> The desert climate in the southwestern US makes it perfect for solar. The plains in the Dakotas are a tremendous source of energy for wind. I've heard they have enough wind to power all of the US but the infrastructure is holding them back.
> 
> It's too bad we spent so much money on wars, that money might have funded our energy independence and created millions of jobs building wind and solar power.  Now we're too broke to even try it.



That is more California's fault why you are all bankrupt.


----------



## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> Private or government ran. They are all going to build these things through the lowest bidder.



The government actually has an interest in providing proper security. Government employees often care more about actual service than benefits. This is one of the reasons why government services are often cost ineffective, but typically go out of their way to provide better long-term service, when private companies go for the short term benefit. It's a different mindset. I can tell for having worked both in private and public companies --- There is a _huge_ difference in the values people have.




			
				AnimeBlue said:
			
		

> Concern generally centres on small amounts of mildly radioactive vapours being blown over a wider area – just what would possess Kan to make such mass-hysteria inducing prognostications of a nuclear wasteland engulfing half of Japan is not clear, but it is unlikely to be common sense and good judgement.


Concern generally centers around possible large emissions of radioactive material into the athmosphere through fires and explosions at the nuclear plants (causing, or following containment breaches). That's the worst case scenario. Radioactive vapours are the best case scenario.


----------



## kayanathera (Mar 16, 2011)

Shinigami Perv said:


> Where I live we have a tremendous amount of generated power from dams due to all our water and rivers.
> 
> I'm content with that.
> 
> *But California has a few nuclear power plants and they've been expecting the big one for a while. They practically live on one of the major fault lines.*



The quake its not the problem but the tsunami who damaged the back up systems.It was reported that beside the main colling system knocked off by the tsunami,the two other back up systems have failed to kick in for reasons still not explained(and I suspect some human error here,like money savings perhaps) so they had to let in sea water and that led to hydrogen buildup and explosions.
However people should remember that the NUCLEAR CORES HAVE ALL SHUT DOWN AS PLANNED SO THERE WILL NOT BE A NEW CHERNOBIL
(WHERE THE CORE WAS OPERATING AT FULL POWER).The problem is cooling the rods


----------



## Vegitto-kun (Mar 16, 2011)

a dutch news site just reported that the cores of reactor 1 and 3 are damaged.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

impersonal said:


> The government actually has an interest in providing proper security. It's a different mindset. I can tell for having worked both in private and public companies --- There is a _huge_ difference in the values people have.



So do companies cause they dont want to be sued the fuck out of. Dont get me wrong I personally would like to see the power grid ran by the government and treated more like a public service(since it is) but that doesnt mean we wont hire private contractors to design and build these plants.

I honestly would be more worried about one of those dams breaking from a massive quake dumping millions of gallons of water on your head. Think the tsunami but land based and probably much higher.


----------



## Reksveks (Mar 16, 2011)

kayanathera said:


> NUCLEAR CORES HAVE ALL SHUT DOWN AS PLANNED SO THERE WILL NOT BE A NEW CHERNOBYL
> (WHERE THE CORE WAS OPERATING AT FULL POWER)



I thought the core at Chernobyl went from 20% of operating power to 500% in a very short period of time therefore there was large debris of radioactive material spread out.


----------



## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Shinigami Perv said:


> Where I live we have a tremendous amount of generated power from dams due to all our water and rivers.
> 
> I'm content with that.
> 
> But California has a few nuclear power plants and they've been expecting the big one for a while. They practically live on one of the major fault lines.



As far as I know Dams can cause earthquakes




Razgriez said:


> What are you trying to prove here?



In hindsight it is easy to look at these problems and point them out .... and it could have been an oversight which is human .... But definetly this was a problem with the Safety in regards to construction.



stream said:


> Well, they thought that the plant could survive the earthquake (which it mostly did, just shut down), and they thought that it was protected from tsunamis by barriers put along the shore. The problem was that the barriers were not tall enough for the size of this tsunami.
> 
> In retrospect, they should have put the diesel generators on a high point so as to be safe from a possible tsunami, but they didn't think about that...


Yeah ... or put the backup generators in a air/water tight location... ( backup generators are used during backups.. which means also during emergencies)



@kayanethra...

There are huge problems even with spent rods.. Its called recriticality .. this paper provides nice conclusions about it ..


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

impersonal said:


> Simulation of the radioactive plumes according to some belgian public research institute. This is for the radioactive clouds emitted on monday, excluding the dust from yesterday's explosion. As mentioned earlier, these clouds are only slightly radioactive and pose no significant health risk. A much more important fire, or an explosion involving large releases of nuclear material, may be more significant. But this has not happened/is unlikely to happen.
> 
> The simulation is still informative of how fast the radioactive dust settles down. This simulation is for an initial altitude of 1500m, but results are "sensibly the same" for an altitude of 3000m, so there is some margin.



that's pretty bad, i see radioactive materiel approaches the west coast in that simulation.  i'm gonna grab me some iodide pills.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

> In hindsight it is easy to look at these problems and point them out .... and it could have been an oversight which is human .... But definetly this was a problem with the Safety in regards to construction.



The problem was the tsunami and that is what I was simply pointing out since they didnt really design it to handle a 30 foot wave.


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 16, 2011)

I'm curious, have there been any recent innovations in nuclear safety/design/ efficiency/ and output?


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

LouDAgreat said:


> I'm curious, have there been any recent innovations in nuclear safety/design/ efficiency/ and output?



When I was looking the latest is the generation 4 reactor concepts. 



*Spoiler*: __ 





> Relative to current nuclear power plant technology, the claimed benefits for 4th generation reactors include:[3]
> 
> * Nuclear waste that lasts decades instead of millennia
> * 100-300 times more energy yield from the same amount of nuclear fuel
> ...






Fukushima has 1 gen 1(reactor 1) 4 gen 2s(2 through 5) and 1 gen 3 which is 6.

There are also various types of reactors.


----------



## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

LouDAgreat said:


> I'm curious, have there been any recent innovations in nuclear safety/design/ efficiency/ and output?


I think the major improvements are:
a) Cooling pools in the reactor area are known to be dangerous and a bad idea.
b) If you are in the tsunami danger zone, plan for possible tsunamis (duh).


----------



## Shinigami Perv (Mar 16, 2011)

abcd said:


> As far as I know Dams can cause earthquakes



Washington's major dams aren't really in a mountainous area or prone to earthquakes. They're mostly on the plains where the big rivers are in the eastern part of the state. 

Hydroelectric is very simple to understand. The worst risk is a dam bursting, which would cause local damage in very low-population areas. We don't need to trust a nuclear physicist to understand the risks.


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 16, 2011)

impersonal said:


> I think the major improvements are:
> a) Cooling pools in the reactor area are known to be dangerous and a bad idea.
> b) If you are in the tsunami danger zone, plan for possible tsunamis (duh).



I meant improvements in nuclear technology in general, not lessons learned from this disaster.


----------



## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> The problem was the tsunami and that is what I was simply pointing out since they didnt really design it to handle a 30 foot wave.



Yeah .. I was trying to correct the misconception...

1) When there is an earthquake of considerable power the reactor automatically shuts down .

2) Since the reactor is shut down it cannot produce more power and hence cannot supply cooling water to the rods

3) Backup generators become active and supply cooling water

If there was only a big 30 feet tsunami then the backup generators would have failed but the plant would have been running perfectly.

This particular problem is because of both the events happening at close intervals at considerable power.

Though this can be considered an exceptional situation it is actually not one .. since one event causes another. 

I do agree that the engineers have done well except for one oversight.


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> When I was looking the latest is the generation 4 reactor concepts.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Damn, how would you begin to test and compare the viability of those reactor types?


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

LouDAgreat said:


> Damn, how would you begin to test and compare the viability of those reactor types?



Same way they test everything. You should know that.

They design it.
Make a small model.
Test. Test again, and again and again.
Then they make a bigger model.
Repeat tests.
Commercialize it.

When they tested the first nuke they didnt know if it would blow up the world or whatever.


----------



## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

LouDAgreat said:


> I meant improvements in nuclear technology in general, not lessons learned from this disaster.



No, infact over the objections of the nuclear industry in general, i will state that the next generation nuclear plants soon to be approved for mass industrial usage in the US have the potential to "break as easily as a Styrofoam cup".  Ed Markey's words, not mine. And i'd trust his word, as he is the only one actually looking for transparency in this issue in between the people who say Nuclear is "100% safe Japan is an major exception" and the others who say "Nuclear is 100% dangerous we must immediately stop all Nuclear facilities"


----------



## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

> 4.21pm (1.21am JST): The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, has said he will travel to Japan as soon as possible, perhaps arriving as soon as Thursday.
> 
> Amano, who is from Japan originally, will meet with senior officials and stay one night, he told reporters this afternoon. He said he hopes to come back with "firsthand information" on the situation and address the issue of improving the flow of information to the IAEA.
> 
> ...



guardian live blog


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 16, 2011)

Inuhanyou said:


> No, infact over the objections of the nuclear industry in general, i will state that the next generation nuclear plants soon to be approved for mass industrial usage in the US have the potential to "break as easily as a Styrofoam cup".  Ed Markey's words, not mine. And i'd trust his word, as he is the only one actually looking for transparency in this issue in between the people who say Nuclear is "100% safe Japan is an major exception" and the others who say "Nuclear is 100% dangerous we must immediately stop all Nuclear facilities"



The word of a _Senator_? 

I'd go with the nuclear physicists and experts instead. What do they say?


----------



## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

CrazyMoronX said:


> I hope the plant doesn't melt into the center of the earth like that guy said it would.
> 
> I also hope it doesn't sour the idea of building more nuclear power plants. Those things are pretty nice. Good alternative for destroying the environment with fossil fuels for our energy needs.



As opposed to destroying the enviorment with radioactive waste? Many plants in the US have had injunctions placed on them for killing the majority of surrounding wildlife in their areas of effect.

Its no surprise that Kan has not been forthcoming with the Japanese people, let alone the international community about these reactors, the nuclear industry in Japan has been rocked with controversy especially within the last few years.


----------



## stream (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> *So do companies cause they dont want to be sued the fuck out of*. Dont get me wrong I personally would like to see the power grid ran by the government and treated more like a public service(since it is) but that doesnt mean we wont hire private contractors to design and build these plants.



The problem with that line of thinking is that the executive in charge wants to cut corners in order to make large profits. He will almost certainly on getting paid a big bonus, before any trouble happens. 

As long as the company makes money in the short-term, he wins. If the company is sued into oblivion, he can still keep his money.

This is one supposedly one of the reasons the financial crisis happened. Even the bankers who did understand what was going wrong were asked by their supervisors to keep quiet, because their bonuses depended on keeping doing the same thing.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

Inuhanyou said:


> No, infact over the objections of the nuclear industry in general, i will state that the next generation nuclear plants soon to be approved for mass industrial usage in the US have the potential to "break as easily as a Styrofoam cup".  Ed Markey's words, not mine. And i'd trust his word, as he is the only one actually looking for transparency in this issue in between the people who say Nuclear is "100% safe Japan is an major exception" and the others who say "Nuclear is 100% dangerous we must immediately stop all Nuclear facilities"



Are you kidding me?

Does this guy work for an oil company?



> The problem with that line of thinking is that the executive in charge wants to cut corners in order to make large profits. He will almost certainly on getting paid a big bonus, before any trouble happens.
> 
> As long as the company makes money in the short-term, he wins. If the company is sued into oblivion, he can still keep his money.
> 
> This is one supposedly one of the reasons the financial crisis happened. Even the bankers who did understand what was going wrong were asked by their supervisors to keep quiet, because their bonuses depended on keeping doing the same thing.



and you think the government is any different? Its full of people with personal interest in their own investments. Why do you think a lot of them run for office?

Regardless of these things its up to the designers to make it clear that such cuts can lead to horrible results.


----------



## Vegitto-kun (Mar 16, 2011)

apparently 4 cores are damaged.

core 1 is damaged for 70% while core 2 is 33%. the other two are unknown.

might be old news


----------



## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

LouDAgreat said:


> The word of a _Senator_?
> 
> I'd go with the nuclear physicists and experts instead. What do they say?



Well that just depends on the nuclear physicist and expert you talk to, as they'll all have conflicting information about it the same as an Oil drilling expert will have an agenda. 

The majority of people you will see on this issue are advocates completely for or against it, there aren't many who are in the middle.


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:
			
		

> Same way they test everything. You should know that.
> 
> They design it.
> Make a small model.
> ...



That all takes a lot of time and money I assume. the technology just seems too complex  for me to wrap my mind around.


----------



## Alien (Mar 16, 2011)

Fuckin hell


----------



## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> and you think the government is any different? Its full of people with personal interest in their own investments. Why do you think a lot of them run for office?
> 
> Regardless of these things its up to the designers to make it clear that such cuts can lead to horrible results.


Again, personal experience shows that government employees have a deeper sense of service than those in the public sector. They are *far* from perfect. But they are better. It's basically the difference between your average policeman and your average bouncer. On an individual level, you can find big variations, but statistically this is very significant and makes a big difference.

Again, the point is not the politicians themselves, but the different culture at _employee and administration level_. The public sector can, but is much less likely to produce fake reports to avoid controls, as TEPCO did.


----------



## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

Let us be clear that this nuclear situation only started when the nuclear plant shut down while the reactor was still hot. The generator that was supposed to be there to cool the reactor while the plant shut down was destroyed by the tsunami waves, reported to be because the generator was too close to the ground when the waves came in.

So if you want to have a super direct answer to stopping the problem, it would be to keep the generator in a safe spot away from harm when working on a nuclear plant. But then that's only assuming that something else doesn't cause a malfunction.

In in my opinion there are too many variables


----------



## Le Mâle-Pensant (Mar 16, 2011)

-Dargor- said:


> What I find puzzling is that with all the "international" experts we got, nobody sent anyone to help with the nuclear situation.
> 
> Sure the US is sending a group of around 30 right now, but the crisis started 5 days ago...
> 
> ...



We sent nuclear experts will our firemen. All of them are under japanese authorities so the Japanese decide to use them or not.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

impersonal said:


> Again, personal experience shows that government employees have a deeper sense of service than those in the public sector. They are *far* from perfect. But they are better. It's basically the difference between your average policeman and your average bouncer. On an individual level, you can find big variations, but statistically this is very significant and makes a big difference.
> 
> Again, the issue is not the politicians themselves, but the different culture at employee level. The public sector can, but is much less likely to produce fake reports to avoid controls, as TEPCO did.



Must be a French thing cause its different in America. Both can be about the same a lot of the time though.


----------



## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> Must be a French thing cause its different in America. Both can be about the same a lot of the time though.



All of it is prone to happen at one time or another, we are most assuredly not different in that regard


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## Dionysus (Mar 16, 2011)

The Japanese government is to blame for the lack of international help with the crisis with the nuclear reactors. They were trying to deal with it themselves and didn't ask for much more than consultation. Japan is also in control of utilization of international help too (US warships being an exception though). The US, for instance, has said from the start they'd help with whatever Japan needs. I'd say the problem has been exacerbated by a bit of face saving, but I obviously don't have an in with the machinations behind Japan's decisions.

Then you have to look at who could have helped from the start. Countries with engineers and scientists familiar with the reactor type would be ideal. In these later stages, maybe some Russians need to be brought in for some heavy-handed crisis management...


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## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

If you go to 2ch, everyone is very pessimistic about what Tepco says, because the information keeps changing and no one is getting a full story. Its mirrored in international declarations about the Japanese government not being open about what exactly is going on and what the plan is.

That unfortunately is dangerous when all this is going on


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## Shock Therapy (Mar 16, 2011)

i heard the fallout can travel to as far as the US


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## LouDAgreat (Mar 16, 2011)

rawrawraw said:


> i heard the fallout can travel to as far as the US


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## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

U best be trolling? That's not possible, even with the full scale radiation output, only Japan would be affected.

Even in Chernobyl, the worst case scenario, only the nations in the immediate vicinity were impacted


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## Ludwig The Holy Blade (Mar 16, 2011)

Here's the part I don't get: Since the reactors are all turned off, shouldn't they eventually start cooling down by themselves?


----------



## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Doggie said:


> Here's the part I don't get: Since the reactors are all turned off, shouldn't they eventually start cooling down by themselves?



no .... the materials are radioactive so they must be cooled till they decay (some years)


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## Inuhanyou (Mar 16, 2011)

It is designed to take 6 years to cool infact  Time Japan doesn't have


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## Dionysus (Mar 16, 2011)

Doggie said:


> Here's the part I don't get: Since the reactors are all turned off, shouldn't they eventually start cooling down by themselves?


You can turn off the reactors but you can't turn off the radioactivity in the materials in the reactors (and the spent rods). The radioactivity will continue until many half-lives have passed (possibly of several species) and you are left with (a vast majority of) non-radioactive products. These decay events will continue to produce particles that heat the surroundings* (and damage biological tissues).

*they do do more than heat, but it depends on what is radiating.


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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

is all of japan goign to be affected (by radiation not the crisis in general)


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## abcd (Mar 16, 2011)

Reuters reports that the US government is now advising its citizens who live within 80km of the Fukushima nuclear plant evacuate or take shelter indoors. The Japanese government has not altered its 20km exclusion zone.


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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

I dont know what they can do at this point
but at least no one can say there are not still heroes in this world


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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

The UN is going to hold an emergency meeting about this


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## Ludwig The Holy Blade (Mar 16, 2011)

> The AP news agency is quoting Tepco as saying a new power line is almost ready which could end the crisis. The disruption of power to the pumps which send coolant through the reactors is what led to their overheating.




From BBC

Fuck yeah


----------



## BassGS (Mar 16, 2011)

So what's the condition now? Haven't been update to date since last night. Is it better or worse?


----------



## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

BassGS said:


> So what's the condition now? Haven't been update to date since last night. Is it better or worse?



considering america has advised (japan has not heeded so far) that the evacuation zone is extended to 80km i would say worse

tokyo is three times that distance from fukishima

I am really hoping what doggie says actually happens (though with the reactors so damaged who knows how much it will help)
and also that the UN literally charges into Japan (why the hell is the meeting tomorrow they need to deal with this now)


----------



## MrCinos (Mar 16, 2011)

> In these later stages, maybe some Russians need to be brought in for some heavy-handed crisis management...


There is a team of experienced russian engineers and specialists in nuclear plants ready on standby on Far East, along with some who has real experience in Chernobyl. But for the time being Japan don't give them permission to fly to Japan and cooperate with Japanese experts in that field.


----------



## Ludwig The Holy Blade (Mar 16, 2011)

BassGS said:


> So what's the condition now? Haven't been update to date since last night. Is it better or worse?



I'd say it's worse for sure. The radiation exposure allowance of the workers had to be bumped up from 100 millsieverts to 250 millisieverts

The positive side of things is that there may be an actual solution on the horizon. If they can hold out until the power is reconnected, then things could turn out ok.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

Doggie said:


> I'd say it's worse for sure. The radiation exposure allowance of the workers had to be bumped up from 100 millsieverts to 250 millisieverts
> 
> The positive side of things is that there may be an actual solution on the horizon. If they can hold out until the power is reconnected, then things could turn out ok.



oh for god sakes japan this is not time for isolationism

The sick thing is i think today or yesterday japan just came out with commericals for the nintendo 3DS


----------



## emROARS (Mar 16, 2011)

assddrago said:


> oh for god sakes japan this is not time for isolationism
> 
> The sick thing is i think today or yesterday japan just came out with commericals for the nintendo 3DS



I agree.

Just let us bloody help you damnit.


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## Raphaelah (Mar 16, 2011)

In my life I never imagined that japan of all countries would ever need donation 

that just puts things into perspective for me, no one is above poverty...

the latest news says that there's now another earthquake? is this true


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## Hellrasinbrasin (Mar 16, 2011)

If its not The Middle East raising up a shitstorm on the Markets then its Asia with the on-going crisis in japan to many negative changes are affecting the market + Oil and food stuffs.


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## MrCinos (Mar 16, 2011)




----------



## Miss Fortune (Mar 16, 2011)

I hope those people who are in the middle of the blizzard are able to survive. Hopefully supplies will get to them.


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## ExoSkel (Mar 16, 2011)

Pretty sure they saved those dogs.


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## Raphaelah (Mar 16, 2011)




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## Xion (Mar 16, 2011)

And yet Japanese manga/anime continue this week even as a world-ending earthquake and nuclear catastrophe occur!

It's all about priorities I guess in Japan.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)




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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)




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## Raphaelah (Mar 16, 2011)

> And yet Japanese manga/anime continue this week even as a world-ending earthquake and nuclear catastrophe occur!
> 
> It's all about priorities I guess in Japan.



I don't feel like reading\watching anything these days 

god I wish Japanese would move out of there already.. create a country of their own or something....

that's just crazy to have the smartest most productive people live in the shittest place on earth


----------



## Xion (Mar 16, 2011)

Raphaelah said:


> I don't feel like reading\watching anything these days
> 
> *god I wish Japanese would move out of there already.. create a country of their own or something....
> 
> that's just crazy to have the smartest most productive people live in the shittest place on earth *



What and what!?

They have a country, it's called Japan.

And it's nowhere near the shittiest place on Earth. I'd say it's one of the most beautiful and nicest places when natural disasters aren't occurring. I mean at least it's not Australia!


----------



## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

Xion said:


> What and what!?
> 
> They have a country, it's called Japan.
> 
> And it's nowhere near the shittiest place on Earth. I'd say it's one of the most beautiful and nicest places when natural disasters aren't occurring. I mean at least it's not Australia!



maybe but if the crisis occurs and they have to flee tokyo
then where do you put over 40 million people (Kyoto?)


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## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

As much as restoring power is a very good thing, I have to stress that there has been several major explosions near the reactors. It would be a miracle if everything worked fine.

However this is likely to solve the situation a lot for those units least affected so far, especially pools 5 and 6... and presumably it would help with the others.


----------



## Raphaelah (Mar 16, 2011)

> What and what!?
> 
> They have a country, it's called Japan.
> 
> And it's nowhere near the shittiest place on Earth. I'd say it's one of the most beautiful and nicest places when natural disasters aren't occurring. I mean at least it's not Australia!



Hold your horses Missy, I meant in terms of natural disasters they are infamous for them...

unless you had something else in mind.. that's what I meant

and I know they probably have a great place blah blah blah, but now it's all in ruins..

any news about the nuclear reactor?


----------



## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

impersonal said:


> As much as restoring power is a very good thing, I have to stress that there has been several major explosions near the reactors. It would be a miracle if everything worked fine.
> 
> However this should improve the situation a lot for those least affected so far, e.g. pools 5 and 6.



Agreed but It would be better if they at least got on with it, get that line in (and worked out fine is one thing lessoning the impact by even a small percent is much different thing )

what really burning me is how slow things still seem to be going
what the UN's going to meet and talk about it Tomorrow!?


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 16, 2011)




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## kazuri (Mar 16, 2011)

> story about a stupid feral dog amid a nuclear meltdown, only the japanese.



Feral dogs tend to stay hip with fashion and stay updated with the latest collars.


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## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

They're now using an anti-rioting water cannon police van. Apparently this allows to spray water from a safer distance with regards to radioactivity.


----------



## Sword Sage (Mar 16, 2011)

Oh Good, I hope it works.


----------



## Miss Fortune (Mar 16, 2011)

If this doesn't work the god damn it all.


----------



## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

Wouldn't want to live in Tokyo right now. Hope the wind keeps blowing everything towards the ocean.


			
				BBC said:
			
		

> 2035: US officials have concluded that the Japanese warnings have been insufficient, and that, deliberately or not, they have understated the potential threat of what is taking place inside the nuclear facility, according to the New York Times. Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, earlier said he believed that all the water in the spent fuel pool at reactor 4 had boiled dry, leaving fuel rods stored there exposed. "We believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures," he told a Congressional committee.



We're looking at a *possible* important release of radioactivity into the soil, sea and athmosphere, which would contaminate the immediate area for a long time and briefly affect a wider area.


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

impersonal said:


> They're now using an anti-rioting water cannon police van. Apparently this allows to spray water from a safer distance with regards to radioactivity.



i didn't realize anti -rioting equipment can work from such distances


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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

^
I hear two things on that department

1) that people have started keeping radiation checks in Tokyo

2) A lot of people are leaving to Osaka

Water canons, UN meeting, or this new powerline whatever they do they have to do it now

I hate to say this but I am getting a little annoyed at japan's handling this right now
One of the Japanese officials said the americans were wrong about reacotr four and that conditions were stable


Its clearly not stable, whats the point in pretending otherwise mass evacuation is needed if you can't stop a full meltdown at least get people farther away from the area (I feel like I could cry, all these people)


In any case CNN coverage is not perfect on this
comments on this section
"Regarding slide 5 and "routes to Osaka and Shinkansen were popular": Shinkansen is not a place. It is the Japanese word for bullet train. "
"another person in tokyo who posted on another thread said this isn't true ... the only people who are leaving are non-japanese ... "
If that last comment is tru then i say for the love of god get started on the leaving people, national pride is not worth your families
(then again its not possible to just move 35 million people is it)


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## ExoSkel (Mar 16, 2011)

Out of all this disaster, the rich only seeks to get richer with stock market play.


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

start thinking japanese, it's gonna happen.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu0B8KwOXMc[/YOUTUBE]

whereever will they go?


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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

the power lines situation


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

sounds fraught with peril, why don't i remember lack of power being the problem?


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## kayanathera (Mar 16, 2011)

On the bright side just imagine how many good mangas and anime are gonna pop up from this situationtentacular rape is so yesterday, radioactive bitch is the future


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

kayanathera said:


> On the bright side just imagine how many good mangas and anime are gonna pop up from this situationtentacular rape is so yesterday, radioactive bitch is the future



why would u suggest radiation rape mangas at a time like this? too soon bra


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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

The idea behind restoring power is that it could turn the coolents back on

At any rate it seems that the people at the plant (according to CNN) are getting used to idea of sacrificing their lives in orde rto try and stop this from going any further

one thing that puzzles me on the reactor four situation is why americans only advised in 80km evacuation
it seems it would be much farther if this happens

EDIT
and in the ultimate act of madness, this weeks issue of one piece just came out


----------



## Le Mâle-Pensant (Mar 16, 2011)

> EDF, Areva Sent Nuclear Assistance Equipment To Japan
> First Published Wednesday, 16 March 2011 05:37 pm - ? 2011 Dow Jones
> 
> PARIS -(Dow Jones)- French state-controlled power company Electricite de France SA (EDF.FR) and French state-controlled nuclear engineering firm Areva SA (CEI.FR) have sent nuclear assistance equipment to Japan to help in the nuclear crisis there, following a major accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co. Inc.'s (9501.TO) Fukushima nuclear plant, Areva's Chief Executive Anne Lauvergeon said Wednesday.
> ...


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

FapperWocky said:


> why would u suggest radiation rape mangas at a time like this? too soon bra



Cause for all we know there are crazy manga artists thinking of this shit right now.


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## The Weeknd (Mar 16, 2011)

I hope everything goes ok in Japan.


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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

I wonder why they havent started on the idea on page three of this yet


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

dang, japanese are persecuting the radiated


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## mayumi (Mar 16, 2011)

There is no water in the spent fuel and the situation is dire. Annocement on cnn.
i really wish they would try to give any sort of solutions instead of causing alarm. Is there a solution? What can the normal people in japan do?


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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

mayumi said:


> There is no water in the spent fuel and the situation is dire. Annocement on cnn.
> i really wish they would try to give any sort of solutions instead of causing alarm. Is there a solution? What can the normal people in japan do?



some are fleeing southwest but in my opinion not enough



They are trying to put a power line which THEORETICALLY could turn the coolents back on and at least help the situation

I for one think they should get ready with this idea

"I think the last ace in the hole is the Japanese Air Force, the military at some point may have to take over, may have to bury these reactors in concrete just like we did at Chernobyl, sandbagging the reactor with 5,000 tons of concrete, boric acid and sand," Kaku said."


----------



## Saufsoldat (Mar 16, 2011)

FapperWocky said:


> sounds fraught with peril, why don't i remember lack of power being the problem?



Because you didn't inform yourself?


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

Saufsoldat said:


> Because you didn't inform yourself?



yeah, ur full of shit 

if it was that simple as plugging into a different outlet why didn't they inform themselves and do it?  sounds like a misdirected effort.

i mean, do they not have mobile generators you know?


----------



## Jeαnne (Mar 16, 2011)

Raphaelah said:


> I don't feel like reading\watching anything these days
> 
> god I wish Japanese would move out of there already.. create a country of their own or something....
> 
> that's just crazy to have the smartest most productive people live in the shittest place on earth


they should come to brazil


so much secure space spent here with nothing T_T


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## Tkae (Mar 16, 2011)

FapperWocky said:


> yeah, ur full of shit
> 
> if it was that simple as plugging into a different outlet why didn't they inform themselves and do it?  sounds like a misdirected effort.



The problem with it is that getting the power grid up might not do anything, since the tsunami or earthquake may have possibly damaged the coolant systems. And if the tsunami didn't do it, there's a possibility that the hydrogen explosions may have damaged them. 

So it's a gamble worth taking, but not a surefire solution. 

On an unrelated note, I can't believe they let the water out of the cooling pond (for whatever reason). Rule #1 of any sort of pond: If there's no water, it's not a pond. 

Rule #1.a of ponds: If it's a cooling pond with fuel rods, KEEP WATER IN IT friend!


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## Razgriez (Mar 16, 2011)

> god I wish Japanese would move out of there already.. create a country of their own or something....



God I cant believe I missed this retarded comment. People migrated to the island roughly 35,000 years ago so they have been there for quite some time now.


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## Jeαnne (Mar 16, 2011)

guys...the world is changing, the earth is more active now...what happened in Japan is probably only the tip of the iceberg of what is going to happen around there the next years


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

Tkae said:


> The problem with it is that getting the power grid up might not do anything, since the tsunami or earthquake may have possibly damaged the coolant systems. And if the tsunami didn't do it, there's a possibility that the hydrogen explosions may have damaged them.
> 
> So it's a gamble worth taking, but not a surefire solution.
> 
> ...



if the cooling system is damaged , powering it won't help.


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## BassGS (Mar 16, 2011)

Xion said:


> What and what!?
> 
> They have a country, it's called Japan.
> 
> And it's nowhere near the shittiest place on Earth. I'd say it's one of the most beautiful and nicest places when natural disasters aren't occurring. I mean at *least it's not Australia*!


Explain.



Raphaelah said:


> I don't feel like reading\watching anything these days
> 
> god I wish Japanese would move out of there already.. create a country of their own or something....
> 
> that's just crazy to have the *smartest most productive people live in the shittest place on earth *



Says who?


----------



## BassGS (Mar 16, 2011)

I think we should stop trying to find little details on the situation and wait till everything blows over. Relax everyone.

Any good news lol? After I find out I'll probably stop viewing this thread till the end of the week when things are better. People are too gloomy here.


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## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-japan-quake-level-idUSTRE72F9K720110316


http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-japan-quake-idUSTRE72A0SS20110316?pageNumber=3

latest from reuters

seems like radiation levels significantly went down in tokyo and the plant (for the momment)


----------



## The Space Cowboy (Mar 16, 2011)

Reminder:  This thread is about the current situation in Japan regarded the reactors, damage from the earthquake + tsunami, and any relief effort styled things.  Additionally, it is not about what-ifs, and shoulda-woulda-couldas, but what is.

Excessively off topic posts will be pruned.


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## Asclepius (Mar 16, 2011)

#Shueisha (mangas like Naruto, One Piece and Bleach) made a video to help victims of the earthquake in japan 
Help Japan with one click: 

you can check the link at news section (first link) at Shueisha's home page: 

_Thanks to zenmai for the info_

Sorry, if it was posted before.


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## impersonal (Mar 16, 2011)

They're currently spraying water from helicopters. It's not working very well.


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 16, 2011)

And what's your proof of that, impersonal?


----------



## The Space Cowboy (Mar 16, 2011)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> And what's your proof of that, impersonal?



It's on NHK world English right now.  However they have been suspended.  Water cannon trucks on standby


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 16, 2011)

i can't imagine a cooling system, even if powered, can still be intact and effective after all the shit that's happened.


----------



## -Dargor- (Mar 16, 2011)




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## A. Waltz (Mar 16, 2011)

someone please catch me up on what's happened so far?


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## -Dargor- (Mar 16, 2011)

They tried spraying water on reactors 3 & 4, only one out of four attempts was successful.

People are speculating that the helicopter was staying at a distance of 60-100 yards away from the reactor because a 100 yards would be the safe distance in case of KABOOM.

Their next option is bringing in water cannon trucks but they'll have to get in closer than the safe distance and put people at risk should shit hit the fan while they're spraying.

It really looks like they're running out of ideas. Might as well just evacuate everybody and let it blow.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

FapperWocky said:


> i can't imagine a cooling system, even if powered, can still be intact and effective after all the shit that's happened.



they have to try


----------



## Xion (Mar 16, 2011)

It always amazes me how in times when shit actually hits the fan people flail around like headless chickens with seemingly no real plans, sense of scope/urgency, or ideas.

Makes me think that most "safety" systems and measures in place are merely for show and that when real disaster strikes we as a whole just go "Ummmm...."

Happened in Katrina, happening here, happens in most real crises.

We need people who cut through the BS and get shit done and the international community needs to have a concerted effort to solve problems like this. But the reality is quite the opposite imo.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 16, 2011)

-Dargor- said:


> They tried spraying water on reactors 3 & 4, only one out of four attempts was successful.
> 
> People are speculating that the helicopter was staying at a distance of 60-100 yards away from the reactor because a 100 yards would be the safe distance in case of KABOOM.
> 
> ...



the workers have already said they will die to try to stop this

but there should definately be more evacuation


----------



## Shinigami Perv (Mar 16, 2011)

Xion said:


> It always amazes me how in times when shit actually hits the fan people flail around like headless chickens with seemingly no real plans, sense of scope/urgency, or ideas.
> 
> *Makes me think that most "safety" systems and measures in place are merely for show and that when real disaster strikes we as a whole just go "Ummmm...."*
> 
> ...



Pretty much. The whole idea is to make us think something like nuclear reactors are perfectly safe and normal. Normally they are, that is until something extraordinary happens. 

In Katrina, you had a city living under the ocean level. Not smart, but accepted as perfectly normal before Katrina hit. In Japan, they have highly radioactive material being used to generate power in an earthquake zone. Again, this is playing with nature's fire. 

Unlike Katrina, it sounds like there's little they can do. One American official already said: 



> "They need to stop pulling out people—and step up with getting them back in the reactor to cool it. There is a recognition this is a suicide mission," the official said.




So basically, despite all our knowledge and technology and supposed mastery of natural forces, we have to rely on workers suicidally sacrificing themselves in order to save everyone else, or at a minimum delay greater disaster. It's surprising that people are surprised when nature throws a monkey wrench into our genius plans. We are masters of the earth after all, right? At least that's what we keep telling ourselves.


----------



## -Dargor- (Mar 16, 2011)

Well to be fair the whole japan reactor mess could have been avoided or greatly reduced had they followed regulations.

First off, they didn't follow the baseline model for their concrete installations, they used less but I don't remember what reason they gave to explain it (but it's a big mistake regardless when you're dealing with nuclear you don't just "drop" safety measures).

Then there's the location, they put all 6 reactors mashed together in the same area because people didn't like the idea of living near a nuclear plant.

Had they spread them around more, we'd only have 1 maybe 2 reactors causing trouble. 

To an extent, the government had it coming. Add to it the lack of transparency that's starting to show up and the fact that they won't let outsiders in... the japanese government is looking more and more like the reason the situation is becoming so dire.

But I do agree that people think they own the planet when in fact, we're nothing more than overgrown parasites with a big ego.

My thoughts go to those guys still going in to buy the rest of their people more time to get the hell out.


----------



## Xion (Mar 16, 2011)

Shinigami Perv said:


> Pretty much. The whole idea is to make us think something like nuclear reactors are perfectly safe and normal. Normally they are, that is until something extraordinary happens.
> 
> In Katrina, you had a city living under the ocean level. Not smart, but accepted as perfectly normal before Katrina hit. In Japan, they have highly radioactive material being used to generate power in an earthquake zone. Again, this is playing with nature's fire.
> 
> ...



Well it's unfortunate. I mean realistically to prevent a catastrophe a cross-national approach should be organized with massive manpower utilized to work on a solution. I mean they need to cool some fuel rod pools. Sure that's a vast simplification given the radiation, temperatures, and explosions. But given the looming catastrophe and all the world's resources, surely a solution could be found to cool these reactors.

But realistically so many are not reaching out to the appropriate people, are not motivated enough to try to organize such an endeavor, do not know how to organize such an endeavor, or are motivated by some other factor (preserve sense of pride, rationalize away the seriousness, etc.).

Meh it's just sad imo. The main problem is that these plants were built in an era prior to Chernobyl. Although I question the design of backup generators in a location that could be flooded by a tsunami given Japan's history. >_>

But even in Katrina, a disaster we knew could happen and that had a week of warning for, our response was woefully inadequate. Same with the Gulf oil spill. 

The fact is that unless there is somebody so charismatic and motivating to get shit done and to mobilize resources, you end up with a bunch of bumbling fools almost that don't know what to do to deal with the problem.

It's really scary because given a mega-disaster, we'd be absolutely fucked. I mean Japan is at the mercy of the wind. An entire modernized country of the highest caliber is at the mercy of some wind and chance! That is unbelievable. A worst case scenario could see mass panic and exodus in Tokyo and almost shut down Japan because of one nuclear plant having problems! o_O It really is unfathomable. But that's the reality.

Government likes to give the illusion of power and stability, but it's extremely fragile and the slightest derivation from the norm could unleash all hell.

I shudder to think how many decades we'd be in the dark after a devastating . I mean if Katrina's effect on one city with decades of knowledge and one week of warning could make the entire United States government look inept, I shudder to think what a mass power outage country- or world-wide would do with communication channels and modern technology cut off.


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## BassGS (Mar 16, 2011)

So its better now right?


----------



## Mintaka (Mar 16, 2011)

Jeαnne said:


> guys...the world is changing, the earth is more active now...what happened in Japan is probably only the tip of the iceberg of what is going to happen around there the next years


Got any evidence to back up your claims or are you just fear mongering.



> It always amazes me how in times when shit actually hits the fan people  flail around like headless chickens with seemingly no real plans, sense  of scope/urgency, or ideas.
> 
> Makes me think that most "safety" systems and measures in place are  merely for show and that when real disaster strikes we as a whole just  go "Ummmm...."


You're an idiot.

These things aren't just for show otherwise we'd be having them happen all over the fucking country all the damn time.  Tell me how many nuclear reactors went to this level again?  Oh yeah that's right only one.  The rest shut down just like they were designed to.    Do you know how many times japan gets hit by fucking earthquakes?   According to your logic it's all for show so these things should have  melted down years ago.  

  This statement is just mindbogglingly idiotic.


----------



## Ennoea (Mar 16, 2011)

The reason the situation go to this point is due to the Government. The US offered coolants that could have possibly averted this debacle, but no they preferred pumping sea water. The Government is solely to blame for this. Even now just look at the news to see the state of the zone hit by the Tsunami. There's no food or water going in, the local governments can't contact central who keep hiding the truth from them. How can anyone trust such an stupid government?


----------



## Xion (Mar 16, 2011)

Tokoyami said:


> You're an idiot.
> 
> These things aren't just for show otherwise we'd be having them happen all over the fucking country all the damn time.  Tell me how many nuclear reactors went to this level again?  Oh yeah that's right only one.  The rest shut down just like they were designed to.    Do you know how many times japan gets hit by fucking earthquakes?   According to your logic it's all for show so these things should have  melted down years ago.
> 
> This statement is just mindbogglingly idiotic.



A lot of "safety" protocols are just for show, to ease the public, or some group of legislators. Sure they exist on paper and are sometimes implemented fairly well, but many safety systems have lots of flaws either logistically (think metal detectors at a school entrance significantly reducing the risk of a shooting) or in practice (ignoring safety protocols or documentation, which happens a lot both in this case and even back during the BP spill as examples).

I'm not saying every safety system doesn't work or that investing in such protocols is useless. It's common sense that you need to have something in place. But so often there are many holes, scenarios not planned for, or the creation merely satisfies some innate desire for safety without scientific considerations.

I am saying more in general to a variety of situations. Nuclear-wise they work well for SOP and minor disturbances, but the company that operates these plants has had LOTS of safety violations over the years and issues with following protocol and there are obvious design flaws with these older plants. Thus when shit hit the fan (and it did), they were in a bit of a pinch. Only when major problems expose those gaping holes do we go "Aw shucks, it won't happen again!" and it always does due to the three aforementioned reasons. The main problem I'd argue is "control," in other words implementing a safety plan and having it being impartial, analyzed, and reviewed enough to be effective.

Everyday SOP safety systems work quite well, but given the threat of major disasters or problems, the reality is that usually there are flaws and issues whether due to design problems (like the deadman's switches that didn't go off during the BP oil spill amongst numerous other issues that are likely pervasive in the industry) or due to ignoring safety protocols (as can be seen clearly here) or whether due to ineffective safeguards in the first place (TSA in America and the ridiculous regulations they submit people to mitigate incidents).

A little more detailed than your "ur so dumb lolz" comment, but I figured I'd clarify.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 17, 2011)

how was my post offtopic?  america said the situation is much worse than japanese govt is saying, it's a disaster of communication.

also, wat the hell is the point of dumping this water on the rods? they don't stabilize they just evaporate the water expose themselves again. what's the goal?


----------



## The Space Cowboy (Mar 17, 2011)

FapperWocky said:


> how was my post offtopic?  america said the situation is much worse than japanese govt is saying, it's a disaster of communication.
> 
> also, wat the hell is the point of dumping this water on the rods? they don't stabilize they just evaporate the water expose themselves again. what's the goal?



It's not contributing much to the thread if you just post "What the hell?!"  I'm trying to keep the thread informative.  Post updates relating to the situation or refrain from posting

You can watch NHK news streaming live in English even as we speak if you want up to the minute news.


----------



## Jeαnne (Mar 17, 2011)

Tokoyami said:


> Got any evidence to back up your claims or are you just fear mongering.



so, mister know everything, why dont you explain 4 big earthquakes in less than 10 years?

the type of earthquake that happens only 1 each 10 years? do you have an explanation?

what is evident is that, thing are not like before anymore, its changing



FapperWocky said:


> how was my post offtopic?  america said the situation is much worse than japanese govt is saying, it's a disaster of communication.
> 
> also, wat the hell is the point of dumping this water on the rods? they don't stabilize they just evaporate the water expose themselves again. what's the goal?



water absorb heating D:...even when its evaporating, its still helping to try to make the temperature go down...if they dont throw water the temperature will go up without control :x...they need to at least try


----------



## Tkae (Mar 17, 2011)

FapperWocky said:


> if the cooling system is damaged , powering it won't help.



Isn't that what I just said?



> getting the power grid up might not do anything, since the tsunami or earthquake may have possibly damaged the coolant systems.



Yeah, that's exactly what I just said


----------



## Mintaka (Mar 17, 2011)

> so, mister know everything, why dont you explain 4 big earthquakes in less than 10 years?
> 
> the type of earthquake that happens only 1 each 10 years? do you have an explanation?


No I don't.  That doesn't however necessitate that I draw bad conclusions either.  Want my opinion?

We won't be seeing these happen again in those regions anytime soon just like they aren't supposed to. They are all on highly active earthquake zones and it's inevitable that these big quakes would happen.  It just so happened that they hit nearly all at once.  What's more likely is this is just a sick coincidence that they all hit so soon after another.





> what is evident is that, thing are not like before anymore, its changing


So all you have to back this up is for massive quakes one after another.  No actual proof from the people who know what they're talking about, just a conclusion you drew and are now spitting out like it's fact.


All it's really proof of is that these areas had quite a bit of tension to release.

Also you specifically stated that we should be careful because there is more to come.  Sorry but thats fearmongering.


----------



## Tkae (Mar 17, 2011)

Jeαnne said:


> so, mister know everything, why dont you explain 4 big earthquakes in less than 10 years?
> 
> the type of earthquake that happens only 1 each 10 years? do you have an explanation?
> 
> what is evident is that, thing are not like before anymore, its changing



Why are you applying an arbitrary statistic to unrelated events?

There's no rule that, "Only 1 big earthquake can happen every 10 years."

Or what? We sue Earth for violation of its contract with us?

It's a statistic, just like how every family in the US has 2.5 children. Does that mean there's half of a child in every home? That it's mandatory there be two children, one of which has a half-human growth on its back?

Some families have no children, some families have eight children. When you average them together, it somehow comes out 2.5. It's not a realistic statistic. Neither is the _average_ major earthquakes in a given time frame.

There were many decades when we had _no_ major earthquakes! Many of them! The fact that there were huge earthquakes, _which happened at known faults and plate boundaries that were suspected of having an earthquake coming_, is completely arbitrary.

But still people are shocked, and it's amazing to me. 

People are gonna think that it's just the shock of the century when California gets slammed by the earthquake of the century, because we totally didn't know about, right? Just like we didn't know about Haiti, right?

Even though we told them five or ten _years ago that there was a major fucking faultline running right underneath the city_ 

Five miles inland and they'd have been fine. Just pack up the metal and move _five miles_. We told them, they didn't listen, and then people were shocked when hundreds of thousands of Haitians died. 

We've been saying it for twenty years now that California's gonna go. And when it does, people will be shocked. 

Do you know what's shocking?



That is shocking. That is a map of the seismic activity in California.

AND PEOPLE FUCKING LIVE THERE EVEN WHEN THEY KNOW IT! 

And they're gonna be shocked when, oh noez, the huge motherfucking earthquake that's been a long time coming _actually_ comes. 

And we know it will. And we've known it will for twenty years. And people just don't care. Why is Japan not a shock?



Because it's the boundary of two oceanic plates and a continental plate 

None of this is a surprise, it's Japan. They've had earthquakes and tsunamis for as long as we can tell from their writings and artwork. They're used to it. That's why the buildings mostly survived the earthquake, because they have so many they were built to extreme standards. The tsunami did a shit-ton of damage, because you can't build for a motherfucking tsunami. 

But it survived the earthquake. 

And it'll happen again.

And again.

And again.

And every single time people will be shocked, because we, as humans, have the attention span and memories of goldfish.

Because tomorrow we're not even gonna remember Japan, and we're gonna be talking about something else entirely, who even knows wh-Wisconsin? What? 

Egypt?

Fish flakes!


----------



## Tkae (Mar 17, 2011)

And for anyone who's interested, here's the map of Japan's seismic activity:



You can find maps of anywhere in the world:


----------



## MrCinos (Mar 17, 2011)

> I went out last night to help some friends who were volunteering as security personnel between Machida City and Sagami Ohno City. I saw total strangers, both young and old, helping each other along everywhere I turned and was heartened with an overwhelming feeling of encouragement. I was so touched I hid behind the toilets and cried.
> 
> While most of the convenience stores near the station were closed because of the quake, there was just one Seven Eleven that was open. The employees had lit lots of candles and put them on the stores shelves. The cash register was not working and they could not take inventory, so the employees worked in threes, one reading up the item description and price, another punching the numbers into a calculator, and the last one using a flashlight to help them work. The store managed to operate both "cash registers" efficiently this way. Impressed!
> 
> A goth youth with white hair and body piercings walked into my store and shoved several tens of thousands of yen [several hundred dollars ] into the disaster relief fund donation box. As he walked out, I and people around me heard him saying to his buddies, "I mean, we can buy those games anytime!" At that, we all opened our wallets and put our money into the donation box. Really, you cannot judge people by their appearances.



Would be nice if similar cases were in every country affaected by natural disasters.


----------



## Tkae (Mar 17, 2011)

Tokoyami said:


> No I don't.  That doesn't however necessitate that I draw bad conclusions either.  Want my opinion?
> 
> We won't be seeing these happen again in those regions anytime soon just like they aren't supposed to. They are all on highly active earthquake zones and it's inevitable that these big quakes would happen.  It just so happened that they hit nearly all at once.  What's more likely is this is just a sick coincidence that they all hit so soon after another.



We don't know shit that they won't happen again.

It's completely valid for another big, if not bigger, earthquake to hit in the exact same fault a few miles north or south. All an earthquake does is relieves stress in the site of the tension, and what does stress do when it's relieved?

It moves somewhere else.

Somewhere else in the fault, there's that same amount of tension. It might be mitigated over the entire fault, it might be in a single other location. But the tension is still there. 

And if it wasn't relieved enough or accumulated too much in another space, it'll happen again. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe by the time I've posted this. 

You don't fuck with the planet. We're small fries. We can nuke the hell out of something and the planet will be fine. _We_ won't be fine, but the planet will. Look at Chernobyl. Nature is thriving there. It's a recognized nature reserve. Humans are gone, the planet thrives.

If it wants to, it can crush us. Hurricane Katrina, this earthquake, none of us are safe. People need to get over this comfortable ignorance of our own weakness and realize that we're sitting on who-knows-how-many time bombs. You could have a sinkhole underneath your house. 



None of this is new. Just take your red pill every morning and realize that we're naturally inclined to slip into a state of comfort about our own existence. You could die in the next five minutes from a gamma ray jet hitting the earth from a super nova somewhere in the universe.




In other news, they're getting the water trucks on task:

Japan says it is stepping up efforts to cool reactors at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Army helicopters dumped tonnes of water to try to prevent a meltdown of fuel rods. Water cannon will join the operation shortly and it is hoped electricity will be restored soon.

Increasing alarm has been expressed in the US at the crisis.

The confirmed death toll from Friday's 9.0 magnitude quake, which triggered a tsunami, has risen above 5,000.

Police say 5,178 are confirmed dead and another 8,606 people are still missing.

*'Deep condolences'*

Japan's military CH-47 Chinook helicopters began spraying tonnes of water on reactors three and four at Fukushima, 220km (137 miles) from Tokyo, at 0948 local time (0048 GMT), officials said.

The aircraft dumped four loads before leaving the site in order to minimise the crews' exposure to radiation. On Wednesday, the helicopters were forced to abort a similar operation amid concerns over high radiation levels.

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the helicopters can carry an enormous amount of water but given the high winds it is difficult to know whether it has been dropped accurately.

Japanese government spokesman Yukio Edano said at a news briefing that nuclear experts were now investigating how effective the operation was.

Meanwhile, water trucks are on standby to spray more water on the reactors.

The operation was intended to help cool the reactors and also to replenish water in a storage pond with spent fuel rods.

Officials also said they were hoping that later on Thursday they would restore the power supply to the plant, which is needed for the cooling system and backup generators.

"If the restoration work is completed, we will be able to activate various electric pumps and pour water into reactors and pools for spent nuclear fuel," a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the plant, told the AFP news agency.

US President Barack Obama spoke to Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Thursday local time amid increasing US fears over the crisis.

The US has now chartered aircraft to help Americans leave Japan and authorised the voluntary departure of relatives of diplomatic staff.

The White House said Mr Obama conveyed "deep condolences" at the loss of life and said Washington was "determined to do everything possible to support Japan".

On Wednesday, Greg Jaczko, chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), told a congressional energy and commerce subcommittee hearing in Washington that there appeared to be serious problems with attempts to cool the reactors.

"We believe that around the reactor site there are high levels of radiation."

He said it would be "very difficult for emergency workers to get near the reactors. The doses they could experience would potentially be lethal doses in a very short period of time".

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the situation appeared to be more serious than the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979.

The head of the UN's atomic energy agency, Yukio Amano, is travelling to Japan in person to gather more information.

The US state department has urged Americans living within 80km of Fukushima Daiichi to leave the area - a much wider exclusion zone than the 20km advised by the Japanese government.

Mr Edano described the US approach as "conservative".

Britain has advised its nationals currently in Tokyo and to the north of the capital to consider leaving the area.

France has urged its citizens in Tokyo to leave the country or move south. Two Air France planes are due to begin evacuating French nationals later on Thursday.

In areas of the north-east badly hit by the tsunami, bitter winter weather has added to the misery of survivors, though more supplies are now reported to be reaching them.

The governor of Fukushima prefecture, where the badly damaged nuclear plant is located, has complained that evacuation centres lack basic necessities, including sufficient hot food.

About 450,000 people have been staying in temporary shelters, many sleeping on the floor of school gymnasiums.

The crisis has also continued to affect the markets - the benchmark Nikkei index fell 3.6% in early Thursday trading in Tokyo, shortly after the yen briefly hit the highest level against the US dollar since World War II.

On Wednesday, in a rare public appearance, Japan's Emperor Akihito said he was "deeply worried" about the crisis his country was facing.

TV stations interrupted programming to show the emperor describing the crisis facing the nation as "unprecedented in scale".

BBC


----------



## Aiku (Mar 17, 2011)

Tkae said:


> We don't know shit that they won't happen again.
> 
> It's completely valid for another big, if not bigger, earthquake to hit in the exact same fault a few miles north or south. All an earthquake does is relieves stress in the site of the tension, and what does stress do when it's relieved?
> 
> ...



I'm sorry if this is off-topic, but you're scaring me.


----------



## Jeαnne (Mar 17, 2011)

Tokoyami said:


> No I don't.  That doesn't however necessitate that I draw bad conclusions either.  Want my opinion?
> 
> We won't be seeing these happen again in those regions anytime soon just like they aren't supposed to. They are all on highly active earthquake zones and it's inevitable that these big quakes would happen.  It just so happened that they hit nearly all at once.  What's more likely is this is just a sick coincidence that they all hit so soon after another.
> 
> ...




you can look at this with 2 points of view, the one that you are using is "those are isolated cases, the fact that 4 happened in less than 10 years is just coincidence", i am, on the other side, concluding that, its not a coincidence, there might be something influencing, a new situation that is making these earthquakes more common.

both of us, we are taking our own conclusions right? 

while you can accuse me of "fearmongering", i can accuse you of "casualism"

why i am concluding that there is more to come? empirical guessing, i am observing the "new" frequence of this kind of earthquake and coming to the conclusion that "if we got 4 in less than 10 years, i can expect a frequence just as high in the next years to come".

for me, it looks like the croast in the pacific is passing throught a moment of high activity or accommodation, basically, the chance of existing other place in the croast that is about to have this kind of move is pretty high in my point of view.

and unfortunatelly, japan is in a pretty active area.

dont forget that, it was the biggest one that japan ever had.


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## Tkae (Mar 17, 2011)

Jeαnne said:


> you can look at this with 2 points of view, the one that you are using is "those are isolated cases, the fact that 4 happened in less than 10 years is just coincidence", i am, on the other side, concluding that, its not a coincidence, there might be something influencing, a new situation that is making these earthquakes more common.
> 
> both of us, we are taking our own conclusions right?
> 
> ...



It's the biggest one Japan's ever had in the 100 years we've bothered recording these things, and who knows how long it was until we actually got a seismograph to Japan and got them to keep track of this shit?

100 years isn't even a second in geologic time. It's not at all unusual that things would be the biggest "we've ever had". 

That's in a time frame of _maybe_ your grandfather, if he's 110 years old. It's a long time _to us_. Not in the grand scheme of things.

Don't let your anthropocentric worldview color this as a big deal. It's not. It was only 100 years since Japan burned to the ground from an earthquake, because all of their buildings were made of wood and electricity didn't exist there yet so they were all using oil lanterns


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## The Space Cowboy (Mar 17, 2011)

Guys, that's really a meta-debate.  Take it elsewhere.  This particular quake is a big deal in the here and now, what we think of it--not so much.  If you've got additional news regarding developments, share it.



It looks like they're working to get everything back to normal and are getting their act together regarding restoring communications, and electric power.


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## Tkae (Mar 17, 2011)

The Space Cowboy said:


> Guys, that's really a meta-debate.  Take it elsewhere.  This particular quake is a big deal in the here and now, what we think of it--not so much.



Fine 

More pics:


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## Kαrin (Mar 17, 2011)

Alien said:


> Fuckin hell





That's scary.


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## John Carter of Mars (Mar 17, 2011)

Was there Tuesday (Japan time), not take this as any light matter, since they're many bereaved of this disaster, I saw a lot of Japanese people still very dedicated to their code of behavior - showing not the slightest bit of emotion, and holding a firm composure of who they are and continually carrying on their business.
It's admirable, but at the same time very sad, because I think they just don't know how to respond besides do that. That harmony is still not yet disturbed amidst the disaster right now.  
I can tell the entire nation shows very high cooperation, and doesn't resort to panic and unnecessary emotional outbreaks that may lead to a devastating spiral of depression. 
Going there this fall for school, and hoping I can somehow volunteer in the relief that is being provide right now. So far numerous support groups, and investments going into the relief effort. I think it's being handled very well by the people again.


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 17, 2011)

cnn reporter speculated that temperatures in the chambers could be reaching 10k degrees.  what temp does it take to incinerate the atmosphere?


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## Tkae (Mar 17, 2011)

John Carter of Mars said:


> Was there Tuesday (Japan time), not take this as any light matter, since they're many bereaved of this disaster, I saw a lot of Japanese people still very dedicated to their code of behavior - showing not the slightest bit of emotion, and holding a firm composure of who they are and continually carrying on their business.
> It's admirable, but at the same time very sad, because I think they just don't know how to respond besides do that. That harmony is still not yet disturbed amidst the disaster right now.
> I can tell the entire nation shows very high cooperation, and doesn't resort to panic and unnecessary emotional outbreaks that may lead to a devastating spiral of depression.
> Going there this fall for school, and hoping I can somehow volunteer in the relief that is being provide right now. So far numerous support groups, and investments going into the relief effort. I think it's being handled very well by the people again.



Yeah, that's why I'm a little surprised by people comparing it to Hurricane Katrina and how bad the looting was. I think it's just a difference in society -- Americans are individualistic, and naturally became self-providing to survive, where, while their stoicism is admirable, they're more community-oriented and aren't sure how to act when the function of their community is disrupted.

More pics:

This one's pretty cool, it shows (in minutes) the travel time of the P-waves (primary waves, which are the first of two waves involved in an earthquake).



And then a really cool article:








The 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan on March 11 shortened Earth’s day by 1.8 millionths of a second, according to NASA scientists. Earth still tilts on its axis by 23.5 degrees, as before. But, since the March 11 earthquake, Earth spins faster than before, and our day is ever so slightly shorter from sunrise to sunset.

This change is so small that sophisticated instruments cannot detect it. Instead, a team of scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory calculated the change in Earth’s rate of spin, using computers and earthquake data.

Via ScienceBlogs

EarthSky’s Beth Lebwohl spoke to Richard S. Gross, the team’s leader and a senior scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His group used seismic data showing the amount of slippage in the fault line necessary to create the Japan earthquake, in order to calculate the shift in mass inside Earth and subsequent change in Earth’s rate of spin.



> This is just like a spinning ice skater. As she moves her arms closer to her body, she spins faster. The Earth is similar to that. If the mass of the Earth moves closer to its rotation axis, the planet will spin faster.



Overall, Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees relative to the orbital plane at which Earth travels around the sun. This tilt causes our four seasons, and this tilt has not changed. What has changed is the orientation of the solid Earth with respect to our planet’s tilt. In other words, the earthquake rearranged Earth’s mass, bringing more mass a bit closer to the Earth’s rotation axis, causing the Earth to rotate slightly faster and the length of the day to shorten.



> This change doesn’t effect the (degree) of tilt of the axis of Earth in space, or the orbit of the Earth around the sun. The only way Earth’s tilt or orbit can be affected is if some external force – like an asteroid – hits the Earth. These are internal processes – earthquakes or winds or currents. They can only change how the Earth’s mass is balanced. The Earth is a big massive rotating body. Anything that is reasonable to happen is going to cause only a very small change. Earth really is a very stable system.



Dr. Gross told EarthSky that – while a shift in Earth’s axis and rotational speed might sound striking, perhaps even scary – Earth is shifting slightly all the time, owing mostly to atmospheric and ocean currents.



> It’s a perfectly natural motion of the Earth, and the biggest cause of this motion are changes in the atmospheric winds, and changes in the ocean currents. The winds and the currents carry a lot of energy with them, and that energy can be exchanged with the solid Earth to cause Earth’s rotation to change.



If you were to stop the winds completely, Dr. Gross said, you would change the length of Earth’s day by about 4 milliseconds. He added that other earthquakes have also shifted Earth’s axis, for example, the February 2010 earthquake in Chile and an even stronger earthquake in Chile in 1960.



> The largest earthquake that has happened in Earth’s recorded history was the 1960 earthquake in Chile. I did the same calculations for that earthquake (as for the 2011 Japan earthquake and 2010 Chile earthquake), and, according to my calculations, the 1960 earthquake should have shortened the length of the day by 8 microseconds.



Chile earthquake might have shortened Earth’s day, but how?

He explained that his figures on the shifting caused by Japan’s earthquake are preliminary. His team is still working on the calculations.



> We’re looking at the observations right now to see if these predicted effects are actually observable, but it will take some time for us to reduce the data – that is, to reduce the effects of the atmosphere and oceans – to see the much smaller effects caused by the earthquake. But if we’re successful, this will be the first time that we’ll see a verified effect of the earthquake on the Earth’s rotation.



The magnitude-8.9 earthquake that struck northern Japan on Friday not only changed the balance of the planet and altered Earth’s spin. It also moved the coastline of the island nation of Japan. Global positioning stations closest to the earthquake’s epicenter jumped eastward by up to 13 feet. In the meantime, our day has gotten shorter by 1.8 millionths of a second.


----------



## Jeαnne (Mar 17, 2011)

Tkae said:


> *Spoiler*: __
> 
> 
> 
> ...


you wrote too much , basically what i am saying is, while these cases can not be related, they can

it has always been an active area? YES, but, what is so absurd about taking the conclusion that its more active than normal now after 4 big earthquakes?



Japan, Chile, New Zealand, Haiti, what they have in common? they are too close to the big ass pacific plate, and too close to the frontiers of the smaller ones (philiphines, nasca, cocos and caribean), if the pacific one is going through some kind of accommodation, all the little ones will be influenced

do you really think that there is 0% chances of it being related? its the earth's physics 


oh and answering to your other comment, 100 years is little to the earth, yes, now what stops this area from being more active now than it was 50 years ago? does it make my point of view invalid?

i am not saying "OMG WE GUNNA DIE THE WORLD WILL END", i am saying "right now is not the same as we were used to 50/100/200 years ago", thats it.





i rest my case, next year when we have a new big ass earthquake we discuss this again.


----------



## Jin-E (Mar 17, 2011)

I guess the difficulty in getting manned helicopters above the reactors strengthens the case for developing unmanned helicopters and hangar jets.


----------



## PikaCheeka (Mar 17, 2011)

Probably unnecessary but I didn't see anything on it yet. From the Associated Press about an hour ago: US Authorizes American Evacuations Out of Japan.

*Spoiler*: _long._ 






> WASHINGTON -- The United States has authorized the first evacuations of Americans out of Japan, taking a tougher stand on the deepening nuclear crisis and warning U.S. citizens to defer all non-essential travel to any part of the country as unpredictable weather and wind conditions risked spreading radioactive contamination.
> 
> President Barack Obama placed a telephone call to Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Wednesday to discuss Japan's efforts to recover from last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami, and the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Dai-chi plant. Obama promised Kan that the U.S. would offer constant support for its close friend and ally, and "expressed his extraordinary admiration for the character and resolve of the Japanese people," the White House said.
> 
> ...





There are way too many things crammed into that article, so I'm not sure how accurate all of it is. 



The Space Cowboy said:


> It looks like they're working to get everything back to normal and are getting their act together regarding restoring communications, and electric power.



Yea one of my friends was able to get a ticket into Iwaki as early as Saturday night, Tokyo by Monday, and she got a plane ticket to Boston Tuesday. I was surprised that the transportation system was that organized so early on, especially in evacuation area where she was living. Granted, she got out soon after the first explosion when the warning was still 10 KM and probably avoided the rush, but I was still surprised.


----------



## Vegitto-kun (Mar 17, 2011)

this might of been posted before but this story warms my heart.

big change compared to the nuclear troubles.


Dog in Japan stays by the side of its ailing friend in the rubble - Yahoo! News


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

heh (slight tears in eyes)

this weeks isue of naruto came out

thank you Mr. Kishimoto but i would prefer you were at safer ground right now (you and millions of other people)


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## The Weeknd (Mar 17, 2011)

Tkae said:


> We don't know shit that they won't happen again.
> 
> It's completely valid for another big, if not bigger, earthquake to hit in the exact same fault a few miles north or south. All an earthquake does is relieves stress in the site of the tension, and what does stress do when it's relieved?
> 
> ...





SERIOUSLY DUDE.



I already know this anyways lol

Out of topic: 2000th post YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


----------



## Bender (Mar 17, 2011)

Power out tonight in Japan


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## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

TEPCO claims that the water shooting was working in cooling down the reactor (even though radiation levels are still high)

well they can try to save face all they want but it looks like the UN will step in now



my hope is that there solution involves a lot of cement


----------



## dilbot (Mar 17, 2011)

Whether this is a valid update or not I find it truly commendable that they're also helping the kids to understand this situation, hopefully it's worked positively. Hell even I learned a little something about what's going on.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hSVxA&feature=player_embedded[/YOUTUBE]


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## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 17, 2011)

"suiton: water cannon work, we get 5 more minutes to bring more water, hai"


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

dilbot said:


> Whether this is a valid update or not I find it truly commendable that they're also helping the kids to understand this situation, hopefully it's worked positively. Hell even I learned a little something about what's going on.
> 
> [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hSVxA&feature=player_embedded[/YOUTUBE]



where was that broadcasted?


----------



## dilbot (Mar 17, 2011)

originally uploaded by this dude


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## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

it seems there are around 330 workers at the plant now


----------



## Saufsoldat (Mar 17, 2011)

assddrago said:


> it seems there are around 330 workers at the plant now



They're rotating them, so none of them are exposed to lethal amounts of radiation.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

Saufsoldat said:


> They're rotating them, so none of them are exposed to lethal amounts of radiation.



Have you or anyone else here heard anything about the emergency UN meeting about this?

I'm not really feeling faithful in TEPCO


----------



## Saufsoldat (Mar 17, 2011)

assddrago said:


> Have you or anyone else here heard anything about the emergency UN meeting about this?



What's the UN supposed to do? Condemn the plant's actions? Issue a stern warning against radiation?



dilbot said:


> Whether this is a valid update or not I find it truly commendable that they're also helping the kids to understand this situation, hopefully it's worked positively. Hell even I learned a little something about what's going on.
> 
> [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hSVxA&feature=player_embedded[/YOUTUBE]



Fucking brilliant, finally even Green parties get a chance to understand nuclear power.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

Saufsoldat said:


> What's the UN supposed to do? Condemn the plant's actions? Issue a stern warning against radiation?
> 
> 
> 
> I was thinking get enough man power, helicoptors and materials to dump thousands upon thousands of tons of Cement, Boric Acid and Sand onto the plant


----------



## Miss Fortune (Mar 17, 2011)

assddrago said:


> I was thinking get enough man power, helicoptors and materials to dump thousands upon thousands of tons of Cement, Boric Acid and Sand onto the plant



That might cause the radiation to go into the ground and contaminate the water supply... Yes it'll keep the radiaiton from spreading through the air, mostly, but there's also the endless water that surrounds Japan and is under it.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

^
I see 
well I guess will see if by some miracle this helps


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12768645


----------



## Arishem (Mar 17, 2011)

Ironically, if it weren't for the anti-nuclear crowd, we would already have meltdown proof pebble-bed reactors. I just hope that all the hysteria this situation is generating doesn't prevent them from being built altogether.


----------



## Saufsoldat (Mar 17, 2011)

assddrago said:


> I was thinking get enough man power, helicoptors and materials to dump thousands upon thousands of tons of Cement, Boric Acid and Sand onto the plant



That's what will happen if all else fails. The Japanese airforce can do that just fine, no need to get the UN's non-existant fleet in as well.


----------



## Miss Fortune (Mar 17, 2011)

Arishem said:


> Ironically, if it weren't for the anti-nuclear crowd, we would already have meltdown proof pebble-bed reactors. I just hope that all the hysteria this situation is generating doesn't prevent them from being built altogether.



Are you being serious? Because if so, I'm going to find Anti-nuclear twats of the past and kill them. After I find a time machine.


----------



## Arishem (Mar 17, 2011)

It's like a nuclear lotto machine. 


Only enough fuel is in the reactor to keep the process going, and additional pellets are only added when needed.
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFY_xeVfbI8[/YOUTUBE]
The PBR really is an ingenious design.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/17/japan-nuclear-iaea-stable-idUSNWEA933120110317
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/17/japan-nuclear-iaea-idUSWEA932020110317


----------



## Saufsoldat (Mar 17, 2011)

Miss Fortune said:


> Are you being serious? Because if so, I'm going to find Anti-nuclear twats of the past and kill them. After I find a time machine.



Well there are some issues with pebble-bed reactors, but generally they're much safer and do not require external cooling in case of emergency. As long as the reactor itself is kept safe, it wouldn't matter how many earthquakes or tsunamis hit the plant.

The thing was first thought of in Germany somewhere around the early 90s, but Germany had and still has a very strong anti-nuclear opinion, so it was pretty much certain that no matter how advanced the technology is, there would be no new nuclear power plants built here. Our most recent reactor was finished in 1989. Therefore it became unprofitable to continue the research.

Nowadays it's mostly China that works on developing pebble-bed reactors, so I have high hopes that we might one day see them.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)




----------



## Perseverance (Mar 17, 2011)

American's are saying it's Karma.


----------



## Inuhanyou (Mar 17, 2011)

That's oldnews 

There are many idiots in the bunch, the Chinese did the same thing. But there were other Chinese who shouted them down and with the US, its the same situation


----------



## MrCinos (Mar 17, 2011)

Yeah, Old news is old.

There are also plenty of Russians who think that Japan deserved this disaster because some Japanese burnt Russian flags over Kuril dispute recently 

Good thing it's a minority, but still infuriating.


----------



## Ennoea (Mar 17, 2011)

The news is concentrating on the Nuclear situation but they keep forgetting the humanitarian catastrophe that is about to take place in Northern Japan. Power outages, food shortages, bitter cold, no fuel and even the lack of safe water. The aftermath will probably cause more deaths than the Tsunami.


----------



## stream (Mar 17, 2011)

Ennoea said:


> The news is concentrating on the Nuclear situation but they keep forgetting the humanitarian catastrophe that is about to take place in Northern Japan.


Yes, they found out that the public is a lot more interested in what happened in the last five minutes in Fukushima than in the past days to the thousands of people without a home. More exciting, I suppose 



Ennoea said:


> Power outages, food shortages, bitter cold, no fuel and even the lack of safe water. The aftermath will probably cause more deaths than the Tsunami.


This view is a bit black, considering thousands of people have died because of the tsunami, but who knows? Way more than people will die, even of cancer ten years later, because of the reactor.


----------



## Arishem (Mar 17, 2011)

Stream, that might not be true. When researchers examined the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was no statistically significant increase in the rates of cancer, so anyone who does develop it from Fukushima will be a very unfortunate minority.


----------



## Ennoea (Mar 17, 2011)

> This view is a bit black, considering thousands of people have died because of the tsunami, but who knows? Way more than people will die, even of cancer ten years later, because of the reactor.



Depends really. The children are at risk of developing Thyroid cancer but actual cancer rates shouldn't go up significantly, let alone death resulting from cancer.


----------



## Jαmes (Mar 17, 2011)

holy shit an earthquake just rumbled by while i was about to go to sleep. fuckin scary shit.


----------



## Xion (Mar 17, 2011)

They should make a hollow block of lead a square mile in diameter and fly it in with a couple dozen helicopters and then drop it over the plant.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 17, 2011)

Xion said:


> They should make a hollow block of lead a square mile in diameter and fly it in with a couple dozen helicopters and then drop it over the plant.



Hahahaha. I dont think flattening the place with a giant lead block will solve it. They could drop liquid lead on it though. Lots and lots of liquid lead.

I think what they are trying to do is keep what they can salvageable so the cost of clean up isnt something super ridiculous as if they were able to just cool down the reactors.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

That is true even if they somehow mangaed to get this madness with the reactors under control the death toll is going to rise by several thousand due to no supplies getting to the now homeless from the tsunami who are freezing/starving


one the nuclear


----------



## impersonal (Mar 17, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> Hahahaha. I dont think flattening the place with a giant lead block will solve it. They could drop liquid lead on it though. Lots and lots of liquid lead.
> 
> I think what they are trying to do is keep what they can salvageable so the cost of clean up isnt something super ridiculous as if they were able to just cool down the reactors.


The point is not to flatten it, but to put a roof around it as to prevent radiation from leaking. That's what they did at Chernobyl; they called it a sarcophagus.

Anyway, nothing bad happened today, for a change. Hopefully we've seen the worst of it, but it is apparent that nobody knows what's going to happen next.


----------



## Xion (Mar 17, 2011)

impersonal said:


> The point is not to flatten it, but to put a roof around it as to prevent radiation from leaking. That's what they did at Chernobyl; they called it a sarcophagus.
> 
> Anyway, nothing bad happened today, for a change. Hopefully we've seen the worst of it, but it is apparent that nobody knows what's going to happen next.



Yeah essentially, but I'd imagine my (somewhat) joking suggestion wouldn't work because:

a.) Getting a block of the right materials/size would be logistically improbable and infeasible to move into location. In addition it might have environmental effects of its own.

b.) That wouldn't stop the rods. They might melt through into the ground and the water supply or something bad like that.

I think it's more of problem A though than anything.


----------



## Altron (Mar 17, 2011)

the new powerline is now connected to the plant, now they are trying to connect it to the main  power grid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12779512


----------



## impersonal (Mar 17, 2011)

Ennoea said:


> The news is concentrating on the Nuclear situation but they keep forgetting the humanitarian catastrophe that is about to take place in Northern Japan. Power outages, food shortages, bitter cold, no fuel and even the lack of safe water. The aftermath will probably cause more deaths than the Tsunami.



The food shortages and cold are a major issue, especially combined, and the nuclear panic buying makes it even worse.

Hopefully this will be solved within a few days... but yeah, I did read about people eating practically nothing for 4 or 5 days already.


----------



## BassGS (Mar 17, 2011)

stream said:


> Yes, they found out that the public is a lot more interested in what happened in the last five minutes in Fukushima than in the past days to the thousands of people without a home. More exciting, I suppose
> 
> 
> This view is a bit black, considering thousands of people have died because of the tsunami, but who knows? Way more than people will die, even of cancer ten years later, because of the reactor.



I read that people who mostly got Thyroid cancer was the problem who were exposed to high radiation as kids or surgery like Cherbolyn. So I think the Japanese people won't have a problem with cancer. Japan people survived the radiation from the amount bomb, well not the ones who were really close to the blast but otehrs who were away but could still get effected by the radiation. And its better living 10 years more, than dieing in the tsunami or earthquake.


----------



## BassGS (Mar 17, 2011)

Arishem said:


> Stream, that might not be true. When researchers examined the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was no statistically significant increase in the rates of cancer, so anyone who does develop it from Fukushima will be a very unfortunate minority.



Any links to this? I wonder why, radiation should have been high.


----------



## Saufsoldat (Mar 17, 2011)

Ennoea said:


> Depends really. The children are at risk of developing Thyroid cancer but actual cancer rates shouldn't go up significantly, let alone death resulting from cancer.



Not really, iodine pills were distrubuted and most of the radioactive iodine will be gone in a week or two.


----------



## RedWolf (Mar 17, 2011)

> Lethal Risks for Fukushima 50 (200 rotating pesonnel)
> 
> “You’ve got a limited amount of expertise on those units. If your workforce is 1,000 people, you don’t want to start wiping out those people because you’re going to lose your experts. I know ‘experts’ are saying these people are charging into their death, but that’s not right,” added Jenkins.
> 
> ...



Anybody else remember that Kyuubi Attack flashback when the old people told the young ones to stay away so they'll live a long life and have kids of their own?

That is what is happening right now. I hope everybody lives in this. Truly heroes.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 17, 2011)

6 reactors = 6 tails


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 17, 2011)

impersonal said:


> The point is not to flatten it, but to put a roof around it as to prevent radiation from leaking. That's what they did at Chernobyl; they called it a sarcophagus.
> 
> Anyway, nothing bad happened today, for a change. Hopefully we've seen the worst of it, but it is apparent that nobody knows what's going to happen next.



Im sure a 1 mile thick block of lead is impossible. Secondly it doesnt prevent it from leaking into the ground making the block a terribly stupid idea. But Im assuming its a joke so kdgakjgalfhalfkgakljh;kh!!!!


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 17, 2011)

9.0 earthquake = 9 tails


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> Im sure a 1 mile thick block of lead is impossible. Secondly it doesnt prevent it from leaking into the ground making the block a terribly stupid idea. But Im assuming its a joke so kdgakjgalfhalfkgakljh;kh!!!!



as a last resort they still might have to go with something similar: pouring tons of cement, boric acid, and sand onto the site

anyway it seems that they are going on with the power line idea


----------



## impersonal (Mar 17, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> Im sure a 1 mile thick block of lead is impossible. Secondly it doesnt prevent it from leaking into the ground making the block a terribly stupid idea. But Im assuming its a joke so kdgakjgalfhalfkgakljh;kh!!!!


It's not a joke, and it's of course not impossible, as this is what they did in Chernobyl. (of course not 1 mile thick and not lead. Duh.). It is of course not currently considered as there are still considerable chances of getting the situation under control... and I don't know how they would go at building it in any case...


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 17, 2011)

impersonal said:


> It's not a joke, and it's of course not impossible, as this is what they did in Chernobyl. (of course not 1 mile thick and not lead. Duh.). It is of course not currently considered as there are still considerable chances of getting the situation under control... and I don't know how they would go at building it in any case...



Thanks dude. Are you just arguing for the sake of it cause I already knew this and understand this option very well.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/18/japan-quake-snapshot-idUSL3E7EF28320110318

well for anyone whos interested heres in accuarte summary of the events of this week via reuters


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## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

I guess will see if we americans are helpful in this situation
(I cant really see many americans actually steping into the plant)


----------



## BassGS (Mar 17, 2011)

Why didn't Japan ask the US for help in the beginning?


----------



## assddrago (Mar 17, 2011)

according to this piece they claim they can have power back to all four reactors by the end of this weekend


----------



## DeDeMouse (Mar 18, 2011)

*'Suicide squad' struggles to cool reactors as radiation levels rise*

*Friday, 18 March 2011​*


> *Japan yesterday deployed army helicopters and police water cannon manned by what the media are calling "suicide squads" in a frantic attempt to cool overheating fuel rods and prevent meltdown at a nuclear power plant ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami one week ago.
> 
> Operations were hampered by dangerously high radioactivity around the Fukushima Daiichi complex, which forced the authorities to evacuate the heavily protected workers periodically throughout the day. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), admitted last night that the tactics had so far failed to cut radiation levels, which were about 3,600 microseiverts per hour, nearly four times the exposure considered safe in a year.
> 
> ...


----------



## BassGS (Mar 18, 2011)

> were about 3,600 microseiverts per hour, nearly four times the exposure considered safe in a year


I don't get that. I thought 100ms  an hour was safe and anything about 400 wasn't. Now 900 ms a year is safe for a year? How much radiation does a person get a yaer? How is it measured?


----------



## Aiku (Mar 18, 2011)

> Japan's nuclear crisis was called "a slow-moving nightmare" on Wednesday after a series of setbacks hindered efforts to bring the crippled Fukushima power plant under control.
> 
> All plant technicians were ordered out at one point after a spike in radiation, another fire broke out in the stricken No. 4 unit and a patchwork fix involving helicopters dropping water on the reactors was abandoned over safety fears.
> 
> The setbacks drew a chorus of pessimistic predictions from international experts, with France warning if Japan did not solve the nuclear crisis within 48 hours the catastrophe could be "worse than Chernobyl."


----------



## A. Waltz (Mar 18, 2011)

if any of you have any questions about the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear plants from a scientific point of view, please state all your questions..

tomorrow this chick/scientist who specializes in that is coming over and yeah i don't know what to ask, D:


thought you all might have some questions,







fucking green france, stop fucking exaggerating  seriously.. >___>

well.. iuno.. could it? i highly doubt it..


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 18, 2011)

Don't take France's 'experts' seriously. Powers being restored to each reactor, new pipes'll be arriving...


----------



## stream (Mar 18, 2011)

It is very annoying to have so little information about what is going on. I wonder how the experts can be deducing and announcing things like: "*the cooling pond for the most troubled reactor 4 is completely dry*". How do they know? They went to have a look inside? If they have some hard evidence, let them say it. If they are making wild guesses, let them shut up.


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 18, 2011)

According to the chart that TEPCO gives, Unit Four's water level is perfectly fine.


----------



## The Space Cowboy (Mar 18, 2011)

BassGS said:


> I don't get that. I thought 100ms  an hour was safe and anything about 400 wasn't. Now 900 ms a year is safe for a year? How much radiation does a person get a yaer? How is it measured?



Pay attention to the difference between micro and milli.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 18, 2011)

seems like entombment is becoming a more likely option , since only minimal gains are being made, per mainstream media sources.


----------



## Xion (Mar 18, 2011)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> Don't take France's 'experts' seriously. Powers being restored to each reactor, new pipes'll be arriving...



Don't know how well power works when the infrastructure is in ruins.


----------



## zuul (Mar 18, 2011)

I hope Tepco gets a nationalisation up its ass after that bad gestion of the crisis.

trying at all cost to save face while external help was much more needed.


----------



## serger989 (Mar 18, 2011)

What was the highest the Tsunami reached by the way? Just saw that a town called Taro, Iwate had like a 10m high wall in an X shape as a preventive measure against Tsunamis (Town was destroyed multiple times in the past by them). The wave was apparently at least 4m higher than the wall ;o Needless to say, the town was washed away again


----------



## assddrago (Mar 18, 2011)

Not sure i believe this but if its true i will be tearfully proud of my countrymen


----------



## MrCinos (Mar 18, 2011)

assddrago said:


> Not sure i believe this but if its true i will be tearfully proud of my countrymen





And ours can't do it even though they want and ready to help.


----------



## Dionysus (Mar 18, 2011)

BassGS said:


> I don't get that. I thought 100ms  an hour was safe and anything about 400 wasn't. Now 900 ms a year is safe for a year? How much radiation does a person get a yaer? How is it measured?


TSC's warning to be careful with metric prefixes is good idea. I prefer writing u when I can't find the mu character (for micro-).

Just a little note: Sievert (Sv) is a unit for equivalent dose. It is the absorbed dose multiplied by a biological weighting factor. Some organs are more susceptible to certain types of radiation (or any kind) than others--neutrons are particularly nasty--so the biological dose is not a simple thing to predict. Liver has a different weighting factor than lungs, etc. Absorbed dose (Gray, Gy) is the amount of radiation that is absorbed into a piece of matter, without any regard to biological effect.

Now, if you talk about emitting radiation, you're not talking about either units. The SI unit for radioactivity is Becquerel (Bq), which is decays per second. The amount of radiation you'd find passing through an area outside the reactor though would be the number of Bqs multiplied by shielding factors and the fractional area from the source (often assumed a fraction of a sphere). (Then you have the material that enters the environment in smoke, etc... which isn't as shielded and is closer to people, is inhaled, etc.)

In the end, the number of Sieverts is the most important when predicting the health of people. It often requires more assumptions to estimate potential exposure though. (If the radioactive material is external to the body, if someone drank some, if they breathed some in, etc.)


----------



## soulnova (Mar 18, 2011)

I don't know if this has been brought up but there are finally fights starting out on the emergency shelters for the lack of food. People are starving and freezing and even Japanase patience has its limits....  I'll try to get a link on that.

Edit: I only found this on BBC live feed... Damn.



> 1458: Stephen McDonald of Save the Children said in a statement: "We've seen children suffering with the cold, and lacking really basic items like food and clean water. Tomorrow we're giving out blankets, and our team in Tokyo is looking into what other goods we can supply."
> 
> 1355: Ross in Osaka writes: "I'm wondering where the international support has gotten to? There are people up north in gradually worsening situations. No food, and medicine is something that should be being dealt with right now. Where are the ships that could be lying off of the east coast dropping in aid by helicopter??? A week has passed now and there's plenty of news and comments about how people are feeling in Tokyo, foreigners leaving or staying, speculation about the power plants - it'd be nice to hear that something that can be done at this time IS being done which is getting aid to those people immediately."
> 
> ...


----------



## BassGS (Mar 18, 2011)

The Space Cowboy said:


> Pay attention to the difference between micro and milli.



Got it, really complicated.


> Low level ionizing radiation may induce irreparable DNA damage (leading to replicational and transcriptional errors needed for neoplasia or may trigger viral interactions) leading to pre-mature aging and cancer.


Here I thought low dose radiation for xrays were pretty safe.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 18, 2011)

BassGS said:


> Got it, really complicated.
> 
> Here I thought low dose radiation for xrays were pretty safe.




*Spoiler*: __ 







> Natural background radiation
> 
> Natural background radiation comes from two primary sources: cosmic radiation and terrestrial sources. The worldwide average background dose for a human being is about 2.4 millisievert (mSv) per year.[3] This exposure is mostly from cosmic radiation and natural radionuclides in the environment (including those within the body). This is far greater than human-caused background radiation exposure, which in the year 2000 amounted to an average of about 5 μSv per year from historical nuclear weapons testing, nuclear power accidents and nuclear industry operation combined,[4] and is greater than the average exposure from medical tests, which ranges from 0.04 to 1 mSv per year. Older coal-fired power plants without effective fly ash capture are one of the largest sources of human-caused background radiation exposure.
> 
> The level of natural background radiation varies depending on location, and in some areas the level is significantly higher than average.[5] Such areas include Ramsar in Iran, Guarapari in Brazil, Kerala in India,[6] the northern Flinders Ranges in Australia[7] and Yangjiang in China.[8] In Ramsar a peak yearly dose of 260 mSv has been reported (compared with 0.06 mSv of a chest radiograph or up to 20 mSv of a CT scan).[9] The highest levels of natural background radiation recorded in the world is from areas around Ramsar, particularly at Talesh-Mahalleh which is a very high background radiation area (VHBRA) having an effective dose equivalent several times in excess of ICRP-recommended radiation dose limits for radiation workers and up to 200 times greater than normal background levels. Most of the radiation in the area is due to dissolved radium-226 in water of hot springs along with smaller amounts of uranium and thorium due to travertine deposits. *There are more than nine hot springs in the area with different concentrations of radioisotopes, and these are used as spas by locals and tourists.[10] This high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area and even possibly has made them slightly more radioresistant, which is puzzling and has been called "radiation paradox". It has also been reported that residents have healthier and longer lives.[11] On the basis of this and other evidences including the fact that life had originated in a much more irradiated environment, some scientists have questioned the validity of linear no-threshold model, on which all radiation regulations currently depend.*[10] Others point out that some level of radiation might actually be good for health and have a positive effect on population based on the controversial radiation hormesis model, by jump starting DNA repair mechanisms inside the cell.[12][13] Background radiation doses in the immediate vicinities of particles of high atomic number materials, within the human body, have a small enhancement due to the photoelectric effect.[14]






So much we dont understand.


----------



## Violent-nin (Mar 18, 2011)

Good to hear they'll be getting back power to those plants.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 18, 2011)

BassGS said:


> Got it, really complicated.
> 
> Here I thought low dose radiation for xrays were pretty safe.



xrays aren't safe, you really need to limit the xrays you get .  cat scans are even worse


----------



## assddrago (Mar 18, 2011)

MrCinos said:


> And ours can't do it even though they want and ready to help.



Face palm ENOUGH with the save face isolationist crap
ask these guys for help(


----------



## Saufsoldat (Mar 18, 2011)

BassGS said:


> Here I thought low dose radiation for xrays were pretty safe.



They are, unless you get one every day. Fortunately most people only need them very rarely. Generally, you'd rather get an X-Ray and a tiny chance of cancer than not knowing whether or not your bone's broken.


----------



## BassGS (Mar 18, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> *Spoiler*: __
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Wow, that's pretty crazy. Some it is real is hard to process. I wonder if what we could do with this knowledge

You know so much Razgriez, you must do a lot of research.



> xrays aren't safe, you really need to limit the xrays you get . cat scans are even worse


Based on the graph doesn't seem its too harmful. But you are right about limiting it



> They are, unless you get one every day. Fortunately most people only need them very rarely. Generally, you'd rather get an X-Ray and a tiny chance of cancer than not knowing whether or not your bone's broken.


True true. But does getting that xray that one time have a chance to give you cancer or later down the road? Because your body has harmful things coming in it all the time and it kills it because everything mustly is a carcinogen. It's not like smoking once can give you lung cancer.


----------



## Saufsoldat (Mar 18, 2011)

BassGS said:


> True true. But does getting that xray that one time have a chance to give you cancer or later down the road? Because your body has harmful things coming in it all the time and it kills it because everything mustly is a carcinogen. It's not like smoking once can give you lung cancer.



No single thing just gives you cancer like that.


----------



## Wilykat (Mar 18, 2011)

To get this back on track.


Death toll is nearing 7000 confirmed death and there are still thousands missing.


Specifically:


> [1:39 p.m. ET Friday, 2:39 a.m. Saturday in Tokyo] Monitors in Sacramento, California, have detected a small amount of radioactive material from the earthquake-struck nuclear power plant in Japan, an official with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization said. The exact amounts were not available, but were far less than what would be considered harmful to human health, the official said.



Still no reason for those iodine pills yet.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Mar 18, 2011)

better safe than sorry.  who wants to die from japans reactors blowing up, and thinking "damn, probably should have taken some precaution".


----------



## Dionysus (Mar 18, 2011)

FapperWocky said:


> better safe than sorry.  who wants to die from japans reactors blowing up, and thinking "damn, probably should have taken some precaution".


Start digging your bunker.


----------



## soulnova (Mar 18, 2011)

> 2011: The governor of Miyagi prefecture, where many communities have been devastated by last Friday's disaster, has said that s*urvivors should move to other prefectures if they can* until enough emergency housing can be built to shelter them all. This might take six months to a year, he thought.
> 
> 1946: One intriguing angle on the relief effort comes from Jake Adelstein, an expert on organised crime in Japan. In a piece published by The Daily Beast, he reports that *the yakuza, or Japan's home-grown mafia groups, have been donating aid*. "Please don't say any more than we are doing our best to help," one member is quoted as saying. "Right now, no one wants to be associated with us and we'd hate to have our donations rejected out of hand." (( they would really hate it))
> 
> ...



Shit is going down without the help of the reactors, these people need help fast.


----------



## Time Expired (Mar 18, 2011)

Saufsoldat said:


> No single thing just gives you cancer like that.



Well - plutonium is a pretty interesting substance inasmuch as cancer is concerned.  

Speaking of which, Ira Flatow (of Science Friday fame) hosted David Lochbaum, who is the Director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists.  Also on today's show was David J. Brenner, who is the Director for the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University, and Charles D. Ferguson, who is President of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C.  I caught only 20 minutes or so, but the podcast should be available from Science Friday shortly.  

I make mention of this only because the guests informed that *Number 3 at Fukushima Dai-Ichi is actually a MOX fuel reactor*.  For those who don't know; mixed oxide (MOX) fuel rods contain plutonium in levels typically just under 10 percent of the total volume of fuel.  This in addition to the spent fuel rods (which contain lower amounts of plutonium as well) make this all the more fun.  

*Updated status of reactors 1 - 6: March 18th 12:39 p.m. EDT.*​


> Tracking The Latest At The Fukushima Nuclear Plant
> 
> The situation at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been changing rapidly and growing increasingly complex since the earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11. Problems began that day, and each day has brought new, unsettling developments. With unique conditions at each reactor, slightly different responses are required. But the most common response at this point is water. Workers have been trying -- and in some cases are succeeding -- to pump seawater into the cores of Units 1, 2 and 3 and spray seawater to the spent fuel pools at 3, 4, 5 and 6. Each reactor has a used fuel pool in the upper level of their buildings. Getting water to the spent fuel pools at Units 3 and 4 from the air and ground proved difficult March 17 and March 17 after radiation levels spiked. Japan Self-Defense Forces managed to spray 30 tons of water from the ground with emergency fire vehicles on the spent fuel pool at Unit 3 March 17. Safety officials also said March 17 that they were most concerned about the pool at Unit 4. Below is a chart showing the status of each of the six reactors, with the most recent information as possible.
> 
> ...


----------



## Rabbit and Rose (Mar 18, 2011)

Didn't think it was this bad, and all I had in my head in the past 3 days was, Japan can handle it.


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## Time Expired (Mar 18, 2011)

Red Queen said:


> Didn't think it was this bad, and all I had in my head in the past 3 days was, Japan can handle it.



Well Japan can and will handle it.  I didn't exactly know why number 3 was so hot - and this makes a bunch of sense in light of the fact that it's a MOX reactor.  

But they can handle this; it's just going to take some time.


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## Scud (Mar 18, 2011)

Reported both of you, now shut the fuck up. Nobody in here wants to read your stupid piss-fest. Either take it to PM, or fucking stop. Both of you ceased to contribute anything meaningful to this thread over a page ago. At this point, you're just battling to prove who the bigger retard is.

I was going to post something about the fuel shortage contributing to the difficulties of sending out supplies to the affected areas, but now I lost my train of thought.


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## Scud (Mar 18, 2011)

No, more along the lines of: no fuel, no backup generators for hospitals.


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## ExoSkel (Mar 18, 2011)

The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people 

- Officials admit *they may have to bury reactors under concrete - as happened at Chernobyl*
- Government says it was overwhelmed by the scale of twin disasters
- Japanese upgrade accident from level four to five - the same as Three Mile Island
- We will rebuild from scratch says Japanese prime minister
- Particles spewed from wrecked Fukushima power station arrive in California
- Military trucks tackle reactors with tons of water for second day


Read more: 


Well, there is a report that some of the japanese in Tokyo is now preparing to evacuate the country. Some of Tokyo residents are moving to Osaka or other cities in Kansai region.


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## Miss Fortune (Mar 18, 2011)

ExoSkel said:


> The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people
> 
> - Officials admit they may have to bury reactors under concrete - as happened at Chernobyl
> - Government says it was overwhelmed by the scale of twin disasters
> ...



What the fuck...

Why would they keep that sort of thing on the downlow when it was that serious? Damn... that place will be a freakin' radioactive sight for years now...


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## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 18, 2011)

How is the restoring of power to the reactors coming?


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## A. Waltz (Mar 18, 2011)

omgod, wtf.. how where we to know things where THAT serious?
burrying it all under concrete?! the fuck! they should have told us, the US could have helped somehow !


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## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 18, 2011)

Since not all alternatives had been exhausted, and there are several more attempts to be tried AznkuchiChick.


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## BassGS (Mar 18, 2011)

Well at least they are finally cleaning up this mess.


Why didn't they do that from the beginning? And why not get help from the US sooner? They hatin?


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## Altron (Mar 18, 2011)

AznKuchikiChick said:


> omgod, wtf.. how where we to know things where THAT serious?
> burrying it all under concrete?! the fuck! they should have told us, the US could have helped somehow !


You realize US troops in Japan are helping out? Japan should have asked for help right away instead of waiting and making things worse. Russia had already prepared nuclear specialists ready to go to Japan. Japan has not even formally requested Russia to send the nuclear specialists. Now Japan realizes that it cannot contain this danger without international help.


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## A. Waltz (Mar 18, 2011)

yeah, i know that japan waited a few days to ask for help, and of course some countries where already standing in line to give help like the US and russia and south korea.

why couldn't they have asked for help sooner is what i meant xD




i hope they are able to fix things..


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## Ludwig The Holy Blade (Mar 18, 2011)

Take anything the daily mail says with a grain of salt, they are sensationalist scumbags.

Sure, I can see why that guy wept, it's an extremely serious situation after all. 
But the daily mail will try and make it out to be the apocalypse.


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## assddrago (Mar 18, 2011)

thats amazing


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## assddrago (Mar 18, 2011)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/19/japan-quake-snapshot-idUSL3E7EF28320110319

the daily checklist from reuters 
contains their restore power plan

Also I dont know what they plan to do at this point but the us is apparently "considering" (how i love that word) sending a 450 member nuclear team to the plant


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## Aiku (Mar 19, 2011)

Look what happens when you don't ask for help, Japan.


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## A. Waltz (Mar 19, 2011)

assddrago said:


> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/19/japan-quake-snapshot-idUSL3E7EF28320110319
> 
> the daily checklist from reuters
> contains their restore power plan
> ...



what, i heard that they had already done that?


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## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 19, 2011)

Well it looks like they're getting ready to turn on the power. Hope it works.


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## Bender (Mar 19, 2011)

ROW ROW!  TURN ON THE POWER!


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## Xion (Mar 19, 2011)

I fear anything that could be powered by power is horrifically damaged.

They need to Kurohitsugi this bitch!


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## Undead (Mar 19, 2011)

Xion said:


> I fear anything that could be powered by power is horrifically damaged.
> 
> They need to Kurohitsugi this bitch!


Sarutobi Asuma likes this.


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## Wilykat (Mar 19, 2011)

Reactor 1, 2, 5, and 6 is about to get power to get its cooling system running.  Reactor 5 and 6 has been stable and kept cool by diesel generator.  Reactor 3 and 4 will get power by Sunday.  Source: CNN


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## Bender (Mar 19, 2011)

Wilykat said:


> Reactor 1, 2, 5, and 6 is about to get power to get its cooling system running.  Reactor 5 and 6 has been stable and kept cool by diesel generator.  Reactor 3 and 4 will get power by Sunday.  Source: CNN



So if they get up and running then our massive bitching about this incident will be put to rest right? They'll be fine?


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## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 19, 2011)

Yep. Eventually with power they could do a cold shutdown.


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## Xion (Mar 19, 2011)

I don't know about you guys, but based on the pictures of Reactors 3 and 4, I'd say the only power they are getting is nuclear in nature. ROFL.


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## Edward Newgate (Mar 19, 2011)

*'Nuclear Ninja' Suicide Mission To Save Japan *


I don't know if it was already posted, but whatever.


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## impersonal (Mar 19, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> Thanks dude. Are you just arguing for the sake of it cause* I already knew this and understand this option very well*.



How am I supposed to know? Especially when you write it is "a terribly stupid idea".


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## Le Mâle-Pensant (Mar 19, 2011)

Well the situation now is stabilized. Not become worst. It's a good news.


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## Sword Sage (Mar 19, 2011)

Le M?le Dominant said:


> Well the situation now is stabilized. Not become worst. It's a good news.



I'm glad.

I pray to those who lost their lives from that incident.


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## Razgriez (Mar 19, 2011)

impersonal said:


> How am I supposed to know? Especially when you write it is "a terribly stupid idea".



Cause I was talking about the block of lead joke silly.

You need to stop being super serious all the time.


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## Aleph-1 (Mar 19, 2011)

BassGS said:


> Why didn't they do that from the beginning? And why not get help from the US sooner? They hatin?


The Japanese government probably wanted to save face by trying to fix the nuclear crisis themselves and downplay any perceived threat (at first anyways, which the prime minister did shortly after the story broke the news) much like the USSR did when Chernobyl happened. Covering reactors with concrete is an even more last-ditch alternative than pouring seawater on them....they wouldn't have went there unless the seriousness of the situation escalated.

EDIT: Are they really covering reactors with concrete at this point, or just considering it? Or is this just a rumor?

What I would like to know is why a nuclear facility with like 5 or 6 reactors was built right next to the ocean in a country known to get hit with tsunamis?


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## assddrago (Mar 19, 2011)

The sad truth is the world is anything but "one united peoples"
all nations will have some of their own people put in danger rather than look weak and ask another nation for help


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## abcd (Mar 19, 2011)

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRRoFdxNdQg[/YOUTUBE]


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## The Space Cowboy (Mar 19, 2011)

roguebagel said:


> The Japanese government probably wanted to save face by trying to fix the nuclear crisis themselves and downplay any perceived threat (at first anyways, which the prime minister did shortly after the story broke the news) much like the USSR did when Chernobyl happened. Covering reactors with concrete is an even more last-ditch alternative than pouring seawater on them....they wouldn't have went there unless the seriousness of the situation escalated.
> 
> EDIT: Are they really covering reactors with concrete at this point, or just considering it? Or is this just a rumor?
> 
> What I would like to know is why a nuclear facility with like 5 or 6 reactors was built right next to the ocean in a country known to get hit with tsunamis?



Reactors are heat engines.  You need a source and a sink.  The flow of thermal energy between the heat source and heat sink is used to do work.

Water has a high specific heat, excellent thermal conductivity, and the ocean has lots of it.  Why would you not put a reactor near a large body of water?


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## Aleph-1 (Mar 19, 2011)

The Space Cowboy said:


> Reactors are heat engines.  You need a source and a sink.  The flow of thermal energy between the heat source and heat sink is used to do work.
> 
> Water has a high specific heat, excellent thermal conductivity, and the ocean has lots of it.  Why would you not put a reactor near a large body of water?



My point is that Japan is prone to tsunamis....much of the initial damage to the facility was caused by the tsunami was it not? One could argue that building a nuclear facility in such a place is an accident waiting to happen, like building houses in dry, windy, shrubby areas of California, areas _known_ to have wildfires with some regularity, is putting them at significant risk to be burned down in a wildfire.

Eh....people are known to build whatever they want wherever they want, regardless of environmental hazards. All I'm saying is that it could have been located somewhere further inland.


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## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 19, 2011)

To be fair, the reactors survived-despite these problems, a quake AND tsunami seven times what they were designed to take.


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## iander (Mar 19, 2011)

because this thread needs a little humor in the face of such a tragedy:

[Youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXPN4dfBAGU[/Youtube]


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## Juno (Mar 19, 2011)

Dammit, Japan.

Still a better explanation than 99% of the media has provided so far.


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## Xion (Mar 19, 2011)

roguebagel said:


> What I would like to know is why a nuclear facility with like 5 or 6 reactors was built right next to the ocean in a country known to get hit with tsunamis?



...with backup generators right near the water!

It's such a horrible system, I'm surprised it got created.


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## LouDAgreat (Mar 19, 2011)

iander said:


> because this thread needs a little humor in the face of such a tragedy:
> 
> [Youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXPN4dfBAGU[/Youtube]



You're late:



dilbot said:


> Whether this is a valid update or not I find it truly commendable that they're also helping the kids to understand this situation, hopefully it's worked positively. Hell even I learned a little something about what's going on.
> 
> [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hSVxA&feature=player_embedded[/YOUTUBE]


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## iander (Mar 19, 2011)

Figured someone must have but I didn't see it.  Oh well.


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## LouDAgreat (Mar 19, 2011)

It's worth a second post though.


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## The Space Cowboy (Mar 19, 2011)

roguebagel said:


> My point is that Japan is prone to tsunamis....much of the initial damage to the facility was caused by the tsunami was it not? One could argue that building a nuclear facility in such a place is an accident waiting to happen, like building houses in dry, windy, shrubby areas of California, areas _known_ to have wildfires with some regularity, is putting them at significant risk to be burned down in a wildfire.
> 
> Eh....people are known to build whatever they want wherever they want, regardless of environmental hazards. All I'm saying is that it could have been located somewhere further inland.



The damage to the Fukushima plant was caused by a poor design decision and unforeseen circumstances--not a poor siting decision.  Any engineered system can and will fail catastrophically given the right combination of outside influences.  

Saying "Should have" after the fact is a bit silly.  Hindsight is always 20/20


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## Succubus (Mar 19, 2011)




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## Le Mâle-Pensant (Mar 19, 2011)

How the japanese deal with those who lost everything ? I saw on TV, people are put in gymnasiums. They planed to give them pre build house ?


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## Animeblue (Mar 19, 2011)

*Complaints that Japanese hotels are treating quake victims from Fukushima prefecture as radioactive lepers and refusing them board have surfaced.

Japan’s ministry of health reports receiving a number of complaints from people forced from their homes in Fukushima prefecture, saying they were refused rooms at hotels and inns, apparently on the grounds that they came from the same prefecture as the crippled nuclear reactors and must therefore be considered dangerous.

The ministry is instructing local governments to tell their hoteliers that they should not refuse lodgings to people just because they have visited Fukushima prefecture, pointing out that the radiation levels involved are tiny and pose no risk to human health.

Such discrimination may be illegal under Japanese law, which only allows hotels refusals based on infectious diseases, suspicion of criminality and, of course, lack of room.

However, in practice hotels and landlords happily discriminate against potential patrons with no real legal repercussion, and for those affected is exceptionally difficult to demonstrate mysteriously disappearing vacancies are the result of such practices.

Further complicating matters is the fact that after the quake one large hotel chain has actually begun forcing those who wish to stay in its premises into signing a contract saying they will not sue the hotel for any reason, despite such provisions themselves being illegal.

There are now concerns that Japan may start seeing widespread discrimination against those from Fukushima prefecture, with some evacuation centres now insisting refugees submit to radiation screenings.

Discrimination against Japanese overseas also seems another unpleasant possibility – a number of nations have apparently been subjecting people leaving Japan to radiation tests with the intent of refusing them entry if sufficient radiation is detected.

The case has particular resonance in Japan – “hibakusha,” survivors of the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have at times been the subject of discrimination due to the hysterical superstitions the public frequently attaches to radiation.

Online, the reaction has largely been one of disgust, but with the public unable to comprehend the notion that minuscule amounts of radiation are harmless, it does not seem likely the hardships of quake victims will be end with recovery from the earthquake itself.*


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## hcheng02 (Mar 19, 2011)

Although most of the focus seems to be on the nuclear reactors, shouldn't more attention be given to the actual victims of the earthquake and tsunami? I'm hearing reports of people not getting aid for over 10 days now. What the heck is taking so long? Even if the roads are destroyed you should still be able to airlift supplies. Its amazing that the Japanese are so stoic but there's going to be a breaking point if they don't get necessities.


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## Bender (Mar 19, 2011)

Le M?le Dominant said:


> How the japanese deal with those who lost everything ? I saw on TV, people are put in gymnasiums. They planed to give them pre build house ?



Better a gymnasium than the Superdome like people were put in during Hurricane Katrina.


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## soulnova (Mar 20, 2011)

hcheng02 said:


> Although most of the focus seems to be on the nuclear reactors, shouldn't more attention be given to the actual victims of the earthquake and tsunami? I'm hearing reports of people not getting aid for over 10 days now. What the heck is taking so long? Even if the roads are destroyed you should still be able to airlift supplies. Its amazing that the Japanese are so stoic but there's going to be a breaking point if they don't get necessities.



It actually surprises me too. At least I would drop supplies from airplanes if the roads are closed. Heck, there are hundreds of thousands of people starving, some at hospitals, not just injured and refugees, doctors and nurses barely have half a rice ball per meal. They were pleading on twitter to not let them die of hunger. If you can, donate to the red cross.

In some areas they are indeed making emergency housing... small "homes" of 35 square meters (about 370sq ft) for two or three people. 

BBC live feed


> 2141: Homeless people - about half a million of them - in the north-east of Japan are struggling to stay warm with diminishing supplies of food and fuel, the AFP news agency reports.


----------



## Bender (Mar 20, 2011)

^

That's terrible


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## Time Expired (Mar 20, 2011)

hcheng02 said:


> Although most of the focus seems to be on the nuclear reactors, shouldn't more attention be given to the actual victims of the earthquake and tsunami? I'm hearing reports of people not getting aid for over 10 days now. What the heck is taking so long? Even if the roads are destroyed you should still be able to airlift supplies. Its amazing that the Japanese are so stoic but there's going to be a breaking point if they don't get necessities.



I think the sense of it is that they're trying to prevent further loss of life in focusing all their attention and efforts on the reactors.  That's not to say that other areas aren't in need of attention however.  

I hadn't heard that others were in such dire straits.  Supplying over a half million displaced people has to be a nightmare situation.  I can't imagine how exhausted everyone is - victims and those trying to help.


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## soulnova (Mar 20, 2011)

Soul Assassin said:


> I think the sense of it is that they're trying to prevent further loss of life in focusing all their attention and efforts on the reactors.  That's not to say that other areas aren't in need of attention however.
> 
> I hadn't heard that others were in such dire straits.  Supplying over a half million displaced people has to be a nightmare situation.



The thing is... we can't do anything about the reactors. That's on their hands now. 

Instead we can do something for the survivors. You can donate to relief orgs to send help to Japan. I already donated via Playstation Store but there are many other ways to do it. 

You can enter here to donate (red cross, unicef, save the children and more). 

"" staff is actually on site as I have seen reports from them about the status of many children in Sendai. 



> Text "JAPAN" to 20222 to donate $10 to SavetheChildren's Japan relief effort (US Only, std msg rates apply)



 donates 10 grains of rice to people in need for each correct answer in their game (they get money for the advertisement to buy food). You can make a difference, not just for Japan but for any humanitarian crisis, just by PLAYING!


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## assddrago (Mar 20, 2011)




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## -Dargor- (Mar 20, 2011)

Honestly at this point the japanese population would be better off to just accept the russian offer to migrate over there, for a while anyway, until the government get's shit under control 

Moving such a big population to a far away location would probably make this impossible tho. Man being China's neighboor sucks.


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## Nizuma Eiji (Mar 20, 2011)

Edward Newgate said:


> *'Nuclear Ninja' Suicide Mission To Save Japan *
> 
> 
> I don't know if it was already posted, but whatever.



Wow. I applaud these men.


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## Wilykat (Mar 20, 2011)

Survivors found after 9 days so there are still hope (albeit weak) that more can be found alive.

Officially more than 8,000 confirmed dead and still thousands more missing.


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## stream (Mar 20, 2011)

roguebagel said:


> EDIT: Are they really covering reactors with concrete at this point, or just considering it? Or is this just a rumor?



WARNING: That was an article of the Daily Mail.

It contains the sentence:


> They admitted that burying reactors under sand and concrete may be the only option to stop a catastrophic radiation release.


Really? What is the next sentence?


> It was the first time the facility operator had acknowledged burying the sprawling 40-year-old complex was possible


Hang on, did they say it might be necessary, or that it was possible? What did they exactly say?


> 'It is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete. But our priority right now is to try and cool them down first' an official told a news conference



Right. I believe it went like this:

REPORTER: Is it possible to cover all the reactors with concrete?
OFFICIAL: Of course it is possible, but we are trying to avoid doing that by just cooling off the fuel and getting everything under control.
REPORTER: So you finally admit that you may have to cover all the reactors with concrete?
OFFICIAL: ...WTF?


----------



## Time Expired (Mar 20, 2011)

soulnova said:


> The thing is... we can't do anything about the reactors. That's on their hands now.
> 
> Instead we can do something for the survivors. You can donate to relief orgs to send help to Japan. I already donated via Playstation Store but there are many other ways to do it.
> 
> ...



I thought hcheng's statements were made with regard to the focus of the administrators.  I was simply trying to crawl around in their heads and offer a possible explanation as to why they seem to be dropping the ball in taking care of others.  The administrators are directly responsible for the ongoing efforts to bring the reactors under control.


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## stream (Mar 20, 2011)

I think that we can safely assume that plenty of effort is underway to help the victims of the tsunami, it is just that our media focus on the nuclear reactors, because of the scary scary radioactivity.

When you think about it, there must be a couple of thousand people, tops, working on the reactors; all others are trying to help the victims.


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## Arishem (Mar 20, 2011)

This JCG ship met the tsunami while it was crossing the ocean. It's interesting footage.
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHitvfd9IUQ[/YOUTUBE]


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## Hellrasinbrasin (Mar 20, 2011)

The Logistics are a nightmare right now in Japan that is a fact being read again and again on the Networks; I think that once they've managed to restore power to the other reactors beyond 3 then they can shut them down and begin encasing each reactor.


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## Razgriez (Mar 20, 2011)

Arishem said:


> This JCG ship met the tsunami while it was crossing the ocean. It's interesting footage.
> [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHitvfd9IUQ[/YOUTUBE]





While I did see 2 big waves I also experienced 10 minutes of nothing.


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## assddrago (Mar 20, 2011)

If this ones real (the other wasnt) thats unblievable


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## hcheng02 (Mar 20, 2011)

soulnova said:


> It actually surprises me too. At least I would drop supplies from airplanes if the roads are closed. Heck, there are hundreds of thousands of people starving, some at hospitals, not just injured and refugees, doctors and nurses barely have half a rice ball per meal. They were pleading on twitter to not let them die of hunger. If you can, donate to the red cross.
> 
> In some areas they are indeed making emergency housing... small "homes" of 35 square meters (about 370sq ft) for two or three people.
> 
> BBC live feed





Soul Assassin said:


> I think the sense of it is that they're trying to prevent further loss of life in focusing all their attention and efforts on the reactors.  That's not to say that other areas aren't in need of attention however.
> 
> I hadn't heard that others were in such dire straits.  Supplying over a half million displaced people has to be a nightmare situation.  I can't imagine how exhausted everyone is - victims and those trying to help.



Preventing loss of life also means preventing survivors from starving to death, which is going to happen if supplies keep getting held up. 



soulnova said:


> The thing is... we can't do anything about the reactors. That's on their hands now.
> 
> Instead we can do something for the survivors. You can donate to relief orgs to send help to Japan. I already donated via Playstation Store but there are many other ways to do it.
> 
> ...



The problem isn't lack of funding or donations. The problem is that bureaucrats are taking too damn long verifying the supplies and preventing them from being delivered.


----------



## stream (Mar 21, 2011)

Here is a really good illustration of what all these radiation doses mean:


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## Miss Fortune (Mar 21, 2011)

hcheng02 said:


> Preventing loss of life also means preventing survivors from starving to death, which is going to happen if supplies keep getting held up.
> 
> 
> 
> The problem isn't lack of funding or donations. The problem is that bureaucrats are taking too damn long verifying the supplies and preventing them from being delivered.



Zing. Exactly. Take out the middleman and just get the people what they need.

Fucking bureaucrats...


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## soulnova (Mar 21, 2011)

hcheng02 said:


> The problem isn't lack of funding or donations. The problem is that bureaucrats are taking too damn long verifying the supplies and preventing them from being delivered.



Pretty much. What I meant is that there's so little focus on this matter, and I'm sure that with more media pressure they would start trying to find more ways to take aid to those people. 

Stupid bureaucrats.


----------



## Time Expired (Mar 21, 2011)

hcheng02 said:


> Preventing loss of life also means preventing survivors from starving to death, which is going to happen if supplies keep getting held up.



I wasn't arguing, certainly what you're saying is true.  I did say that other areas need attention too, and again, I was not aware that the situation was that bad for those who were displaced.  I certainly didn't think people were going to starve to death or die from dehydration.


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## stream (Mar 21, 2011)

Hang on, is there any actual reports of people starving? Of people dying because they did not get food or water? Or is it just speculation?

It is a huge area that has been devastated, and the fact that we do not get as much news on the delivery of supplies as on the nuclear reactors does not mean that nothing is being done. We can certainly blame the media for focusing on the reactors like they do. It would be good to know what is happening elsewhere, and they are simply not reporting it apart from the "found alive after 10 days in the rubble" stories.


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## assddrago (Mar 21, 2011)

article is about makeshift funerals, mourning friends, children traumatized

and about the question above, the areas where these people are are made not easily accessable by fdebris and now a lot of people are whelchin on aid because they are afraid of getting radiation


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## ExoSkel (Mar 21, 2011)

nm, smoking stopped hours ago.


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## assddrago (Mar 21, 2011)

according to kydo news, external power has been connected to reactor 4 which means all reactors have been connected except for reactor

also according to kyodo news....radiation levels are very high in areas 20M from the plant so a lot of people are paying the price for Japan's government not extending the evacuation zone


----------



## Time Expired (Mar 22, 2011)

stream said:


> Hang on, is there any actual reports of people starving? Of people dying because they did not get food or water? Or is it just speculation?



There are neither reports nor speculation.  I was just saying I didn't think those who had been displaced were on the verge is all.

Really good news about the reactors/power.


----------



## soulnova (Mar 22, 2011)

> Hang on, is there any actual reports of people starving? Of people dying because they did not get food or water? Or is it just speculation?



I watched an interview on BBC Live with one of the doctors in Sendai. At that time he hadn't sleep in 3 days and had only half a rice ball to eat. He said the danger of starvation was real specially with the people who cannot move by themselves to other shelters in the freezing weather(elderly, sick, injured) as they didn't have fuel for cars. This was four or five days ago. I can only hope they managed to get more food. 

I heard Save the Children actually managed to get a truck into a disaster zone, but I can't find the link to confirm that.  I'll check around again.

Now, if you think about it, we should really start changing to solar cars... quick. One tragedy like this on where you live and we all get stuck going no where.


----------



## Time Expired (Mar 22, 2011)

^ That's terrible.


----------



## Tekkenman11 (Mar 22, 2011)

I'd bet my bottom dollar that there will be traces of radiation in our milk and dairy products in the upcoming weeks. Just like what happened in the aftermath of the* Chernobyl disaster*.

Then I predict the American government saying that's it's going to be all right and that anything below 120 isn't damaging to he human body (when in actuality anything over 120 can result in fatality so even around there is detrimental). The same crap that Russia said and did is going to happen with America and I see it starting to occur in Japan. 

The world is going nowhere quickly.


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## runsakurarun (Mar 22, 2011)

Otakus unite!


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## ExoSkel (Mar 22, 2011)

soulnova said:


> Now, if you think about it, we should really start changing to solar cars... quick. One tragedy like this on where you live and we all get stuck going no where.


Saudi Arabia and American oil companies will go jihad on you if you even attempt to bring a non-fuel car into discussion.


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## Juno (Mar 22, 2011)




----------



## assddrago (Mar 22, 2011)

well all six reactor are now connected now they have to scramble to replace all the parts damaged by seawater

for a  spec of other good news reactors five and six are in cold shutdown so we wont have to worry about two more out of control reactors


----------



## Miss Fortune (Mar 22, 2011)

assddrago said:


> well all six reactor are now connected now they have to scramble to replace all the parts damaged by seawater
> 
> for a  spec of other good news reactors five and six are in cold shutdown so we wont have to worry about two more out of control reactors



Well that's good news. Now Japan can start really focusing on getting supplies to the people who are stranded.


----------



## -Dargor- (Mar 22, 2011)

Bright side is, they'll never have to be scared of the dark again for a couple of decades.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 23, 2011)

plans move forward


----------



## makeoutparadise (Mar 23, 2011)

Message from a friend who's cousin died in japan 


> So I'm subscribed to this comedian on youtube.  He recently posted this video.
> 
> 
> *For ever 1,000,000 views he gets he will donate another 600 dollars to help Japan.  So please watch the video.*


----------



## stream (Mar 23, 2011)

I liked this story:


----------



## soulnova (Mar 23, 2011)

Thanks stream. There's more where that came from.



Highlights:


> When United States Navy helicopters swept down on the school in a ruined Japanese village, survivors first looked hesitantly from the windows. Then they rushed out, helping unload food, water and clothes. They clasped hands with the Americans. Some embraced them.
> 
> (....)
> 
> ...



:')


----------



## Miss Fortune (Mar 23, 2011)

soulnova said:


> Thanks stream. There's more where that came from.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Good ol' American hot dogs.

That's very nice.


----------



## Mintaka (Mar 23, 2011)

runsakurarun said:


> Otakus unite!


Yes congregate into a small area.  That will make the airstrikes oh so much easier.


----------



## Final Giku Tenshou (Mar 23, 2011)

Tokoyami said:


> Yes congregate into a small area.  That will make the airstrikes oh so much easier.



Because that's totally an appropriate statement to make regarding the situation


----------



## Juno (Mar 24, 2011)

Remember that fucked up road that collapsed?



Already fixed. In the UK they would have just about finished the health and safety assessment by now.


----------



## Vicious-chan (Mar 24, 2011)

Japan, gets shit done


----------



## Bender (Mar 24, 2011)

Juno said:


> Remember that fucked up road that collapsed?
> 
> 
> 
> Already fixed. In the UK they would have just about finished the health and safety assessment by now.



*GOD*  DAMN


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 24, 2011)

Holy shit that's impressive!


----------



## Blinky (Mar 24, 2011)

That was actually done like a week ago.


----------



## Mozu (Mar 24, 2011)

Oh Japan  

That road would have taken at least 6 months to fix in the US. And that's being optimistic.


----------



## The Weeknd (Mar 24, 2011)

Ohh JAPAN!


----------



## Soranushi (Mar 24, 2011)

_Holy Shit!? 

Japan you're truly full of awesomeness:33~_


----------



## Reksveks (Mar 24, 2011)

Thats efficiency to another level, the Germans would be proud of that


----------



## Stalin (Mar 24, 2011)

> second Hiroshima is happening with the partial meltdowns at Fukushima 1 nuclear reactors. We can only hope the eventual toll in lives comes nowhere near close to that of the world's first atomic catastrophe.
> 
> The international community is now asking: Where will be the next Nagasaki?
> 
> ...


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 24, 2011)

He did a fine job writing up an article making nuclear energy look bad.


----------



## Qhorin Halfhand (Mar 24, 2011)

> second Hiroshima is happening with the partial meltdowns at Fukushima 1 nuclear reactors. We can only hope the eventual toll in lives comes nowhere near close to that of the world's first atomic catastrophe.
> 
> The international community is now asking: Where will be the next Nagasaki?



What an obviously sensationalist article. 



Razgriez said:


> He did a fine job writing up an article making nuclear energy look bad.



He could have made his bias less transparent. Overall very bad article. I mean it is so excessively over the top that it undermines its attempt to be successful propaganda.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 24, 2011)

> He could have made his bias less transparent. Overall very bad article. I mean it is so excessively over the top that it undermines its attempt to be successful propaganda.



Yep. Technology has its risks but that doesnt mean we should avoid it like the plague due to isolated incidents. Hell even if that thing went Chernobyl on us the radiation most likely wouldnt even reach Hawaii.


----------



## Blinky (Mar 24, 2011)

> The international community is now asking: Where will be the next Nagasaki?



Who actually asks this


----------



## Hellrasinbrasin (Mar 24, 2011)

Blinky said:


> Who actually asks this



An insisative prick that works for Barak Obama thats who...

Looks like all the damages roads have been ironed out and are usable now.


----------



## Wilykat (Mar 24, 2011)

Mozu said:


> Oh Japan
> 
> That road would have taken at least 6 months to fix in the US. And that's being optimistic.



Rest of USA, maybe but in Michigan it would have taken 3 years just to get the money and it'd be a pot hole type fix, fill in the hole and tell drivers to slow down. -_-

Part of Michigan is so bad milk has to be delivered by air only as it'd end up milkshake if it was trucked in.


----------



## Gino (Mar 24, 2011)

Juno said:


> Remember that fucked up road that collapsed?
> 
> 
> 
> Already fixed. In the UK they would have just about finished the health and safety assessment by now.



The Japanese are actually saiyans confirmed........


----------



## xpeed (Mar 25, 2011)

I'm impressed how fast they repaired that road.  It took my city 7 years to finally repave 500 feet of road in my neighborhood.   W.T.F.


----------



## stream (Mar 25, 2011)

> *Japan Quietly Evacuating a Wider Radius From Reactors*
> Japanese officials on Friday began quietly encouraging people to evacuate a larger swath of territory around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, a sign that they hold little hope that the crippled facility will soon be brought under control.



I think the NYT is scaremongering a bit. This was the first version of the article, with the "quietly" and the "little hope" part. They have toned it down since:



> *Japan Encourages a Wider Evacuation From Reactor Area*
> Japanese officials began encouraging people to evacuate a larger swath of territory around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Friday as new signs emerged that parts of the crippled facility are so damaged and contaminated that it will be hard to bring the plant under control soon.



No more claim that the Japanese government is doing it quietly – it was announced on national TV after all – only that they are encouraging it. Nothing about officials having little hope to control the reactor either.

Yesterday, the newspapers were all reporting loudly that the tap water in Tokyo was not safe for children to drink. When you look into the details, you find that if a child was to drink that water for *a year*, they would get a higher dose than regulations allow. Today, the tap water is back under the safety level, so they could drink it as much as they want again without getting a problem. Note well: If they had kept drinking water the whole time, they would still be well under the regulations.


...In the comments of the New York Times, readers were already speaking of how hard it will be to *evacuate Japan*.


----------



## Ennoea (Mar 25, 2011)




----------



## CrazyMoronX (Mar 25, 2011)

xpeed said:


> I'm impressed how fast they repaired that road. It took my city 7 years to finally repave 500 feet of road in my neighborhood. W.T.F.


 There was a massive sinkhole here in Colorado on i25 a year or so ago. 

IIRC it only took a couple weeks to fix.



Still, this is impressive. Japanese must be hiding their road-fixing Gundams undergound.


----------



## kazuri (Mar 25, 2011)

Capeta's finally going to get all the funding he needed through his dads company now..


----------



## Vergil (Mar 25, 2011)

Dont know if this has been posted but wow. 





> Tons of relief goods have been delivered to victims of Japan's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami from a dark corner of society: the "yakuza" organised crime networks. Skip related content
> 
> Yakuza groups have been sending trucks from the Tokyo and Kobe regions to deliver food, water, blankets and toiletries to evacuation centres in northeast Japan, the area devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami which have left at least 27,000 dead and missing.
> 
> ...



I doubt that any gangs in any other countries would do this.


----------



## ExoSkel (Mar 25, 2011)

Water leaks at reactors 1, 3, and 2 suggest containment breach.


----------



## kazuri (Mar 25, 2011)

> I doubt that any gangs in any other countries would do this.



And you would be wrong. Hell, some gang's don't even need disasters to try to help people out. The hell's angels have repeatedly done major things to help out children and veterans. And if you don't think the hells angels have done things as bad as the yakuza, think again.


----------



## ExoSkel (Mar 25, 2011)

Vergil said:


> Dont know if this has been posted but wow.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And I doubt you know anything about gangs in other countries.


----------



## Mozu (Mar 25, 2011)

It's not unheard of for yakuza, or large syndicates in general, to help out their communities, especially during such hard times. It builds good will with the public, which is always good for them. 



> "Rather than a PR effort, I think it's actually good intentions," said Mizoguchi, who has angered the yakuza so much that he has been stabbed twice in attacks by gang members.



But if the guy who was stabbed twice says he thinks they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.


----------



## A. Waltz (Mar 25, 2011)

that's beautiful...

yakuza helping out..


----------



## Wolfarus (Mar 25, 2011)

Good that relief is getting to the people who need it, even if it comes from yakuza hands. 

But it would also be idiotic to assume that they arnt thinking of the benefits such acts will no doubt bring, down the line (such as the communities not being so inclined to help the police, building contacts for their front business's, ect)


----------



## Ennoea (Mar 25, 2011)

> I doubt that any gangs in any other countries would do this.


Al Qaeda gave out food and aid when the Earthquake hit Kashmir.


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 25, 2011)

I'm reading this situation isn't improving at all.


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 25, 2011)

Another sensationalist story...twisting with the words.


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 25, 2011)

MSNBC btw.


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 25, 2011)

And yeah...MSNBC is like Fox News. 

Lets wait for NHK.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 26, 2011)

current NHK


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 26, 2011)

Latest status report:


----------



## Shukumei (Mar 26, 2011)

Anyone else reading 's coverage? Crispin Freeman recommended him a while back in this crisis. 

... Though, he's been a bit more 'off-topic' lately.


----------



## Sanity Check (Mar 26, 2011)

You know, this disaster is a classic example of the intrinsic evils of human civilization.

There's the nuclear power plants built in a poor area of town.  Everyone supports nuclear power and says its "completey safe".  Yet, somehow, nuclear power plants are ALWAYS built right next to where the poorest of the poor, live.  Nuclear power is completely "safe" but nobody wants to live near a nuclear reactor.

Then, there's the classic case of the big, greedy, multi-national corporation cutting corners and skimping on safety to squeeze a bigger profit.  It happened with the Deepwater Horizon rig.  It happened with natural gas in America.  It happened with the levees in New Orleans.  Its a vicious repeating cycle of greed and stupidity that can be found in everything from government budgets, to private sector business plans.

Next, is the typical government practice of downplaying disasters and being in denial about the scale and scope of devastation.  As is typical, the government misinforms its citizens and pretends everything is "under control".  And, people generally being raised by birth to be dependent sheep who blindly believe everything and anything a government tells them, believe it, despite the obvious indications that the government is engaging in deliberate misinformation and is incorrect about many basic facts which are very important.


----------



## Juno (Mar 26, 2011)

Vergil said:


> Dont know if this has been posted but wow.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The mafia ran soup kitchens in the US throughout the depression. It's important to remember that organised crime gangs benefit from winning favour from their communities, so it's not done altruistically. They're affected by the quake as much as anyone in Japan, and offering aid in quakes has always been good PR move for the Yakuza. 

However, tomorrow they'll be back to trafficking women into forced prostitution and hustling 'tax' from the people they're aiding. So don't mistake them as nice guys.


----------



## stream (Mar 26, 2011)

1mmortal 1tachi said:


> There's the nuclear power plants built in a poor area of town.  Everyone supports nuclear power and says its "completey safe".  Yet, somehow, nuclear power plants are ALWAYS built right next to where the poorest of the poor, live.  Nuclear power is completely "safe" but nobody wants to live near a nuclear reactor.


It is the same with prisons, oil refineries, coal power plants, water treatment plants, etc. Plants are all ugly, and built where land is cheap rather than in expensive neighborhoods. Nuclear reactors are not alone in this.



1mmortal 1tachi said:


> Then, there's the classic case of the big, greedy, multi-national corporation cutting corners and skimping on safety to squeeze a bigger profit.  It happened with the Deepwater Horizon rig.  It happened with natural gas in America.  It happened with the levees in New Orleans.  Its a vicious repeating cycle of greed and stupidity that can be found in everything from government budgets, to private sector business plans.


Here, the most glaring omission has been insufficient protections against tsunami... But these were the work of the government rather than the company. Considering the scope of the disaster, things have held up pretty well.


1mmortal 1tachi said:


> Next, is the typical government practice of downplaying disasters and being in denial about the scale and scope of devastation.  As is typical, the government misinforms its citizens and pretends everything is "under control".  And, people generally being raised by birth to be dependent sheep who blindly believe everything and anything a government tells them, believe it, despite the obvious indications that the government is engaging in deliberate misinformation and is incorrect about many basic facts which are very important.


We don't exactly know what is happening, but I don't remember that the Japanese government has been caught giving deliberate misinformation. There has been plenty of alarmism coming from the media; but measurements made by the US confirm that the radiation levels are still under dangerous levels.


----------



## Vergil (Mar 26, 2011)

Juno said:


> The mafia ran soup kitchens in the US throughout the depression. It's important to remember that organised crime gangs benefit from winning favour from their communities, so it's not done altruistically. They're affected by the quake as much as anyone in Japan, and offering aid in quakes has always been good PR move for the Yakuza.
> 
> However, tomorrow they'll be back to trafficking women into forced prostitution and hustling 'tax' from the people they're aiding. So don't mistake them as nice guys.



I guess. Hadn't really thought about it but you're right. I suppose I still cling to the belief that folk might rally together in times of need and put personal gain aside for a while and the honourable Japanese spirit is still prominent even in the criminals.


----------



## Animeblue (Mar 26, 2011)

*A poll of Americans reveals 38% consider the recent earthquake and tsunami a ?sign from God? and a further 29% believe such disasters are actually divine punishment from God.

The report in question, based a random sample of 1,000 Americans and conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, a secular research body concerned with religion and public policy:

Nearly 6-in-10 (59%) white evangelicals also believe that natural disasters are a sign from God. Only about one-third of Catholics (31%) and white mainline Protestants (34%) believe natural disasters are a sign from God.

A majority (53%) of white evangelicals believe that God punishes nations for the sins of its citizens?a view held by just 1-in-5 white mainline Protestants and Catholics.

The revelation that Ishihara is only as crazy as the average evangelical Christian is somehow less than surprising.*


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 26, 2011)

And Evangelicals wonder why they are the low run of the Christianity Ladder in America's northeast and west...


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 26, 2011)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> And yeah...MSNBC is like Fox News.
> 
> Lets wait for NHK.



MSNBC is far more reliable than Fox News. Plus, comparing MSNBC to Fox is good only when you're talking about opinionated banter.


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 26, 2011)

LouDAgreat said:


> MSNBC is far more reliable than Fox News. Plus, comparing MSNBC to Fox is good only when you're talking about opinionated banter.



MSNBC's is partly owned by general electric which is also the company that designed the Fukushima reactors.  :amazed

Found this out after The Daily Show only played about 15 different clips throughout the past few years where the reporters were suppose to say this with anything relevant to GE whether its good or bad.

I believe it was the March 24th one that did this. You should also watch it just to see John talk to a guy from Fox News. Quite hilarious.


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 26, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> MSNBC's is partly owned by general electric which is also the company that designed the Fukushima reactors.  :amazed
> 
> Found this out after The Daily Show only played about 15 different clips throughout the past few years where the reporters were suppose to say this with anything relevant to GE whether its good or bad.
> 
> I believe it was the March 24th one that did this. You should also watch it just to see John talk to a guy from Fox News. Quite hilarious.



Yea, I saw that episode. I liked that part where lyrics were added to NBC's news theme: "And there's a chance GE's involved somehow!!" lol


----------



## Razgriez (Mar 26, 2011)

LouDAgreat said:


> Yea, I saw that episode. I liked that part where lyrics were added to NBC's news theme: "And there's a chance GE's involved somehow!!" lol



They only make everything.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 27, 2011)

Razgriez said:


> They only make everything.



well one things clear, whatever they do now the area around fukishima is full of cesium and that means its uninhabitable for humans for the next few decades

how do they "deal" with high levels in the seawater


----------



## Inuhanyou (Mar 27, 2011)

We have a portion of crazy conservatives in the country, what a surprise that is


----------



## Sanity Check (Mar 27, 2011)

stream said:


> It is the same with prisons, oil refineries, coal power plants, water treatment plants, etc. Plants are all ugly, and built where land is cheap rather than in expensive neighborhoods. Nuclear reactors are not alone in this.



Ever get the feeling you're missing the point?  

Irony.  Contradiction.  What do these terms mean to you?

When someone say a nuclear power plant is completely safe, yet doesn't want to live anywhere near one, is this not irony and contradiction...  in the way that a UFC fighter who believes in a loving and merciful God thanks God for giving him the strength and wisdom to beat the living daylights out of the fighter opposing him?

Maybe a slight contradiction, huh?



stream said:


> Here, the most glaring omission has been insufficient protections against tsunami... But these were the work of the government rather than the company. Considering the scope of the disaster, things have held up pretty well.



The US government didn't want to spend money to ensure adequate protection on the levees in New Orleans.

BP didn't want to spend money to ensure adequate protection of its Deepwater Horizon oil rig.  It also did not want to spend money to ensure adequate protection in terms of properly training its employees and ensuring proper safeguards and countermeasures against emergency.

The nuclear reactor owners in Japan did not want to spend money to ensure adequate protection of said reactors.

These aren't isolated, unique, incidents.

They're the same, exact, problem repeated multiple times.  Indeed, one could add the recent US economic crisis and multiple other crisis to the list.

Whether its a government or a company its the same fkin thing.

And, like they say: insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.



stream said:


> We don't exactly know what is happening, but I don't remember that the Japanese government has been caught giving deliberate misinformation. There has been plenty of alarmism coming from the media; but measurements made by the US confirm that the radiation levels are still under dangerous levels.



The japanese gov claimed they "extinguished" the fire, for one, which was later shown to be completely false.

It has also been shown that their press releases were completely fabricated.  What they released as official announcements were estimates and guesses. 

Anyway, I don't know what kool aid you've been drinking..  But, yeah, they've definitely engaged in deliberate misinformation.


----------



## Taleran (Mar 27, 2011)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12872707






> Radioactivity in water at reactor 2 at the quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant has reached 10 million times the usual level, company officials say.
> 
> Workers trying to cool the reactor core to avoid a meltdown have been evacuated.
> 
> ...


----------



## Wilykat (Mar 27, 2011)

Looks like a busted containment to me.


----------



## Miss Fortune (Mar 27, 2011)

Taleran said:


> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12872707



Shit... this just gets worse as time goes on...


----------



## stream (Mar 27, 2011)

1mmortal 1tachi said:


> Ever get the feeling you're missing the point?


My point was:
Nuclear reactors are no worse than many other things that we tolerate without claiming they are evilness incarnate.



1mmortal 1tachi said:


> The japanese gov claimed they "extinguished" the fire, for one, which was later shown to be completely false.
> 
> It has also been shown that their press releases were completely fabricated.  What they released as official announcements were estimates and guesses.


At the time they said it, it was reasonnable to think so. That is not misinformation. Misinformation is saying something you know to be false.

Nobody can go see what is happening inside. So yeah, anything that anybody is saying is a guess and an estimate. When the top official in the US claimed there was no water in a containment pool he was also guessing and estimating. But you are automatically considering that any guess coming from the Japanese government is dishonest; on the other hand, if some crackpot claimed that the whole of Japan will become radioactive, I feel you would consider this sensible and unbiased...


----------



## Juno (Mar 27, 2011)

Taleran said:


> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12872707



They're now saying 10 million is an error.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110327...zZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawNqYXBhbmh1Z2VyYWQ-

Hard to tell what's really going on between the blatant scare-mongering and those who think reactors just leak sunshine and happiness.


----------



## impersonal (Mar 27, 2011)

stream, I think a lot of people are beginning to get a bit upset at some of the people who kept claiming "it's absolutely nothing". About a week ago, some guy vehemently defended that the accident was a 4 in gravity, and thus less important than Three Miles Island...

So, sure, the media exaggerates everything the other way. However, there is a middle ground to be found. 



			
				stream said:
			
		

> Here, the most glaring omission has been insufficient protections against tsunami... But these were the work of the government rather than the company. Considering the scope of the disaster, *things have held up pretty well.*


This is an example of the stuff I dislike. No, things have not held up pretty well. Things went catastrophically bad due to terrible preparations. When the risk of important emissions of radiations settles down (if it does), the blame game will start more seriously, and that's because there's a lot of blame to spread.


			
				Juno said:
			
		

> They're now saying 10 million is an error.


I'm still trying to figure out why an electricity company managing nuclear plants would resort to scare-mongering, in the middle of a crisis it is attempting to resolve. Absolute nonsense. So, of course they're pretending they never meant to say that.  They should have given the numbers in milli/microsieverts like they had done so far. Journalists don't understand science so they wouldn't have been able to use that.


----------



## stream (Mar 27, 2011)

impersonal said:


> stream, I think a lot of people are beginning to get a bit upset at some of the people who kept claiming "it's absolutely nothing". About a week ago, some guy vehemently defended that the accident was a 4 in gravity, and thus less important than Three Miles Island...



The situation is definitely bad, and hundreds have to work around the clock so that it does not become worse.

But other people, like me, are also becoming upset by the fact that the media is systematically assuming the worst, and blowing things out of proportion; because as bad as the situation is, it is still possible to blow things out of proportion. Huge articles have been written on the radioactivity of the tap water in Tokyo, even though that water could be drank for months without getting any problems, and the radioactivity was down again the day after. When you read the comments, people are talking about the evacuation of Japan. There are people in the US who have started taking potassium iodine because they are afraid of radiations, when the change to the normal radioactivity level in the US is negligible.

But if you try to point that out, you are "spreading misinformation" or "drinking the government kool-aid".

And also, people are acting as if the nuclear reactor is the major story. It is not. The death toll of the tsunami is likely to go over 20'000 victims, and the damage it has done is vastly bigger than the radiation coming out of the nuclear reactor. By reading the articles, you might easily think that the nuclear reactor was the cause of the earthquake and of the tsunami.


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 27, 2011)

I"m hearing on CNN right now that a 6.5 aftershock has hit Japan.



Hopefully it's nothing too serious.


----------



## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 27, 2011)

LouDAgreat said:


> I"m hearing on CNN right now that a 6.5 aftershock has hit Japan.
> 
> 
> 
> Hopefully it's nothing too serious.


Uh, there's been at least 30 Aftershocks above 6.0 since the 9.0 Earthquake.


----------



## LouDAgreat (Mar 27, 2011)

SuperSaiyaMan12 said:


> Uh, there's been at least 30 Aftershocks above 6.0 since the 9.0 Earthquake.



And each each one is as serious as the one before.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 27, 2011)

^
I dont know how i feel about this

frankly (whether or not they're right) it seems wrong to have this when people are putting their lives on the line to keep a nuclear crisis from getting worse as this happen


----------



## ExoSkel (Mar 28, 2011)

Workers exposed to radiation in water 10,000 times normal level


----------



## soulnova (Mar 28, 2011)

assddrago said:


> ^
> I dont know how i feel about this
> 
> frankly (whether or not they're right) it seems wrong to have this when people are putting their lives on the line to keep a nuclear crisis from getting worse as this happen



From there



> The protesters marched more than 2 kilometers around the TEPCO headquarters, holding up banners and calling for the closure of nuclear plants that_ are not built to withstand earthquakes and tsunami._



Certainly common sense. 




> They demanded that the government make a policy shift to use alternative energy resources instead of nuclear power.



Yes, please.



> They also called on the government and Tokyo Electric Power to disclose further information and to take more responsibility for what happened.



And this.

There's really nothing bad on what are they asking. Very sensitive demands. :/


----------



## stream (Mar 28, 2011)

assddrago said:


> ^
> I dont know how i feel about this
> 
> frankly (whether or not they're right) it seems wrong to have this when people are putting their lives on the line to keep a nuclear crisis from getting worse as this happen



Personally, I see no problem with it. Like during the Iraq invasion, I believe there is no problem criticizing the decision of the top brass, even when the lowly workers are risking their life because of these decisions.

In fact, it should be much less controversial, since criticizing the Iraq invasion could be argued to lead to loss of morale in the troops (debatable), but criticizing nuclear energy should if anything motivate even more the guys cleaning the mess.


----------



## assddrago (Mar 28, 2011)

^
claims those two workers are okay


----------



## assddrago (Mar 28, 2011)

ExoSkel said:


> Workers exposed to radiation in water 10,000 times normal level



according to NHK it was actually 3,000 and they claim the two guys are okay


----------



## impersonal (Mar 28, 2011)

Who cares about "normal level"? That's idiotic. We want to know the degree of dangerosity, not how many times the normal level it is. If people keep bringing up new and retarded measurement units, we're never going to get any idea of what's going on. Microsieverts, millisieverts, curies, number of times the dangerous level, number of times the legal level, number of times the normal level, etc, etc.


----------



## stream (Mar 28, 2011)

impersonal said:


> Who cares about "normal level"? That's idiotic. We want to know the degree of dangerosity, not how many times the normal level it is. If people keep bringing up new and retarded measurement units, we're never going to get any idea of what's going on. Microsieverts, millisieverts, curies, number of times the dangerous level, number of times the legal level, number of times the normal level, etc, etc.



This is a handy chart to have: 

How the workers will be affected is a bit difficult to know. A dose of 100 mSv can be clearly linked to an increased risk of cancer, and they were exposed to 180 mSv, but only to their legs...

The big problem is that the water was way more radioactive than they thought, and they don't know why.


----------



## Black Wraith (Mar 28, 2011)

This is pretty interesting for those who can watch it.


----------



## iander (Mar 28, 2011)

> Radiation leak found outside Fukushima nuclear plant
> 
> Highly radioactive water has been found for the first time outside one of the reactor buildings at Japan's quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, officials say.
> 
> The leak in a tunnel linked to the No 2 reactor has raised fears of radioactive liquid seeping into the environment.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12883785


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## Mathias124 (Mar 28, 2011)

stream said:


> This is a handy chart to have:
> 
> How the workers will be affected is a bit difficult to know. A dose of 100 mSv can be clearly linked to an increased risk of cancer, and they were exposed to 180 mSv, but only to their legs...
> 
> *The big problem is that the water was way more radioactive than they thought, and they don't know why*.



Two guys get radiated.. meh, they're cleaning a radiation spill, it has to happen.

The bolded part however is much more interresting, doesnt anybody know *why* the water was so radioactive?


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## stream (Mar 28, 2011)

It could come from the reactor (very bad) or from the pipes around the reactor (meh). So far, they thought that the reactor was not leaking, but if it leaks, that is years more of decontamination. Maybe.


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## Vegitto-kun (Mar 29, 2011)

Over here the newspapers are saying that the reactor housing is broken and that the radioactive water is coming out of the cracks/holes because the water levels arent raising when they pump coolant/water in the cores. 

shit is going bad.


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## Dark Uchiha (Mar 29, 2011)

the end is nigh.

the first order of business is to stop the plants from leaking radiation and its been over 2 weeks with high level of radiation pouring out.

that stretch of land and further, ruined for decades to come.


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## assddrago (Mar 29, 2011)




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## stream (Mar 29, 2011)

That is good news.

The iodine making the water radioactive has a very short half-life, so as long as this is the element making the most of the radiations, the water will not stay radioactive very long. The real problems are cesium and the plutonium.

Though even if it is iodine, the radioactive water still hampers the efforts of the workers trying to control the whole thing.


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## assddrago (Mar 29, 2011)

and heres what the usa is doing


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## Wilykat (Mar 29, 2011)

Not sure if this is true or not:


> At 1:45,  the newscaster states that a crane collapsed onto the fuel rods at Reactor #3.   This is an internal crane built into the steel structure that moves rods from the reactor to the spent fuel pools.  This is MOX fuel, meaning they damaged rods that contained plutonium.
> 
> This crane collapsed two weeks ago.  The Japanese government and TEPCO have been lying about this, knowing full well that this incident alone would have set off a nuclear disaster as bad as Chernobyl.  Governments and bankers don't want a panic.  The Nikkei, Dow Jones, and maintaining the corrupt nation-state system are more important than human life.  What has the world response been?  Bomb Libya and litter yet another country with Depleted Uranium, because according to those wise commentators on TV, radiation never killed anyone and only 58 people died in Chernobyl, and plutonium works as a vaccine AGAINST cancer!.  Sure.



source; 

If it's true, then ouch...


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## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 29, 2011)

Another sensationalist news story.


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## Blackrose16 (Mar 29, 2011)

I just heard from my family today!! They are okay the house is gone but the made it out okay which is good news I hope everyone hears from their loved ones soon


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## Daenerys Stormborn (Mar 29, 2011)

Glad to hear that your family is okay, Blackrose!


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## assddrago (Mar 29, 2011)

Blackrose16 said:


> I just heard from my family today!! They are okay the house is gone but the made it out okay which is good news I hope everyone hears from their loved ones soon



Thats fantastic news!! Wonderful!!

I'm glad for them and you.

I came to report that no new news came from cnn the whole day, thats something at least

and


apparently about twenty nations leaders are going to japan on thursday to DISCUSS giving more help


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## Vegitto-kun (Mar 30, 2011)

I find it hilarious how there are three groups here.

you have the neutral people who follow the news and worry.

then you have the people who scream fire and death and that we are all going to die.

then you have for me personally the worst type.

everything that gets posted that is bad news is instantly sensation news and false. gets revealed a crane collapsed and damaged spent fuel rods "LIES SENSATIONALIST STORIES LOLOLOLO NOTHING IS WRONG BUTTERFLIES EVERYWHERE"

shit is going bad just admit it. acting like its the end of the world is overdoing it but acting like this is nothing bad is just wrong.


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## stream (Mar 30, 2011)

Vegitto-kun said:


> shit is going bad just admit it. acting like its the end of the world is overdoing it but acting like this is nothing bad is just wrong.



Well, some stories _are_ sensationalist. For instance, a recent story explained that some radioactive plutonium has been found in the soil around the reactors. Plutonium is BAD! It takes a long time to decay! ON THE OTHER HAND, the levels found are about the same as when a foreign nation did a nuclear test abroad.

Once again: the plutonium found in the soil around the reactor is no more than what they would be if the US had tested a nuke on an island somewhere in the pacific. Which they have done repeatedly in the past. And people have lived through it, not only in the whole of Japan but in plenty of other countries, including places like Hawaii and California.

So you can present this news story two ways. The first way is to title the story: "Insignificant levels of plutonium found around the reactors" and explain that people can live there without any problem, like they have done after every nuke test abroad, not just near the reactor but in the whole country, without even feeling it. The other way is to title it: "Plutonium found, problems mount at Japan nuclear plant" and claim that this is a new setback in the efforts to bring the reactors under control.

The second title is the one that has been used by the media around the world. Just google for it. This is a comment I found in five minutes:



> This is why nuclear power plants are such a lousy idea. What in civilization is 24,000 years old? The cave paintings maybe. Not the pyramids. So who is going to keep life off that contaminated spot for 24,000 years? The answer is, some day it will kill unwary living things.



I repeat once again, the levels of plutonium found in the soil around the reactor are nowhere near levels that would make the place uninhabitable. That is not the way the media choose to present it...


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## KyuubiFan (Mar 30, 2011)

How soon can they actually start rebuilding?


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## SuperSaiyaMan12 (Mar 30, 2011)

KyuubiFan said:


> How soon can they actually start rebuilding?


They already have started.


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## Le Mâle-Pensant (Mar 31, 2011)

Sarkozy visited Japan

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBa0vkQhymA&feature=channel_video_title[/YOUTUBE]


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## Shukumei (Mar 31, 2011)

stream said:


> Well, some stories _are_ sensationalist. For instance, a recent story explained that some radioactive plutonium has been found in the soil around the reactors. Plutonium is BAD! It takes a long time to decay! ON THE OTHER HAND, the levels found are about the same as when a foreign nation did a nuclear test abroad.
> 
> Once again: the plutonium found in the soil around the reactor is no more than what they would be if the US had tested a nuke on an island somewhere in the pacific. Which they have done repeatedly in the past. And people have lived through it, not only in the whole of Japan but in plenty of other countries, including places like Hawaii and California.


Actually, it seems five spots on site were tested, and only two of the five were deemed likely to be the result of the recent crisis.  even had this to say, "'I'm not going to lie awake at night worrying about these levels,' says Dan Strom, staff scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, who notes that *the US Environmental Protection Agency would deem soil with this level of contamination fit for farming*. 

'If this site were to be used just for a recreational area - a parking lot or golf course - then you could easily have 100 times this level,' Strom adds."

Japanese 'levels deemed safe' of radioactivity were also far stricter than the international standard with regard to the 'iodine-131 in tap water' incident; if we had those levels of i-131 (even the earlier, higher ones) in water in the US it would be "safe."


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## Sanity Check (Apr 1, 2011)

Tsunami looks very suckish for those caught up in it.


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## Razgriez (Apr 1, 2011)

Updated information on the radiation levels near Fukushima.


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## Animeblue (Apr 1, 2011)

*Since news is kinda relate the Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear disaster in Japan to I'll post this here as well

Top Tokyo anime station TV Tokyo is under fire for daring to break off its back-to-back earthquake coverage after a mere 33 hours, ?inappropriately? broadcasting starting to broadcast anime whilst other Tokyo channels were still lovingly showing endless scenes of ruined reactors, wrecked cities and huddled refugees.

TV Tokyo ran 33 hours of continuous quake coverage from 2:54PM on the 11th of March to 11:55PM on the 12th, at which point it finally relented and broadcast the scheduled episode of Tegami Bachi.

The station subsequently fell victim to a barrage of criticism for ?inappropriate programming,? with some 600 complaints received.

TV companies are apparently alone in Japanese corporate culture in being largely impervious to minority complaints and utterly unself-effacing when responding to them, and TV Tokyo?s CEO is no exception:




"We did receive 90 messages of support for broadcasting it, but most were critical. I?d like to bear their valued opinions in mind.?

Click to expand...


Just why every station in the Tokyo region was expected to offer days of continuous quake coverage is not exactly clear; nor is it clear what purpose half a dozen channels endlessly regurgitating the same information actually serves.

Anime fans for their part are already feeling put upon thanks to the tendency of stations to splash maps all over the screen every time there is a 1m tsunami anticipated on beaches 2000km away.

2ch is highly sceptical of the excessive wave of ?self-restraint? cancellations, as well as the increasingly transparent efforts to hijack the disaster hysteria for political ends and backdoor censorship:




?What are they whining about? It?s practically an anime station.?

?Just what did they expect??

?So now TV Tokyo is going to have to exercise ?self-restraint?? What about Madoka??

?If you don?t like it, change the channel!?

?On the contrary, they should be grateful. The other stations all run quake coverage, but they have anime to take solace in ? I think that is good.?

?If you want to complain, do it to the government or Tepco? the ones who blame anime are nuts.?

?Just shut up and watch NHK!?

?People who don?t even watch that channel shouldn?t be lodging complaints about it!?

?The self-restraint obsessed crowd are seriously irritating.?

?It?s better than the creepy variety news shows on the other channels.?

?TV Tokyo should exercise self-restraint ? from showing quake coverage.?

?What the hell is the problem supposed to be anyway? We don?t need more than one channel running quake news all the time??

?Do the self-restraint maniacs actually derive pleasure from watching quake reports or something??

?TV Tokyo is in the right. Endless quake images are only going to traumatise children.?

?I thought Japan was finished when I tuned in to TV Tokyo to see earthquake reporting, but I saw a ray of hope when the anime returned!?

?The people who make these complaints are mentally ill? what is the point of having every single channel run the same reports and not forgiving anything else, it?s crazy.?

?NHK runs nothing but earthquake coverage, the others run quake coverage/variety programmes, and TV Tokyo runs anime. Take your pick.?

?The quake was in Tohoku and the Tokyo channels don?t even broadcast there, so who cares if they broadcast anime in Tokyo??

?Did they complain properly to ATX and Animax as well??

?I was surprised TV Tokyo even broadcast quake news.?

?The people complaining are the ones who need to show some self-restraint??

Click to expand...

 *


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## kazuri (Apr 1, 2011)

Wow I thought they would be better than that. You don't need 50 channels reporting the same thing. Doing things and seeing things you've always done in dire times help out moral so much, especially for children. Kids don't need to be hearing about radiation and death counts 24/7.


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## Vegitto-kun (Apr 2, 2011)

this is not big news or anything but abit heart warming though.


dog saved after 3 weeks on a floating island made of debris.

[YOUTUBE]FsnlCn9RcJ8[/YOUTUBE]


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## hcheng02 (Apr 2, 2011)

Animeblue said:


> *Since news is kinda relate the Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear disaster in Japan to I'll post this here as well
> 
> Top Tokyo anime station TV Tokyo is under fire for daring to break off its back-to-back earthquake coverage after a mere 33 hours, ?inappropriately? broadcasting starting to broadcast anime whilst other Tokyo channels were still lovingly showing endless scenes of ruined reactors, wrecked cities and huddled refugees.
> 
> ...



This reminds me of the time right after the Szechuan Earthquakes in China.I think it was around that time that Kung Fu Panda came out in theatres in China. Some Chinese complained on how it wasn't appropriate to have a comedy on during the Earthquake. However, it ended up being a smash hit. Viewers in China responded by saying that because there was such a calamitous tragedy that some light hearted fare was needed.


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## MunchKing (Apr 2, 2011)

Aaaw. 

That poor thing.


*Spoiler*: __ 



Makes me wonder what it ate during those weeks.


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## Vegitto-kun (Apr 3, 2011)

apparently they failed to seal a leak in reactor 2. 

god damnit.


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## Tsukiyomi (Apr 4, 2011)

*Japan dumps thousands of tons of radioactive water to sea*

Another cheerful update:



> Tokyo (CNN) -- *Japan began dumping thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, an emergency move officials said was needed to curtail a worse leak from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
> 
> In all, about 11,500 tons of radioactive water that has collected at the nuclear facility will be dumped into the sea, officials said Monday, as workers also try to deal with a crack that has been a conduit for contamination.*
> 
> ...



Source:


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