Japan earthquake and tsunami warning

[Killer Angel]

I've been watching the German response with some confusion. They appear to be in a panic mode, indicating that all nuclear reactors are just bombs waiting to happen, forgetting the fact that it took a 9.0 scale earthquake AND a tsunami to make Fukushima unsafe.

While I agree the panic mode is far excessive, must be said that (if I'm not wrong) the plant problem was related to a malfunction in the shutdown process, and that could have been happened even with a less dramatic event.

[AtlanteanTroll]

Personally, I don't think it's bad since they are giving us information on both areas. And they are both very important situations, indeed. Just for dramatically different reasons.

I disagree. That just speaks to the severity of Libya, not the lack-there-of in Japan.

[Lord of the Helms]

While I agree the panic mode is far excessive, must be said that (if I'm not wrong) the plant problem was related to a malfunction in the shutdown process, and that could have been happened even with a less dramatic event.

Not so much a malfunction as the fact that power failed (both external and their backup generators). The problem is that "shutting down" a reactor is not an easy process. Stopping the chain reaction can be done very quickly, and as far as I heard was done successfully in all reactors. However, a lot of the most highly radioactive fission products emit so much radiation that they create insane amounts of heat for days or weeks and require constant cooling. So when the power went down, the cooling system failed, reactor cores heated up, meltdown, etc. There are other risks involved in this as well (extreme heat can initiate reactions that produce highly explosive hydrogen case from the water in the reactor, for example). That's also why even the three reactor cores that hadn't even been running before the Earthquake were having trouble, and why one of them even suffered an explosion.

[factotum]

The explosion was not in the reactor core itself, though, it was in the reactor building outside the core--they vented the dangerous hydrogen from the core in order to prevent any explosion damaging the main containment. So, the results looked spectacular when it blew the roof off the building, but it didn't damage the important containment section holding the really nasty radioactives inside.

[Lord of the Helms]

That was in reactor 1. In the case of reactor 4, it wasn't the actual reactor that produced the hydrogen. There were no fuel rods in the reactor core itself; they were all located in the cooling pool, which also overheated when the cooling system failed.

[Killer Angel]

Japan have now raised the INES level of the alert for the Fukushima Daiichi reactors 2 and 3 from level 4 to level 5, the same as Three Mile Island (Chernobyl was a 7).

Now, it's a seven also Fukushima.

In the end, despite all the assurances, things are not going good.

[Flickerdart]

It's not as bad as Chernobyl, even if it's the same number - there's only been about 10% of the radiation released so far, and the intact containment structures have made sure it hasn't spread as far. Also:

...the decision to raise Fukushima’s status to a level seven disaster was based on new data about the radiation released following in the first days following the earthquake and tsunami, rather than any new events...Japan’s nuclear safety commission said Tuesday that most of the radiation escaped in the first hours and days after the tsunami. It estimates the release of iodine-137 has now come down to under 1 terabecquerel per hour...while the worst-case scenarios linger as possible, some of those who live closest to the Fukushima reactor were also being allowed to briefly go home this week to collect their belongings. Japan’s Kyodo news service reported that those who returned to their shelters after the day trip into the hot zone tested negative for radiation exposure.

[Killer Angel]

It's not as bad as Chernobyl, even if it's the same number - there's only been about 10% of the radiation released so far, and the intact containment structures have made sure it hasn't spread as far. Also:

I totally agree it's not Chernobyl, it's not even close, for various reasons.

[Haruki-kun]

It's still pretty bad. At this rate they're gonna have to evacuate the region.

[factotum]

It's still pretty bad. At this rate they're gonna have to evacuate the region.

The article linked by Flickerdart said:

Japan’s Kyodo news service reported that those who returned to their shelters after the day trip into the hot zone tested negative for radiation exposure.

So, negligible radiation exposure after being in the worst affected zone for several hours...and now you want them to evacuate the whole area? Sorry, that's just nonsense. And isn't it amazing how the media is STILL concentrating on what's been happening at this reactor (which is pretty much entirely safely shut down now) and ignoring all the much nastier stuff that got chucked into the atmosphere when other types of factory got wrecked by the earthquake and/or the tsunami?

[Haruki-kun]

So, negligible radiation exposure after being in the worst affected zone for several hours...and now you want them to evacuate the whole area? Sorry, that's just nonsense.

I don't want them to. I read another article that listed that as the "worst case scenario", to evacuate the region.

[factotum]

I don't want them to. I read another article that listed that as the "worst case scenario", to evacuate the region.

Sorry if I sounded a bit short earlier--it's just that the constant reporting of this nuclear plant to the exclusion of everything else is bugging the heck out of me. There were more than ten thousand people killed in the earthquake/tsunami, after all, yet the media insist on talking about something that has so far killed no-one (apart from a crane driver who got killed when the tsunami struck) and is quite likely to never kill anyone!

[Killer Angel]

There were more than ten thousand people killed in the earthquake/tsunami, after all, yet the media insist on talking about something that has so far killed no-one and is quite likely to never kill anyone!

Nuclear accidents, usually don't kill thousands in a huge flash of light, y' know?
"quite likely to never kill anyone", seems an almost biased simplification, the same as: Oh no, it certainly will be a total disaster.

[factotum]

"quite likely to never kill anyone", seems an almost biased simplification, the same as: Oh no, it certainly will be a total disaster.

"Quite likely" is not really the same as "certainly"...

[Killer Angel]

"Quite likely" is not really the same as "certainly"...

Sorry if I misunderstood you, but i read "quite likely", as a quasi-synonim of "almost certain outcome". As if you were saying "the percentage of fukushima killing someone in the future, is near 0".

[Ashtar]

A journalist went right to the power plant: Level per hour @ 1 mile from power plant (unprotected) = 94.2 microSieverts / hour (shown in the last seconds of the video). Over a year, that's 800 millisieverts (if it continued at such levels). Lowest clearly carcinogenic level: 100 millisieverts per year. Dose from background radiation in parts of Iran, India and much of Europe: 50 mSv/year.

Still high, but not too much. We'll see a lot of that disappear in the course of the year. Most of it will all be gone apart from the Cesium, which remains to see how much was produced.

cesium-134 - Half-life 2.0648 years
cesium-137 - Half-life 30.17 yyears
iodine-131 - Half-life 8 days
Iodine-123 - Half-life 39 hours
iodine-125 - Half-life 59 days
Xenon-133 - Half-life 5.243 days


http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2...zone.drive.cnn

[Erloas]

yet the media insist on talking about something that has so far killed no-one (apart from a crane driver who got killed when the tsunami struck) and is quite likely to never kill anyone!

If I remember right there have been at least 2 works that have died so far at the plant, though I'm not positive it was from radiation or some other work related hazard.
It is also believed by a number of the workers that they will die from this in the not too distant future.

Although even if all 200 workers at the plant do die it will still be very minor compared to the death toll from the tsunami.

[Haruki-kun]

If I remember right there have been at least 2 works that have died so far at the plant, though I'm not positive it was from radiation or some other work related hazard.
It is also believed by a number of the workers that they will die from this in the not too distant future.

Although even if all 200 workers at the plant do die it will still be very minor compared to the death toll from the tsunami.

Yes, but the nuclear disaster is what's going on NOW. The Media reports the recent news, they can't go around reporting something that happened a month ago, that doesn't attract people.

[factotum]

It is also believed by a number of the workers that they will die from this in the not too distant future.

Got a link for that? Because the workers at the plant are being restricted to a maximum of 250mSv, IIRC, and that level is nowhere near a fatal dose--I would expect the workers to know this.

[Miklus]

Yes, but the nuclear disaster is what's going on NOW. The Media reports the recent news, they can't go around reporting something that happened a month ago, that doesn't attract people.

Yes, the tsunami is not news anymore, this is. And it appears to be worse than they let on. I wonder if there will be a "zone" and how big it will be.

[Erloas]

Yes, but the nuclear disaster is what's going on NOW. The Media reports the recent news, they can't go around reporting something that happened a month ago, that doesn't attract people.

Well yes, but I think the point of the complaint was mostly because as soon as the reactor had any problems that was all they talked about. Even when there wasn't yet anything major wrong at the plant and there were 18000 people missing, the *chance* of the plant having more issues was covered a lot more then the 1000s of dead bodies they were finding.

Got a link for that? Because the workers at the plant are being restricted to a maximum of 250mSv, IIRC, and that level is nowhere near a fatal dose--I would expect the workers to know this.

It was on the MSN homepage some weeks back. I could probably find it again, but it would take a lot of searching because its hard to pick the right keywords to search for that doesn't return 90% of the articles posted in the last month. It was my understanding from the article that at the beginning of things they didn't have all of the PPE they needed on site and where sharing a lot of it and there was a potential for higher exposures.

Yes, the tsunami is not news anymore, this is. And it appears to be worse than they let on. I wonder if there will be a "zone" and how big it will be.

I don't think it appears to be worse then they let on, I think that things went worse then they had first thought they would. While its true that the radiation levels in the plant, around the plant, and in the ocean, are getting to high levels, it has taken weeks to get to that point. That when they said "we don't have any external leaks" they didn't have any, they developed later.
Its not like the loss of containment of radioactive particles happened right after the tsunami and they were just hiding the fact until now. When it started they did have everything contained, they just lost the ability to contain it as things continued to heat up and slowly melt their containment structures.

[SDF]

Got a link for that? Because the workers at the plant are being restricted to a maximum of 250mSv, IIRC, and that level is nowhere near a fatal dose--I would expect the workers to know this.

The problem seems to arise when the Japanese utility officials turned out to be liars with pants constantly on fire. It may be hard to gauge how bad it really is with an internal perspective for some time. Those workers may have been exposed to much more. It is why we keep hearing from some experts that there is really nothing to worry about and other that this could have huge and far reaching implications that we can't be fully aware of for some time. Aside from the duplicitous utility officials (really who thought they could cover any of this up and get away with it?) none of the experts are trying to mislead as far as I can tell. These are all really smart guys, and the truth is we may not know which data being used is correct, for a time. Unfortunately, waiting to find out could have a lot of negative ramifications.

[Serpentine]

What's the death count from the tsunami up to, now? Do they think they... well, know how many and who died, yet?

Also, this:

Spoiler

Show

[Brother Oni]

What's the death count from the tsunami up to, now? Do they think they... well, know how many and who died, yet?

Only number I can find in English is 18,400 as of the 21st March. I'll see if there's more up to date numbers on Japanese news sites.

Edit: this is going to have to wait until I go home as the work computers don't have a japanese font installed.

Also, this:

Spoiler

Show

Hmm, I'm not sure what to think - I can see and appreciate the sentiment behind it, but the history of the source image is unfortunate.

It's not as strong to me as I'm from the UK, but to an American or a Japanese, the problem may be greater.