Massive 8.9-magnitude quake hits Japan

[RedJohn]

Tokyo (CNN) -- An 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit northern Japan on Friday, triggering tsunamis and sending a massive wave filled with debris that included boats and houses inching toward land.
The number of fatalities was unclear, but Japan's Kyodo news reported at least 10 killed and numerous injured.
The quake prompted at least 19 countries and numerous Pacific islands to issue tsunami warnings. It was followed by powerful aftershocks that were felt in capital of Tokyo.
The quake's epicenter was 373 kilometers (231 miles) away from Tokyo, the United States Geological Survey said. But residents there continued to feel aftershocks long after the quake.

More here : Massive 8.9-magnitude quake hits Japan - CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/11/japan.quake/index.html?hpt=T1)

[mitunnelrat]

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I've been following this a bit as it develops. It sounds like the Hawaiian islands are relatively unscathed by the tsunami. The western coast of the mainland is currently locked down, with school, harbors, and coastal roads closed. Their estimating a 2 foot rise in water levels or waves. I missed exactly how they phrased it.
.
I feel for the people of Japan though. There's already almost 400 confirmed dead, and they haven't even gotten into the hardest hit areas. There's also a rather large fire at a refinery, and some safety concerns over some of their nuclear facilities.

[Chubbs]

Very very sad.......but shows us how quik a SHTF situation can occur.

[RedJohn]

And what most must understand, not only does it come fast, but it won't last long. In a week time supplies will be back in the stores. No need to store for 6 months. For that scenario, a good BOB and one week supplies is enough.

[TEOTWAWKI13]

Unless your home was completely destroyed, then you'd need a GHB/BOB, some supplies cached elsewhere, etc.

[RedJohn]

I was referring to home supplies. No everybody can afford a second house. I sure cannot at this time. This would mean relocation in case of destruction.

[TEOTWAWKI13]

I was referring to home supplies. No everybody can afford a second house. I sure cannot at this time. This would mean relocation in case of destruction.

Oh, I was just thinking outloud...just an after thought to your comment really. My bad. :)

And despite all that went on today, I try to discuss this with my wife, and she says "yeah it's sad." I think, ok, there's a foot in the door, so I start asking what would she do if something like an earthquake happenned while I was at work, and the best she could come up with was "ride it out and hope for the best" but she "wasn't going to waste her life worrying about stuff that probably won't happen to her."

That woman is so dang stubborn. :mad:

[RedJohn]

Well, I am in the middle. I believe prepping is important, but not for what everybody think. I am an immediate to 1 month prepper!
I need to be ready to bug out at any time and hold one month on my own. Anything above that will require fighting to survive and this is a whole different ball of wax.

ETA: my last SHTF was end of 2010 - Strike in gas depots. No gas, no trucks, no stores for 3 weeks. People were going all around to have food and gas and even go to work.
I use to work at walking distance and had enough supplies that I never had to go to the store when everybody was in line to just get gas. I was ready. When it was over, I still waited one more week before going to the store. I did just fine.

[mitunnelrat]

And Japan keeps getting hit:
Radiation leaking from Japan's quake-hit nuclear | General Headlines | Comcast.net (http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20110309/NEWS-US-JAPAN-QUAKE/)


FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Radiation leaked from a damaged Japanese nuclear reactor on Saturday after an explosion blew the roof off in the wake of a massive earthquake, but the government insisted that radiation levels were low.

The blast raised fears of a meltdown at the facility north of Tokyo as officials scrambled to contain what could be the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 that shocked the world.

The plant was damaged by Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake, which sent a 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said there had been no major change in the level of radiation after the explosion because it did not occur inside the reactor container.

"The nuclear reaction facility is surrounded by a steel storage machine, which is then surrounded by a concrete building. This concrete building collapsed. We learnt that the storage machine inside did not explode," he told a news conference.

Edano initially said an evacuation radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the stricken 40-year-old Daiichi 1 reactor plant in Fukushima prefecture was adequate, but then an hour later the boundary was extended to 20 km (13 miles). TV footage showed vapor rising from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

This one really has me stopping to think - again. There's the potential for a similar thing within my area, and all but one of my fallback points is within 13 miles. Worse yet, the bulk of my equipment is offsite right now, within that radius, and in the opposite direction of my best fallback point.

[TEOTWAWKI13]

Yeah, this one's a scary proposition. I have one of the largest powerplants in the Northern Hemisphere quite literally in my back yard. Not nuclear, but it still has me thinking about scenarios.

[bacpacker]

Folks I'm out of town and haven't been able to keep up with the reactor issue in japan. Is there anything new about getting the core cooled or is it still overheating?

[TEOTWAWKI13]

I've been on the other site today trying to talk Preppy down from his ledge before he jumped off because he says the prevailing winds are going to blow radiation to us here and we should go out and buy the CVS out of KI tablets. :) It's been great fun really.

But here's the latest from LA Times.
Japan earthquake: Meltdown may be occurring, Japanese nuclear official says - latimes.com (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-japan-quake-meltdown-20110312,0,2889362.story)
Meltdown may be occurring at nuclear plant, Japanese official says
'There is a possibility, we see the possibility of a meltdown,' an official with Japan's nuclear agency says in an interview with CNN, adding that he is basing this on radioactivity measurements near the plant Saturday night. But the Japanese ambassasdor to the U.S. tells CNN that there's no evidence of a meltdown.

[mitunnelrat]

There's an issue now at a third reactor:
For battered Japan, a new threat: nuclear meltdown | General Headlines | Comcast.net (http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20110312/AS.Japan.Earthquake/)

IWAKI, Japan — Cooling systems failed at another nuclear reactor on Japan's devastated coast Sunday, hours after an explosion at a nearby unit made leaking radiation, or even outright meltdown, the central threat to the country following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.

The Japanese government said radiation emanating from the plant appeared to have decreased after Saturday's blast, which produced a cloud of white smoke that obscured the complex. But the danger was grave enough that officials pumped seawater into the reactor to avoid disaster and moved 170,000 people from the area.

Japan's nuclear safety agency then reported an emergency at another reactor unit, the third in the complex to have its cooling systems malfunction.

Japan dealt with the nuclear threat as it struggled to determine the scope of the earthquake, the most powerful in its recorded history, and the tsunami that ravaged its northeast Friday with breathtaking speed and power. The official count of the dead was 686, but the government said the figure could far exceed 1,000.

Teams searched for the missing along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the Japanese coast, and thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers that were cut off from rescuers and aid. At least a million households had gone without water since the quake struck. Large areas of the countryside were surrounded by water and unreachable.

The explosion at the nuclear plant, Fukushima Dai-ichi, 170 miles (274 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, appeared to be a consequence of steps taken to prevent a meltdown after the quake and tsunami knocked out power to the plant, crippling the system used to cool fuel rods there.

The blast destroyed the building housing the reactor, but not the reactor itself, which is enveloped by stainless steel 6 inches (15 centimeters) thick.

Inside that superheated steel vessel, water being poured over the fuel rods to cool them formed hydrogen. When officials released some of the hydrogen gas to relieve pressure inside the reactor, the hydrogen apparently reacted with oxygen, either in the air or the cooling water, and caused the explosion.

"They are working furiously to find a solution to cool the core," said Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Nuclear Policy Program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Nuclear agency officials said Japan was injecting seawater into the core — an indication, Hibbs said, of "how serious the problem is and how the Japanese had to resort to unusual and improvised solutions to cool the reactor core."

Officials declined to say what the temperature was inside the troubled reactor, Unit 1. At 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius), the zirconium casings of the fuel rods can react with the cooling water and create hydrogen. At 4,000 F (2,200 C), the uranium fuel pellets inside the rods start to melt, the beginning of a meltdown.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation around the plant had fallen, not risen, after the blast but did not offer an explanation. Virtually any increase in dispersed radiation can raise the risk of cancer, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine, which helps protect against thyroid cancer. Authorities ordered 210,000 people out of the area within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the reactor.

It was the first time Japan had confronted the threat of a significant spread of radiation since the greatest nightmare in its history, a catastrophe exponentially worse: the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, which resulted in more than 200,000 deaths from the explosions, fallout and radiation sickness.

Officials have said that radiation levels at Fukushima were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.

The Japanese utility that runs the plant said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital. Nine residents of a town near the plant who later evacuated the area tested positive for radiation exposure, though officials said they showed no health problems.

As Japan entered its second night since the magnitude-8.9 quake, there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said no one could find four whole trains. Others said 9,500 people in one coastal town were unaccounted for and that at least 200 bodies had washed ashore elsewhere.

The government said 642 people were missing and 1,426 injured.

Atsushi Ito, an official in Miyagi prefecture, among the worst-hit states, could not confirm the figures, noting that with so little access to the area, thousands of people in scores of towns could not yet be reached.

"Our estimates based on reported cases alone suggest that more than 1,000 people have lost their lives in the disaster," Edano said. "Unfortunately, the actual damage could far exceed that number considering the difficulty assessing the full extent of damage."

Japan, among the most technologically advanced countries in the world, is well-prepared for earthquakes. Its buildings are made to withstand strong jolts — even Friday's, the strongest in Japan since official records began in the late 1800s. The tsunami that followed was beyond human control.

With waves 23 feet (7 meters) high and the speed of a jumbo jet, it raced inland as far as six miles (10 kilometers), swallowing homes, cars, trees, people and anything else in its path.

"The tsunami was unbelievably fast," said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy, four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai. "Smaller cars were being swept around me. All I could do was sit in my truck."

His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city Saturday.

Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers in boats nosed through murky waters and around flooded structures.

The tsunami set off warnings across the Pacific Ocean, and waves sent boats crashing into one another and demolished docks on the U.S. West Coast. In Crescent City, California, near the Oregon state line, one person was swept out to sea and had not been found Saturday.

In Japan early Sunday, firefighters had yet to contain a large blaze at the Cosmo Oil refinery in the city of Ichihara. Four million households remained without power. The Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Japan had asked for additional energy supplies from Russia.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops had joined the rescue and recovery efforts, helped by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries offered to pitch in. President Barack Obama said one American aircraft carrier was already off Japan and a second on its way.

Aid had just begun to trickle into many areas. More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, the Japanese national police agency said.

"All we have to eat are biscuits and rice balls," said Noboru Uehara, 24, a delivery truck driver who was wrapped in a blanket against the cold at a shelter in Iwake. "I'm worried that we will run out of food."

The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-stricken areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered.

One hospital in Miyagi prefecture was seen surrounded by water, and the staff had painted "SOS," in English, on its rooftop and were waving white flags.

Around the nuclear plant, where 51,000 people had previously been urged to leave, others struggled to get away.

"Everyone wants to get out of the town. But the roads are terrible," said Reiko Takagi, a middle-aged woman, standing outside a taxi company. "It is too dangerous to go anywhere. But we are afraid that winds may change and bring radiation toward us."

Although the government played down fears of radiation leak, Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown — the collapse of a power plant's systems, rendering it unable regulate temperatures and keep the reactor fuel cool.

Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said it was unlikely that the Japanese plant would suffer a meltdown like the one in 1986 at Chernobyl, when a reactor exploded and sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor, unlike the reactor at Fukushima, was not housed in a sealed container.

[RedJohn]

That looks all grim for the Japanese.

[mitunnelrat]

I agree. Dire times over there indeed.

[gunbuilder69]

I made a small synopsis for the crew @ FSN in GD this afternoon if someone wants to cut and paste it here,I can't do it from work.


If either of the "FOUR" reactors develop what's called the 'Elephants foot'(the phrase used for the actual melting of the fuel rods) There will be radioactive fallout for a long time and for a long distance.
The effects of Chyrnobyl were felt as far as Canada,and more so the background Gamma is present around the world today! That was 1 reactor with carbon based moderation rods. These Japanese reactors are Mitsubishi models loosely copied from the earlier Westinghouse designs. Russia's solution was to entomb the reactor containment building in Cement,But at the cost of over 1000 lives of soldiers and local workers. The surrounding populace is still showing genetic effects long after the somatic effects were ruled to no longer exist.
The japanese currently follow the guidelines of WANO and the AEC as far as accident mitigation.(they actually just visited us a few months ago for some benchmarking practices) The moderate case scenario is a global increase in background gamma radiation,the worst case scenario will be contamination level events along the U.S west coast, some less than moderate readings in the midwest. Hawaii may be bear the brunt of airborne,plume carried, radioisotopic contamination. However the inverse square law applies as well as the dispersion in the varying sky ceilings.
In short, don't head for the bunker(this time,lol). But do continue to monitor the news concerning releases of radioactive effluents.

[RedJohn]

I made a small synopsis for the crew @ FSN in GD this afternoon if someone wants to cut and paste it here,I can't do it from work.

I did not find it there. Where?

ETA: Did I get it right?

[Twitchy]

If either of the "FOUR" reactors develop what's called the 'Elephants foot'(the phrase used for the actual melting of the fuel rods) There will be radioactive fallout for a long time and for a long distance.
The effects of Chyrnobyl were felt as far as Canada,and more so the background Gamma is present around the world today! That was 1 reactor with carbon based moderation rods. These Japanese reactors are Mitsubishi models loosely copied from the earlier Westinghouse designs. Russia's solution was to entomb the reactor containment building in Cement,But at the cost of over 1000 lives of soldiers and local workers. The surrounding populace is still showing genetic effects long after the somatic effects were ruled to no longer exist.
The japanese currently follow the guidelines of WANO and the AEC as far as accident mitigation.(they actually just visited us a few months ago for some benchmarking practices) The moderate case scenario is a global increase in background gamma radiation,the worst case scenario will be contamination level events along the U.S west coast, some less than moderate readings in the midwest. Hawaii may be bear the brunt of airborne,plume carried, radioisotopic contamination. However the inverse square law applies as well as the dispersion in the varying sky ceilings.
In short, don't head for the bunker(this time,lol). But do continue to monitor the news concerning releases of radioactive effluents.
GB69


These Half lives are easily referenced in your every day chart of the nuclides. Now keep in mind, We're dealing with daughter-products,The result of noble migration from neutron fission(bombardment,pair production,compton,etc..) the result of the fast Hydrogen atoms making daughter product isotopes. We will most likely see some Xe-113,Kr-187, and the Full Iodine radio's like the I-131,132,133,135, and I-138. The full on bad mama jama will be the Triple convert known as H3/Tritium,but we won't see it here in abundance .

Heres the write up as GB69 posted at FSN.

--

in other news, its been exactly a year i've been registered at FSN! :cool:

[Twitchy]

I did not find it there. Where?

ETA: Did I get it right?

Gah, you beat me to the post button!

[The Stig]

Wow. For all the folks who think SHTF is only a total social collapse/Mad Max I'd like to present exhibit A through Z of what that's a dumbass assertion.

That is a calamity of epic proportions over there. Grim indeed.

[TEOTWAWKI13]

I don't even have words for this. And that's saying a lot.

[RedJohn]

Wow. For all the folks who think SHTF is only a total social collapse/Mad Max I'd like to present exhibit A through Z of what that's a dumbass assertion.

That is a calamity of epic proportions over there. Grim indeed.

And something that could happen easily in many states here at home.

[The Stig]

And it looks like its getting even worse. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365781/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Second-explosion-rips-nuclear-plant.html)


The Japanese nuclear reactor hit by the tsunami went into 'meltdown' today, as officials admitted that fuel rods appear to be melting inside three damaged reactors.

That means there is a risk that molten nuclear fuel can melt through the reactor's safety barriers and cause a serious radiation leak.

There have already been explosions inside two over-heating reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, and the fuel rods inside a third were partially exposed as engineers desperately fight to keep them under control after the tsunami knocked out emergency cooling systems.

Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said it was 'highly likely' that the fuel rods inside all three stricken reactors are melting.

Some experts class that a partial meltdown of the reactor, but others would only use that term for when molten nuclear fuel melts through a reactor's inner chamber - but not through the outer containment shell.

As fuel rods melt, they form an extremely hot molten pool at the bottom of the reactor that can melt through even the toughest of containment barriers.

Japan is fighting to avoid a nuclear catastrophe after the tsunami. There was a hydrogen explosion at the reactor in Unit Three of the power station earlier today, in which eleven workers were hurt by the blast that was felt 25 miles away.

Read more: Japan earthquake and tsunami: Second explosion rips through nuclear plant | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365781/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Second-explosion-rips-nuclear-plant.html#ixzz1Gb12sJIu)

[RedJohn]

It is not looking too good.

[Twitchy]

get your KI ready folks... the fun is just beginning...