Japan Earthquake: 8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits, 19-Feet High Tsunami Feared

Once this road was thronged with traffic: an expressway, one of the arteries of a nation's economic life, as familiar and modern a sight as you would find anywhere in Japan. The only barriers on the route to Fukushima Daiichi were the other people heading in the same direction.

Today the journey is different. It is a journey to the heart of a catastrophe. About 10 kilometres beyond the half-deserted city of Iwaki, the coastal road is blocked not by commuters but by landslides; the satellite navigation system that might once have flashed up traffic jams shows clusters of red circles that denote barred roads. And when we reach the inland expressway itself, the only vehicles disturbing the silence are the rumbling military trucks of Japan's Self Defence Force. Twenty kilometres out from the nuclear plant, abandoned road blocks mutely signal our entry into the nuclear exclusion zone.

It is a scene of devastation. Underneath us the road cuts across rice fields strewn with cars, their wreckages seemingly tossed by the hand of an angry child: in one paddy an upturned Nissan Micra; in another a Toyota people carrier filled to its sunroof with mud. The second storey of a nearby house perches on a single pillar, like a boxy flamingo. The ground floor has been erased, splinters of wood pointing the way the wall of water had gone.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fear-and-devastation-on-the-road-to-japans-nuclear-disaster-zone-2253509.html

The Japanese govt says radioactivity 'may' be leaking from the plant.

Sheesh. Even now they're still hedging.....
TEPCO officials have publicly apologized for the disaster.

Btw I found out that each of the 6 reactors does have a basement.

At Chenoble they filled the basements with concrete to prevent further contamination down into the water table.

At Fukushima sadly they might have lost their window of opportunity to fill the basements with concrete. After tons of seawater have been poured into the reactor buildings.....the basements now have water in them.....radioactive water.

Several workers stepped into water in one of the basements yesterday & got serious radiation burns.....they're in the hospital now.....

Related story

Some lawmakers and market analysts are expressing rising concerns that a demand for capital by earthquake-ravaged Japan could lead it to sell off some of its huge holdings of U.S.-issued debt, leaving the federal government in an even tighter financial pinch.

Others say a major debt sell-off by Tokyo is unlikely, but noted that the mere fact that questions are being raised speaks volumes about the risks involved in relying so heavily on foreign investors to fund U.S. debt.

“This natural disaster in Japan concerns me that it could speed up what’s coming, because they are the second leading buyer of our debt,” Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, told The Washington Times. “Small degrees of differences in how much they buy of our debt, I think, can make a big difference in interest rates that we have to pay people to buy our debt.”

With the federal government having piled up $14.2 trillion in debt, budget experts are warning that the country is on an unsustainable fiscal path. Congress, they say, must find cuts in all areas of the budget, while reforming the entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — that are the biggest drivers of national spending.

Phillymg wrote:Btw I found out that each of the 6 reactors does have a basement.

At Chenoble they filled the basements with concrete to prevent further contamination down into the water table.

At Fukushima sadly they might have lost their window of opportunity to fill the basements with concrete. After tons of seawater have been poured into the reactor buildings.....the basements now have water in them.....radioactive water.

Several workers stepped into water in one of the basements yesterday & got serious radiation burns.....they're in the hospital now.....

I read somewhere that the rods need to cool down before they cover them

Golf posted that a 6.5 quake just hit Miyagi Japan.....but they had a 6.6 quake a couple of days ago.....so 6.5 is not too bad tho of course bad. Possible tsunami about a little over 1-foot high possibly on the way. They've had a few tsunami advisories since the 9.0 quake & big tsunami.

The basements of all 4 of #1-#4 reactors have been flooded & the water is highly radioactive. They've been pumping some of that water out & probably alot of it is going right into the ocean.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2011/03/201132741147837280.html

The reported radioactivity data has been fluctuating. First they said the water was 10,000 times above normal. Then a report said it was 10 million times above normal.....but that report turned out to be wrong.....it's only 100,000 times above normal.

If I were the spinmeister assigned to PR for this thing.....I'd first say 10 million above normal & then say sorry that was wrong it's 'only' 100,000 times above normal.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday it will resume implementing rolling blackouts partially Monday morning in the Kanto region, and depending on the demand situation for electricity, it may carry them out in the late afternoon and evening as well.

TEPCO will conduct the scheduled power outage from 9:20 a.m. in part of the areas subject to the rationing and skip the planned blackout from 6:20 a.m. and from 12:20 p.m. It will announce by noon Monday whether it will implement the area-by-area blackouts from 3:20 p.m. and from 6:20 p.m.

The maximum power outage duration in each area is about three hours.

The utility introduced the area-by-area power rationing to cover an electricity shortage following the March 11 catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan which crippled one of its nuclear power plants in Fukushima Prefecture.

TOKYO, March 27, Kyodo

Japan on Sunday faced an increasing challenge of removing highly radioactive water found inside buildings near some troubled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, with the radiation level of the surface of the pool in the basement of the No. 2 reactor's turbine building found to be more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour.

Exposure to such an environment for four hours would raise the risk of dying in 30 days. Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for the government's nuclear safety agency, said the figure is ''quite high'' but authorities must find a way to pump out the water without sending workers too close to push ahead with the restoration work.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the concentration of radioactive substances of the puddle was 10 million times higher than that seen usually in water in a reactor core, but later decided to reanalyze the data because it found some errors.

Adding to the woes is the increasing level of contamination in the sea near the plant, although Nishiyama reiterated there is no need for health concerns so far because fishing would not be conducted in the evacuation-designated area within 20 kilometers of the plant and radioactive materials ''will be significantly diluted'' by the time they are consumed by marine species and then by people.

mrgolf, thank you for the continuing updates.

'significantly diluted'.....

Phillymg wrote: Then a report said it was 10 million times above normal.....but that report turned out to be wrong.....it's only 100,000 times above normal.

Boy that's good news.

From Reuters

Workers were withdrawn from a reactor building at the quake-wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Sunday after potentially lethal levels of radiation were detected in water there, a setback for the effort to avert a meltdown. Latest readings showed contamination 100,000 times normal in water at reactor no. 2 and 1,850 times normal in the nearby sea.

- Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant's operator, acknowledges it faces a protracted and uncertain operation to contain overheating fuel rods and avert a meltdown.

- TEPCO earlier said it may have got the readings wrong and that it was conducting further checks. Experts say radiation in the Pacific will quickly dissipate and officials say levels away from the plant are not dangerous for humans.

'will quickly dissipate'.....

Phillymg wrote:'will quickly dissipate'.....

They wouldn't lie, would they?

California here I come

It's a sad state of affairs.....sealife travels all over the sea.....not to mention the food chain. Like the air moves East, so do the oceans.

Those poor 3 workers news reports say 'stepped in a puddle'..... Reuters said that wearing rubber overalls above their white suits they waded around in the basement of #2 for 45 minutes making repairs. Apparently the workers' radiation detectors went off like crazy but the workers ignored the signals. The workers said they thought the detectors were wrong. I'm thinking the workers knew how crucial it was to get the work done & sacrificed themselves. True heroes.

The basement water.....now reportedly being pumped into the ocean.....exposed the 3 workers yesterday to radiation levels 100,000 times above normal.

ungry, hurt and separated from owners who are either dead or in evacuation centres, hundreds of family pets are struggling to survive in the desolation of Japan's tsunami-ravaged northeast coast.
Among the many rescue teams sent from around the world to search for survivors and bodies after Japan's worst natural disaster for nearly a century, a handful of specialised animal rescue groups have also been at work.

In the days immediately after the March 11 tsunami that wiped out dozens of thriving coastal towns, the prospects looked grim.

"In the hardest hit areas, we saw no animal life whatsoever," said Ashley Fruno, from animal rights group PETA.

"We did see some paw prints in the mud at one point, but they didn't lead anywhere, and we could not find any animals nearby."

Slowly but surely, however, abandoned pets began to emerge, often from damaged homes where they had managed to ride out the destructive force of the tsunami.

Many pet owners left their cats and dogs when the tsunami warning sounded, never imagining that the wave would be as large and powerful as it eventually was.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.c7e2f3ac6e6f3e31f7a65b32cc3266c1.221&show_article=1

Not good news

Deadly levels of radiation were detected Monday outside the stricken Japanese nuclear power plant as workers fought a frantic and increasingly futile battle to prevent a total meltdown.

The pool of highly radioactive water found leaking from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant was so toxic that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said four hours of exposure could lead to death within two months.

Also, plutonium - which is more toxic than pure uranium - was found in soil sampled last week, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. admitted.

"There's not much good news right now," Gennady Pshakin, a former official with the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Reuters. "It's becoming less predictable."

"The radiation seems to have come from the fuel rods that were partially melted down and came into contact with the water used to cool the reactor," added government spokesman Yukio Eda

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/03/28/2011-03-28_japan_nuclear_crisis_pool_of_radioactive_water_found_outside_fukushima_daiichi_p.html#ixzz1I0XoZBfI

Japan admits partial meltdown

http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Japan+admits+partial+meltdown/4519485/story.html

CNN says Japanese officials finally admit that 3 of the 6 reactors have experienced partial meltdowns.

Duh.

t appears almost too good to be true, but this little dog has been found alive and well adrift at sea, an astonishing three weeks after the tsunami that devastated Japan.
Members of the Japan Coast Guard came across the dog on Friday as they were conducting an aerial search of the area.
Against all the odds, the dog appears to have survived by living in a partially submerged house that had been swept out to sea.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1372506/Safe-hound-Dog-alive-Japan-THREE-WEEKS-tsunami.html#ixzz1IPCPvsOi

I pray they are getting Lifetime Medical for their efforts.... Prayers ongoing....

The specialist nuclear industry staffing firm Bartlett Nuclear.....

Does that mean 'temp' workers for the nuclear industry??

Senior technicians and engineers.....

Does that mean retired workers--like Japan called in retired workers??

A nuclear expert has warned that it might be 100 years before melting fuel rods can be safely removed from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant.

The warning came as levels of radioactive iodine flushed into the sea near the plant spiked to a new high and the Wall Street Journal said it had obtained disaster response blueprints which said the plant's operators were woefully unprepared for the scale of the disaster.

Water is still being poured into the damaged reactors to cool melting fuel rods.

But one expert says the radiation leaks will be ongoing and it could take 50 to 100 years before the nuclear fuel rods have completely cooled and been removed.

TEPCO has begun paying $12 per person to the treasuries of nine towns evacuated from around the Fukushima nuclear plant.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/05/japan.nuclear.money/index.html?hpt=C1

A tenth town refuses the money.....calling it 'too meager an attempt.'