Mag 8.9 Sendai Earthquake

Google Crisis Response - 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami - includes direct donation to Japan Red Cross.

American Red Cross - you can also SMS text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10.

The bulk of the death and destruction wasn't from the shaking of the 5th largest earthquake on record but from the tsunami that came later and overwhelmed the tsunami defenses of the cities along the coast. Most were designed to handle a 5-6 meters (around 20ft) but the wave was 8-10 meters. You've all probably seen the videos by now of the tsunami pouring the ocean over those barriers, wiping out everything short of reinforced concrete structures, pushing the debris field up to several miles inland.

Pile on top of that the nuclear power plant crisis. Note that iodine tablets have only been distributed to those evacuated around the plant, not the entire population of Japan as some sources imply. EDIT: This was a prophylactic measure in case there's a large release of radioactive iodine, not because their was. There hasn't been a massive release of radiation ala Chernobyl but it is elevated and will continue to spike and wane every time they release steam from those three reactors (yes reactor #2 is having cooling problems now). Primary containment is still intact.

Please also remember that fear and uncertainty is one of the best ways to market the news, keeps the folks tuning in.

On Facebook, a bunch of people just succeeded in raising $100,000 to defray the cost of sending SAR dog teams to Japan. Everything helps.

We can only hope the ground settles down there, now that the energy has been released.

My thoughts and heart are with all of those affected by this tragedy. With as devastating as this event is, it does make me feel good to see that we do, in fact, have a global community. Best wishes to all.

*heads for the Red Cross website*

Just saw on BBC that a third explosion has now taken place. This one at the containment building for core 2. They say likely another hydrogen explosion similar to the other two.

While the Fukushima Daiichi reactors continue to be a problem, two of the reactors most likely have suffered a partial meltdown and maintaining cooling has been difficult, there is some good news regarding the reactor problems at the Fukushima Daini nuclear plant.

From the IAEA updates on the Japanese crisis:

TOKYO (AP) - Japan's nuclear safety agency says it suspects an explosion at a nuclear power plant [Fukushima Unit2] may have damaged a reactor's container and fears a radiation leak.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Some good news: http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/...iupdate01.html

Japan Earthquake Update (15 March 2011, 03:35 CET)

ugh. More bad news. Sounds like a containment area for spent fuel rods in the offlined reactor 4 building caught fire today. The fire is supposedly out. But several news agencies are reporting local radiation levels got fairly high during the incident.

Also looks like Japan's stock market is taking beating today in the wake of the three disasters. Admittedly, try as I might, I know even less about stocks than nuclear engineering. NPR's marketplace tonight had someone conveying an anecdote that for the moment some supply chains are breaking down as far south as Tokyo due to the overall disruption of infrastructure with grocers showing severe shortages of certain food staples. Hope some of the NGOs we are donating to can help alleviate these pressures soon. The radio program also had a brief comment regarding electricity rationing with some parts of the country being allotted only 8 hours of power a day, including power going to manufacturing plants.

Note to trivialize this horrible news or anything, but each time I hear an update, I can't help but wonder, what would be the response in the CoH/CoV world?

Two of my characters are from that neck of the woods (One Blue-side and one Red-side). The blue side is catatonic and in shock. While the Redsider has gone: "Screw politics. I'm going over there to help. There are children hurting." (This response actually surprised me... but that's getting off beam)

Surely there is something we can do as a community to help?

Latest: http://au.yahoo.com/s/274370

The other big lucky break they've had is that all the prevailing winds with a weather change are going to take any radioactive materials out to sea. That rad rating je_saist quoted there will disperse over days.

There's a lot of misunderstanding of this situation, unfortunately. There's a lot of fear (the vast majority of which is unnecessary when you look at the actual situation, which is that the winds are taking this away and that they are continuing to contain this situation brilliantly well in my opinion) and remembered fear thanks to Chernobyl, and every explosion just heightens that along with the 6.3 magnitude quake that happened in the last few hours there.

No tsunami alerts, no extra damage that I know of. The bigger concern for me now is the humanitarian side of food shortages and finding what survivors there are to the north, and the financial side with how the stock markets are reacting in panic to the situation.


S.

Cold Shutdown basically means it's not generating steam anymore so the pressure in the containment tank is basically atmospheric and the water temp is below boiling.

It appears that one of the explosions at Reactor 3 damaged the offline Reactor 4 building. Reactors 4 through 6 were already offline before the quake, for months, for inspection.

Latest IAEA entry indicates that now the water level in Reactor 5 is decreasing around 3-4" per hour. Reactor 5 and 6 aren't that near to the other four but maybe it got struck by debris from either 1 or 3.

Link to old sat picture (very large) of the plant from 1975. The reactors from Left to Right are 4, 3, 2, 1 (big gap) 5, 6 (under construction at the time).

Japan abandons attempt to prevent meltdown at Fukushima Dai-Ichi.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Apologies, I didn't intend to make it out to be worse than it is.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Right now I'm torn between wanting to know what is currently going on but not wanting to doom and gloom spin that nearly all the news sites/news channels. Little things like word choice which implies one thing when actually another is happening. Leading questions that include words like "inevitable" makes me want to reach out and slap those talking heads. Their choices for their "experts" ranging from "Bill Nye the Science Guy" to investment bankers who specialize in green energy to those in the scientific community who are diametrically oppose to nuclear energy period (if you bother to Google up their bios) while discounting experts from MIT and CALTECH and others since they aren't crying the "SKY IS FALLING" but rather talk about the facts released to the general public.

Which is why I've try to put everything in context by checking the postings at the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) site.

What's not going to help is the NYTimes now has computer projections about the radioactive plume's path. Note the radiation levels are in arbitrary (aka meaningless) units and even though they bolded "The forecast does not show actual levels of radiation" and "extremely minor health consequences", want to bet this will be used literally "scare up" more viewers and readers.

[rant]

If the Union of Concerned Scientists were around 400,000 years ago they would be still debating today if the discovery of fire was a good thing and whether it should be used.

Okay the aren't that bad but they are extremely conservative in the advancement of science, especially in the field of nuclear energy as well as some more modern discoveries and advances.

I've found some of their members to be over cautious to the point of paralysis. They are the kind of people who aren't willing to help fix a problem but are rather the ones that like to say "I told you so". Now if they're all so smart then help brainstorm some solutions that don't include time travel so those reactors aren't built in the first place. Nope, easier to declare defeat and throw in the towel.

[/rant]

You see in engineering, the biggest strides come from understanding failure. Why did that bridge or building collapse? Why did that engine explode? Finding out the whys allows engineers to incorporate those types of failures into future designs hopefully making the finished design more robust.

The problem with nuclear engineering is that failure has a fairly high collateral damage so the more traditional methods of "build->failure->analyze->build better" is somewhat problematic. You need the same kind of mindset that top level programmers need, not only design for what it should do but try to anticipate all the things that can go wrong and design against that. You have to worship Murphy's law and all it's corollaries. And just like programming, sometimes you can't anticipate everything that can go wrong.

Some of it is human nature. I'm sure they were so focused on restoring cooling the active reactors, the immediate and continuing problem, that nobody was paying attention to cooling the spent fuel pools, which is now becoming a problem five days in.