Vankleek Hill Seagull
Well-known member
And they've just had a 6.2 on the west side of the island in Nigaata prefecture.
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8.9 magnitude earthquake in japan
- Thread starter Dave the OAP
- Start date
Vankleek Hill Seagull
Well-known member
Yet another one. 6.6 off the north west coast. Here's a link to the USGS website showing all the quake locations in northern Japan.
10-degree Map Centered at 40E
10-degree Map Centered at 40E
Stumpy Tim
Well-known member
glad hes ok,
its nice to see there Ambassador chilling in London whilst their country is being fcked though
What do you want him to do? Jump on a plane so he can add his name to the casualties?
Freddie Goodwin.
Well-known member
Thankfully yes.
Said he still felt it though but he's more in the south of japan.
clippedgull
Hotdogs, extra onions
BBC saying that a nuclear reactor has failed to shut down and is heating up with radiation levels reported at 1,000 times more than normal.
Freddie Goodwin.
Well-known member
Shizuko (formerly Cheshire) Dolphin. Been there a few years now, apparently teaching English.
Ken Livingstone Seagull
Well-known member
Cheers for the thought Harveys
Abandoned the Hammock for the interim -- some flooding here on Maui, and a 6 foot surge but nothing too bad, no injuries -- we all had lotsa warning. Worse damage on the Big Island of Hawaii (Kona). Scarey though with civil Defense sirens going off in the distance at 3 a.m.
You'll be pleased to know the Mai Tai ingredients survived unscathed.
- Jul 7, 2003
- 47,641
Owned, Ed. Owned
- Jul 7, 2003
- 47,641
The BBC is suggesting that the issue with the reactor should be a relatively minor thing, and that it is under control.
I think sometimes people only have to hear the word "nuclear" and they think Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. Hopefully it won't be anything like that, as Japanese reactors are all pretty modern and well managed. Chernobyl, on the other hand, was crumbling and on its last legs, and the response was tailored as much by the government of the USSR wanting to keep things quiet from the West as it was to trying to fight the fire.
Interestingly, 26th April this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown. You can book a tour of the place if you like: a bargain at £349 for two nights, including flights and accommodation in Kiev, as well as a walking tour of the site. You can even stay in the Chernobyl Hotel (optional extra).
http://www.tourkiev.com/chernobyltour/
I think sometimes people only have to hear the word "nuclear" and they think Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. Hopefully it won't be anything like that, as Japanese reactors are all pretty modern and well managed. Chernobyl, on the other hand, was crumbling and on its last legs, and the response was tailored as much by the government of the USSR wanting to keep things quiet from the West as it was to trying to fight the fire.
Interestingly, 26th April this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown. You can book a tour of the place if you like: a bargain at £349 for two nights, including flights and accommodation in Kiev, as well as a walking tour of the site. You can even stay in the Chernobyl Hotel (optional extra).
http://www.tourkiev.com/chernobyltour/
There's a book called 'Risk' by Dan Gardner which has some really interesting things to say about a lot of things and especially nuclear power - the bottom line being that because of the way we perceive threats, its dangers are massively over-estimated. There are sound psychological reasons behind that but it's frustrating for the experts in the field who maintain that it's far less environmentally damaging than any other source of energy. In other words, the solution to our fuel problems and over-reliance on the Middle East for oil already exist. Climate change will kill far more than any nuclear disaster..
But then you get the big headline event - 9000 people killed at Chernobyl (a long time ago now with old technology and low safety standards) that our brains will just not let go. Yes, 9000 is a lot. But on average 1 million people are diagnosed with skin cancer EVERY YEAR in the US and 10000 of them die. Mostly that will have happened from sun exposure - often deliberate. So people are quite happy to expose themselves to the radiation they're so terrified of just for fun. So, rather than generally worrying about nuclear plant melt-downs, it would actually be more rational to worry about going on your summer holidays..
If there's no significant long-term health issue from the nuclear power station after a gigantic earthquake AND tsunami, maybe we should finally start to believe the scientists? You can bet though that if there are even a handful of deaths from radiation, it will receive such massive publicity that potentially the 'greenest' of all power solutions will continue to be a non-starter.
But then you get the big headline event - 9000 people killed at Chernobyl (a long time ago now with old technology and low safety standards) that our brains will just not let go. Yes, 9000 is a lot. But on average 1 million people are diagnosed with skin cancer EVERY YEAR in the US and 10000 of them die. Mostly that will have happened from sun exposure - often deliberate. So people are quite happy to expose themselves to the radiation they're so terrified of just for fun. So, rather than generally worrying about nuclear plant melt-downs, it would actually be more rational to worry about going on your summer holidays..
If there's no significant long-term health issue from the nuclear power station after a gigantic earthquake AND tsunami, maybe we should finally start to believe the scientists? You can bet though that if there are even a handful of deaths from radiation, it will receive such massive publicity that potentially the 'greenest' of all power solutions will continue to be a non-starter.
Guy Fawkes
The voice of treason
- Sep 29, 2007
- 8,297
The BBC is suggesting that the issue with the reactor should be a relatively minor thing, and that it is under control.
I think sometimes people only have to hear the word "nuclear" and they think Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. Hopefully it won't be anything like that, as Japanese reactors are all pretty modern and well managed. Chernobyl, on the other hand, was crumbling and on its last legs, and the response was tailored as much by the government of the USSR wanting to keep things quiet from the West as it was to trying to fight the fire.
Interestingly, 26th April this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown. You can book a tour of the place if you like: a bargain at £349 for two nights, including flights and accommodation in Kiev, as well as a walking tour of the site. You can even stay in the Chernobyl Hotel (optional extra).
http://www.tourkiev.com/chernobyltour/
They were saying in their coverage earlier today that the problem they face has been caused by a power failure to the electric pumps that feed coolant to the reactor and that coolant levels have dropped as a result.
The problem has been that despite successfully shutting down automatically, the fuel stays extremely hot for a long time and the coolant is needed to aid this cooling process. There should have been fail-safes in place to ensure adequate coolent was available but it seems that the systems have not worked as they should have in this case) The lack of cooling could have meant that the fuel has been exposed and caused it to become molten which then burns through the vessel it was contained within (about a metre wide)
There is a secondry containment vessel (the concrete dome) but if this has been damaged in the earthquake, there is a chance that radiation could escape, which going by press reports of radiation levels 1000 time higher than normal (Japanese Government saying maybe only 5 to 6 times higher at this stage) this could well have been what has happened.
The damage to the surrounding area and to the infrasture could then hamper efforts to remedy this problem, eg. if road links are impassable, they might have trouble getting the equipment needed in place to deal with it quickly, meaning more radiation leaks out. It all sounds like a race against time to find out the true extent of the problem and make things safe. If the fuel has become molten, then the likelyhood is that the facility becomes redundant and it would then take them 10 - 15 years to clear the site (doesn't mean the surrounding area is unsafe, just the facility needs to be demolished as it wouldnt be able to be returned to working order again like 3 mile island).
- Jul 7, 2003
- 47,641
Out of curiosity, where did you get 9,000 from? You may just have confirmed your own point, as everywhere I've looked suggests between 28 and 50people died that day or in the few weeks immediately afterwards from Acute Radiation Sickness and associated symptoms. These were mostly plant workers and firefighters.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, "The five years (1981-1986) before the accident, the average thyroid cancer rate in young children aged between birth and 15 years old was 4-6 incidents per million. The incidents rose from 4-6 per million to 45 incidents per million between 1986 and 1997." Even then the actual death rate wasn't as high as expected.
The Ukrainian authorities predicted 2,500 deaths as a result of the catastrophe, a figure that seems to have been discredited now as an exaggeration designed to extract more money from Russia and other European nations.
Still a complete disaster, mind, and one which left large areas of farmland across Western Europe useless, but not anywhere near as dramatic in terms of deaths as people might think.
Sergei's Celebration
Well-known member
Two plants are in trouble (Daiichi and Daini) with the former having three of its reactors shut down at the time of the quake. The water pumps are being supplied power by batteries and generators and they can release the pressure a little as well. Even if they did 'blow' it would take a freak wind, air pressure change and an almighty piece of bad luck for your mates hair to fall out let alone die. Dont worry, Japan is probably the best place to have a nuclear problem, they are the some of the safest arround!
Have two good friends over there right now, but luckily they live in the Fukui prefecture on the west coast.
In the last week me and mate decided to go and see them before one of them comes home at the end of the summer - guess who picked the wrong week to book a ticket to Narita in July?!
In the last week me and mate decided to go and see them before one of them comes home at the end of the summer - guess who picked the wrong week to book a ticket to Narita in July?!
sydney
tinky ****in winky
just looking at the morning news over here , what a f***ing disaster.......this is gonna affect the whole planet in so many ways,japan has been the go to country for massive cash loans for so many western countries , massive damage and whole towns burning due to ruptured gas mains ........
deletebeepbeepbeep
Well-known member
- May 12, 2009
- 21,805
This, George Monbiot's Heat says basically the same thing. Fossil fuel power stations are a lot more dangerous for our health, and it will take us years to get sufficient energy from wave wind or tidal power.
Mental Lental
Well-known member
I'm ok and can confirm that it was shit your pants scary.